HK1059066A - Fax-to-email and email-to-fax communication system and method - Google Patents

Description

Fax-to-email and email-to-fax communication system and method

Copyright notice

Portions of the disclosure of this patent application include material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the patent and trademark office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

Background

The present invention relates to facsimile/e-mail communication systems. In addition, the present invention provides, among other things, the transmission and/or reception of e-mail, Web page downloads, and facsimile transmissions by any standalone fax machine. A Web page is a document written in hypertext markup language (HTML) and stored on a Web server. Images that appear when displayed using a web browser may also be referred to as partial pages.

The fax image is moved to the internet by converting a fax signal having a fax format into an electronic mail format (e.g., RFC-822). Once the conversion is complete, the email is then transferred over the internet to a predetermined destination according to the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) or similar protocol. The internet is a global network according to TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/internet protocol) networks. There are currently various user services that allow users to transmit facsimile images over the internet.

According to a class of services offered by companies such as eFax, Jfax, CallWave and Telebot, a unique telephone number is provided to a user. Any faxed to this number is converted to email format and forwarded to the user's email inbox. One drawback of such services is that it requires the user to have a dedicated telephone number associated with the email address. A second disadvantage is that the user must distribute the personal fax phone number to any person who may be sending a fax to the user. Finally, such services are expensive to operate from a service provider's perspective, as the cost of purchasing and operating such multiple individual dedicated telephone numbers is expensive.

The UUNET corporation offers another class of services requiring users to add additional hardware between the user's fax machine and the services network. Such services aim to reduce long distance facsimile costs for high capacity users. The UUNET system converts the fax to an equivalent email and mails this mail via routing over the UUNET network to the nearest UUFAX server. The UUFAX server diverts the mail back to facsimile form and sends the facsimile to the destination fax machine with a local call. The disadvantage of such services is that they are time consuming, require additional front end hardware and the expense of receiving the service.

Summary of The Invention

In general, the present invention comprises a fax/e-mail communication system and method whereby a user can send e-mail from, and fax to, any individual fax machine via a centralized Web server or client connected to the internet.

According to one aspect of the present invention, a system for transmitting electronic mail by a facsimile machine is provided. An exemplary embodiment of the system consists of: a fax server configured to receive a fax in a fax image format from an originating location, the fax including an email address; a character recognizer in communication with the fax server configured to retrieve an email address; a 1 st format converter configured to receive a fax and convert the fax into an e-mail in an e-mail format; an email server configured to receive an email and retrieve an email address and transmit the email to a final location identified by the email address; an advertisement server configured to generate a confirmation page on which an advertisement is inserted.

According to the 2 nd aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of transmitting an electronic mail by facsimile. An exemplary embodiment of the method comprises the steps of: receiving a facsimile in a facsimile image format from an originating location, the facsimile including an email address; taking out the e-mail address from the fax; converting the facsimile image format into an electronic mail having an electronic mail format; a confirmation page is generated with the advertisement therein.

According to the 3 rd aspect of the present invention, there is provided a communication system between facsimile and electronic mail. An exemplary embodiment of the system comprises: a network operations center; a plurality of geographically distributed presentation points in communication with the network operations center, each presentation point having a fax server configured to receive a fax in the form of a fax image from an originating location, the fax including an email address; a character recognizer in communication with the fax server configured to retrieve an email address; a 1 st format converter configured to receive a fax and convert the fax into an e-mail in an e-mail format; an email server configured to receive an email and retrieve an email address and transmit the email to a final location identified by the email address; an advertisement server configured to generate a confirmation page on which an advertisement is inserted.

According to the 4 th aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for transmitting a facsimile by an electronic mail. An exemplary embodiment of the system consists of: the network operation center is provided with a Web server, a user logs in the Web server so as to write an electronic mail on the Internet, and the Web server is configured to acquire a fax number in the electronic mail; a plurality of geographically distributed presentation points in communication with a network operations center, each presentation point having an email server configured to receive emails in an email format; a format 1 converter in communication with the email server configured to convert the email to a fax having a fax image format; an advertisement server having a return facsimile page composer and configured to generate a return facsimile page into which an advertisement is inserted; a 2 nd format converter configured to receive and convert the facsimile to return facsimile encoded bitmap images on the facsimile page; a fax spooler configured to receive the encoded bitmap image and transmit the image to a destination identified by the fax number.

