How does a fax machine work ? Like can i use my phone line with it ? Would it keep my house phone busy ?

Question

I have cable. so.. i dont know if i have to put like a second line for the fax or i can just use my line ?

Answer 1

Unless you have a business with a lot of faxing, you don't need a fax machine. Just use your computer and printer to send and receive a fax. Also, no, a fax machine won't tie up a phone line. It monitors the line in the background, but won't "grab the line" unless it receives a proper signal from another machine or when you are sending an out-going fax.

Answer 2

A fax machine is similar to a phone.  The phone line doesn't know any difference.  It places and answers calls in much the same way.  It doesn't tie up your line and people often share their voice phone with a fax machine.  But the fax machine needs to answer the phone line before it can tell if the call is a fax or not.  One way of handling this is to set the fax machine to not answer the phone.  You answer the phone and if you hear a fax machine on the other end you manually have the fax answer.  It can then receive the fax.  The other answer is good but errors in the fact that the fax machine can't tell if the incoming call is a fax until after it answers.  Just like you won't be able to tell if a call is a fax or voice until you answer.  Unless you have caller ID and it can tell you if the phone line is tied to a fax.  But this is unlikely as businesses just have a number of phone lines and set up the one they want for their fax.  The phone company that produces the caller ID doesn't know if it's the fax line or a voice line.