According to the 5 th aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of transmitting a facsimile by an electronic mail. An exemplary embodiment of the method comprises the steps of: logging in a Web server of a network operation center; composing an email with a fax number; acquiring a fax number; converting the e-mail into fax to generate a return fax page; inserting advertisements in the return fax pages; fax and loopback fax pages are sent to a destination identified by a fax number.

A further understanding of the nature and advantages of the inventions herein may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of the specification and the attached drawings.

Brief Description of Drawings

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of a system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of a point of presence (POP) providing a fax/email interface according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3A is a diagram illustrating a process of fetching an address page according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3B is a diagram illustrating a user's interaction with the system of the present invention to send an e-mail from a fax machine, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is an illustration of an exemplary embodiment of an address page received from the POP of fig. 2.

Fig. 5 is a block diagram of a software structure of the POP of fig. 2.

Fig. 6 is an illustration of an exemplary embodiment of a fax-to-email confirmation page received from the POP of fig. 2.

Fig. 7 is a block diagram of a Network Operations Center (NOC).

Fig. 8A is a flowchart illustrating a user's interaction with the system of the present invention to send a fax from an email, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 8B illustrates a reply process in which the recipient of a fax sent according to the process of fig. 8A replies to the fax using a fax-back page.

Description of the specific embodiments

Fig. 1 is a high-level block diagram of a fax/email communication system 5 in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The system 5 is comprised of a Network Operations Center (NOC) selectively coupled to a Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) and the internet, and a plurality of points of presence (POPs) selectively coupled to the NOC8 via the POTS and the internet, and the like. The "internet" as referred to herein refers to the global network of TCP/IP protocol based networks and all means of accessing the network (e.g., having an email system and a local area network coupled to the internet) therein. TCP/IP is the "Transmission control protocol/Internet protocol," a language that controls communications between all computers on the Internet.

As will be described in greater detail below, the various functions of the system 5, including allowing a user to send and receive e-mail from any individual fax machine 2, do not require the distribution of a unique pre-defined fax number to the fax or e-mail sender. It must be emphasized here that the fax machine 2, as shown in fig. 1, is only a working example, in other words a fax machine used in the context of the present invention may also consist of communication means complying with any fax protocol. Similarly, the computer workstation 4 in fig. 1 is also a working example. In other words, any device capable of sending e-mail may be used instead of the computer workstation 4.

POP10 is distributed over a wide geographical area, such as the united states or worldwide. An exemplary embodiment of POP10 is shown in fig. 2. POP10 consists of 1 or more modem banks 20, 1 or more fax servers 22, advertisement and statistics servers 24(ad/stat), ethernet switches 30; an IP router 32, a T-1 channel service unit 34(CSU), etc. It must be emphasized that POP10 of fig. 2 is merely an example. For example, other configurations are within the spirit and scope of the present invention, including but not limited to the use of higher capacity internet access lines (e.g., T-3), multiple switch email server devices, and the like. Fig. 1 and 2 will be described in further detail in the context of the following description.

Referring to fig. 3A, an exemplary embodiment of the present invention shows how a user retrieves an "address page" from fax server 22. At step 40, the user dials a special free callback number (e.g., 1-800) from a fax machine or telephone. This callback number is optionally passed to POP10 by the telephone network over POTS, depending on the geographic location of the user. As shown in fig. 2, the fax-modem bank 20 of POP10 receives faxes over a B-1 line consisting of 24-way talk groups. Then, at step 42, P010 sends a blank email "Address Page" back to the user, with further instructions on how to send the email from the user's fax machine.

The e-mail address looks like a normal fax cover page, but it contains several lines of blank character boxes and a local telephone number that the user can use, enabling the user to send a fax without a fee. The local phone number is generated by a table driven translation process through automatic number recognition, which can be detected from the dialed number 1-800. In another embodiment, each POP10 of system 5 may be accessed using a single toll free number. An exemplary embodiment of an email address page is shown in FIG. 4. In one exemplary embodiment, the character boxes 61 have "position markers" 63 on the edges of each character box 61. The position mark 63 functions to force the user to write the character into the character box 61 but away from the character box edge because the character can be recognized more accurately when character recognition is performed in the later process.

Referring now to FIG. 3B, there is shown how a user interacts with the system 5 of the present invention in order to send e-mail by a fax machine 5, according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. At step 44, the user fills in the letter box with normal handwriting and attaches the final email address that is desired to be sent, such as "john _ doe @ genetic. Another approach is to print the email address in a machine-readable format. In another exemplary embodiment, the email address page includes a "premium feature page" that is downloadable to the user's fax so that the user can create a group distribution table.

At step 46, the user sends a fax to the local number of the selected POP10 for receipt by the fax-modem bank 20 on the fax server 22. The fax modem bank 20 includes an input fax spooler 60 that converts the fax to an image file format, such as the standard G3TIFF format, and then temporarily stores the image fax in a spooler area (not shown) on the optical disc drive. This image email address page is then sent to 1 of the fax servers 22 of POP10 for further processing.

In addition to the fax spooler 60, as shown in FIG. 5, the software structure 70 of each fax server 22 is comprised of a front page (i.e., address page) character recognition module 62 fax to email gateway 64, email to fax gateway 66, outgoing fax spooler 68, and the like.

At step 48, the previous character recognition module 62 operates to retrieve the image email address from the image email address page. Preferably, the front page character recognition module 62 does this by Optical Character Recognition (OCR).

At step 50, the facsimile of the authentic electronic image is packaged and formatted by the facsimile to email gateway 64 into a MIME compliant email message "MIME" representing a "multimedia internet mail extension" and indicating how the email message must be formatted to be exchanged between the different email systems. The electronic image of the fax is then transmitted to the email server 26 as an attachment to the email.

Upon receipt of the facsimile image by the email server 26, the email server 26 transmits the email transmission status to the advertisement and statistics server (ad/stat) 24. As shown in FIG. 5, the software structure 71 of the ad/stat server 24 is comprised of a confirmation and instruction page composer 72, a title page composer 74, and a PostScript page description language kernel 76, among other things. Confirmation and instruction page builder 72 receives the email delivery status from email server 26 and then generates a delivery or non-delivery notification and user instruction page in PostScript page description language format.

After the confirmation and instruction page builder 72 generates the confirmation and instruction page at step 52, the ad is retrieved from the ad/stat server 24 and built into the confirmation and instruction page at step 54. In addition, at step 56, the confirmation and instruction page composer 72 retrieves an advertisement, e.g., emailed in a banner format, from the ad/stat server 24. Preferably, the advertisements incorporated into the confirmation and instruction pages are targeted specifically to the user's physical location. The system 5 determines the user's geographic location from the user's fax number pre-drops and area codes and then targets the advertisement based on demographic characteristics (e.g., average revenue ratings) in the user's neighborhood. In another embodiment, the email address confirmation page includes an e-commerce aspect in which the user is given a "checkbox" on the confirmation and instruction page, which the user checks to indicate further attention to a particular advertisement bid. An exemplary embodiment of a validation and instruction page is shown in FIG. 6.

In another exemplary embodiment, the user is provided a charge number (e.g., 1-900) at the beginning of the process, i.e., in lieu of step 10 of FIG. 3A, for the user to choose between using the charged service each time an advertisement is not inserted on the free advertising subsidy service or confirmation and instruction sheet as described above.

After the validation and instruction pages are prepared, they are rasterized by the PostScript page description language kernel 76 into fax-encoded bitmap images, which are then sent to the fax server 22, where the outgoing fax spooler 68 operates to store the rasterized validation and instruction pages in the local optical disk drive for later submission. Because the bitmap image rendering process requires a large amount of computation, in order to distribute the rasterization process among some fax servers 22, the user may use equally-loaded software, as another example

Examples are given.

At step 58, an e-mail (with an advertisement) is sent over the Internet to a recipient using the SMTP protocol as an attachment in a standard format such as a GIF file that is observable on most platforms.

Finally, at step 59, a confirmation and instruction page is sent to the user over the POTS, which advertises the confirmation and instruction page as explained above.

In this regard, it must be emphasized that the software modules of the software architecture of FIG. 5 are shown distributed across multiple servers, but those skilled in the art will appreciate that all of the software modules may reside on a single server, or on different servers than the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 5.

In another exemplary embodiment, a user can exchange interactions with the system of the present invention to send a fax from a standalone fax machine to any other standalone fax machine. To do so, the user retrieves a "fax number page," similar to the email address page retrieved in steps 40 and 42 above. The user then enters the fax number for the intended fax recipient in either a handwritten format or a printed machine-readable format and then sends the fax to the local number of the selected POP10 (or alternatively, enters the service fee number for each use of the payment). Upon receipt of the fax by the selected POP10, the fax number is retrieved and the electronic image of the fax is formatted by the fax-to-email gateway 64 into MIME compliant email messages, similar to steps 48 and 50 described above. Next, the email server 26 sends the MIME image to an email resident in another POP10 to the facsimile gateway 66, and the gateway 66 converts the MIME image to a textual (e.g., PostScript page description language) file. The PostScript page description language kernel 96 then operates to rasterize the textual file into a facsimile encoded bitmap image. Finally, the outbound fax spooler 68 receives the fax-encoded bitmap image and sends it to the intended fax recipient.

In yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the Web page may be downloaded by facsimile. In this exemplary embodiment, an "address page" is provided as described above by the user. This address page provides a number of letter boxes for entering the desired Web address (e.g., this address can be entered in a generally handwritten format or a printed machine-readable format) and some indicator with which the user requests the number of pages from the Web address that the user is to download. One type of indicator for an address page may be, for example, a series of bubbles located at predetermined locations on the address page.

Referring to fig. 7, a Network Operations Center (NOC)8 is shown in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. NOC8 functions as a system commander configured to communicate with all POPs 10, as illustrated in fig. 1. NOC8 includes an internet access router and firewall components (IP routers) 82 coupled between the internet and ethernet switch 86 through, for example, a T1 channel service unit 84(CSU), with a data rate of 100 Mbps; a Web server 88 coupled to the IP router 82; a private branch exchange (PBX)90 coupled to the telephone network by way of example B-1 lines; an interactive voice response unit (IVR)92 coupled to the PBX90, and a computer-to-telephone integration server (CTI) coupled between the IVR unit 92 and the ethernet switch 86. Also coupled to the ethernet switch 86 are a NOC stat server 96, a NOC ad stat server 98, a NOC workstation 100, and a management/development workstation 102.

The NOC ad statistics server 98 stores advertising designs for advertisers, such as the number of times an advertisement is sent, the number of positive responses from the advertisement viewers, etc., that are utilized by the advertisers.

The NOC management/development workstation functions as a help desk for users logged onto the Web server and allows system providers to develop, such as to increase the functionality of the Web site provided by the Web server 88.

The IVR unit 92 allows the user to dial into the NOC through the PBX90 using the same 1-800 toll free access number used at the beginning of the fax-to-email process described above. The IVR92 provides voice prompts to the user, who responds to the prompts using the telephone keypad. This prompt involves the use of instructions or allows the user to download information from the internet, such as stock quotes, weather forecasts, travel information, and the like.

In another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a user may log onto Web server 88 (see FIG. 1) from, for example, computer workstation 4 and then send a fax to any of the individual fax machines by e-mail. The process of completing the exemplary embodiment is illustrated in FIG. 8A.

At step 110, after the user logs into Web server 88 (see FIG. 7), the user sends an email to Web server 88. The Web server then obtains and stores the email address and fax number of the user who wants to send the fax, at step 112, which information is relayed over the internet to the email server 26, preferably the email server 26 of the closest POP10 associated with the fax number. As shown in fig. 5, each email server 26 contains an email transfer agent 39 that receives email from NOC 8. The email to fax gateway 66 operates to convert email messages to PostScript page description language text.

The banner page composer 74 generates a return fax page at step 114, retrieves the advertisement by the ad/stat server 24 and composes the advertisement on the return fax page at step 116. It is desirable to target advertisements specifically to facsimile recipient locations. The system 5 determines the location by comparing the area code number and previous dropped number stored at the ad/stat server 24 with the receiver's previous dropped number and area code. Once the neighborhood is identified, the advertisement is targeted based on demographic characteristics (e.g., average revenue, etc.) of the recipient neighborhood. In another exemplary embodiment, the return fax page includes an e-commerce aspect in which a fax recipient is provided with a "check box" on the return fax page, which the recipient can check to indicate a bid for an advertisement of further interest.

After the return fax page is composed, the page and converted fax image are rasterized by the PostScript page description language kernel 76 into a fax-encoded bitmap image, which is then sent to the fax modem bank 20 of POP10, where the outbound fax spooler 68 operates to store the rasterized fax and return fax pages in a local optical disk drive for subsequent transmission.

At step 118, the fax and return fax pages are sent over the POTS to the fax recipient.

Referring to fig. 8B, upon receiving the fax and the fax-back page, the fax receiving party answers the fax using the fax-back page at step 120, and transmits an answer fax at step 122.

The title builder 74 of the ad/stat server 24 operates to generate a confirmation page incorporating advertisement No. 2 at step 124, which is then sent back to the fax page returning user at step 126. Steps 124 and 126 are substantially in accordance with steps 54 and 59, as described with reference to the fax-to-email process of fig. 3B.

The advertising subsidy aspect of the system and method of the present invention also allows the user to send a fax from any individual fax machine to any other individual fax machine for free, thereby avoiding the payment of toll charges dedicated to long distance fax transmissions. To do so, the user may simply dial a free long distance access number (1-800), as described above, to obtain the local number of POP 10. The local POP10 then returns the address page to the user. Steps 44 and 48 are then performed, as shown in FIG. 3B, followed by steps 110 through 118, as previously described in FIG. 8A. The only difference in the above process is the letter box providing the fax address on the address page and the OCR capability providing the fax address take-out.

In another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, NOC8 includes a local database (not shown in fig. 7) configured to store an email address book commonly used by users. The user may log into Web server 88 and upload the address book and associated other or real name using various email addresses (e.g., "John Doe" uses the address John Doe @ geherc. com.). In doing so, the user may conveniently send an e-mail from any standalone fax machine (as previously described in FIG. 3B) by populating the address page letter box with the alias or true name of the intended recipient.

Finally, in another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an advertiser "dynamic print ads" service is provided whereby advertisers log on to the Web server 88 of the NOC8, open accounts, create advertisements, and subscribe to advertisements as needed based on specific demographic information.

Summarizing, the present method and apparatus allows a user to send e-mail from any standalone fax machine; receiving a fax from the other party without requiring the user to obtain and distribute a predetermined unique fax number in advance; the facsimile is transmitted by electronic mail by logging in to a Web server provided by a centralized operation center.

While the invention has been described in terms of preferred methods and structures, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that many modifications and variations can be made in the exemplary embodiments disclosed in accordance with the invention. Accordingly, such modifications and variations are considered to be within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

Claims (56)

1. A communication system for transmitting an e-mail to an e-mail destination by a facsimile protocol compliant communication device, comprising:

a facsimile server configured to receive a facsimile in a facsimile image format from a communication apparatus complying with a facsimile protocol, the facsimile including an email address indicating a destination of a reference email;

a character recognizer in communication with the fax server configured to retrieve an email address from a fax;

a 1 st format converter configured to receive a fax and convert the fax image format to an email format suitable for transmission on an email system;

an email server configured to receive email and retrieve email addresses and transmit email to email destinations.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the facsimile protocol compliant communication device comprises a facsimile machine.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the fax machine is configured to receive a hard copy of the fax machine having a cover page including an email address located at a predetermined place on the cover page.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising an advertisement server in communication with the email server configured to receive the delivery status from the email server.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the advertisement server comprises a confirmation page composer configured to generate a confirmation page.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the confirmation page composer is configured to receive the delivery status and generate a delivery and no delivery notification.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the fax server is configured to receive the delivery and non-delivery notifications in fax format for transmission to the communication device complying with the fax protocol.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein the confirmation page composer is further configured to retrieve the advertisement from the advertisement server and to incorporate the advertisement into the confirmation page.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the fax server is configured to receive the confirmation page in a fax format for transmission to the fax protocol compliant communication device.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the character recognizer retrieves the email address by optical character recognition.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the email address is handwritten.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the email address is printed in a machine-readable format.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the advertisement server is further configured to store advertisement statistics.

14. A communication method for transmitting an e-mail to an e-mail destination by a facsimile protocol compliant communication device, comprising the steps of:

receiving a facsimile in a facsimile image format from a communication device complying with a facsimile protocol, the facsimile including an electronic mail address indicating a reference electronic mail address;

taking out the e-mail address from the fax;

converting the facsimile image format to an email format suitable for transmission over an email system;

a confirmation page is generated.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the facsimile protocol compliant communication device comprises a facsimile machine.

16. The method of claim 14 further comprising the step of requesting, via the facsimile protocol compliant communication device, a facsimile cover page having a predefined location for receiving the e-mail address.

17. The method of claim 14 wherein the extracting step is performed by optical character recognition.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the email address is handwritten.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the email address is printed in a machine-readable format.

20. The method of claim 14, further comprising the step of placing an advertisement on the confirmation page.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising sending a confirmation page to the facsimile protocol compliant communication device.

22. A method of downloading a Web page from a Web site to a facsimile protocol compliant communication device, comprising the steps of:

receiving a facsimile in a facsimile image format from a communication apparatus complying with a facsimile protocol, the facsimile including a Web site address indicating a reference Web site and a number of pages to be waited from the Web site;

taking out a Web site address from the fax;

connecting to the Web site identified by the Web site address;

downloading a page by a Web site;

converting the page into a facsimile image format;

the facsimile image format page is transmitted to the facsimile machine.

23. The method of claim 22 further comprising requesting, by the facsimile protocol compliant communication device, a facsimile cover page having a predefined location for receiving the web site address page.

24. The method of claim 22 wherein the extracting step is performed by optical character recognition.

25. The method of claim 22, wherein the Web site address is handwritten.

26. The method of claim 22, wherein the Web site address is printed in a machine-readable format.

27. A communication system for transmitting an e-mail to an e-mail destination from a facsimile protocol compliant communication device, comprising:

a network operations center;

a plurality of geographically distributed presentation points in communication with a network operations center, one for each presentation point;

a facsimile server configured to receive a facsimile in a facsimile image format from a communication apparatus complying with a facsimile protocol, the facsimile including an email address indicating a destination of a reference email;

a character recognizer in communication with the fax server configured to retrieve an email address from a fax;

a 1 st format converter configured to receive a fax and convert the fax to an email having a format suitable for transmission on an email system;

an email server configured to receive an email and retrieve an email address and transmit the email to an email destination.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the facsimile protocol compliant communication device comprises a facsimile machine.

29. The system of claim 27, wherein the facsimile protocol compliant communication device is configured to receive a hard copy of the facsimile, the hard copy having a cover page including an e-mail address located at a predetermined location on the cover page.

30. The system of claim 27, wherein the cover page is provided by a network operations center through a toll-free telephone number.

31. The system of claim 27, wherein each impression point comprises an advertisement server in communication with an associated email server configured to receive delivery status from the email server.

32. The system of claim 31, wherein the advertisement server comprises a confirmation page composer configured to generate a confirmation page.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein the confirmation page composer is configured to receive a delivery status and generate a delivery and no delivery notification.

34. The system of claim 33, wherein the fax server is configured to receive the delivery and non-delivery notifications in fax format for transmission to the communication device complying with the fax protocol.

35. The system of claim 32, wherein the confirmation page composer is further configured to retrieve the advertisement from the advertisement server and to compose the advertisement on the confirmation page.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein the fax server is configured to receive the confirmation page in a fax format for transmission to the fax protocol compliant communication device.

37. The system of claim 27 wherein the character recognizer retrieves the email address by optical character recognition.

38. The system of claim 27, wherein the email address is handwritten.

39. The system of claim 27, wherein the email address is printed in a machine-readable format.

40. The system of claim 27, wherein the network operations center further comprises:

an advertisement and statistics server in communication with the advertisement server of the impression site may work for storing advertisements and advertisement statistics.

41. The system of claim 40, wherein the network operations center further comprises a voice interactive method of communicating with the advertising and statistics server using voice input.

42. A communication system for transmitting a fax to a fax destination by an e-mail protocol compliant communication device, comprising:

the network operation center has a Web server in which a user can register to the Internet to compose an electronic mail, the Web server being configured to fetch a facsimile number included in the electronic mail indicating a reference facsimile destination; and

a plurality of geographically distributed presentation points in communication with a network operations center, each presentation point having,

the e-mail server is configured to receive e-mails in an e-mail format;

a format 1 converter in communication with the e-mail server and configured to convert the e-mail to a facsimile having a facsimile image format;

the advertisement server has a return fax page composer and a return fax page configured to generate an inserted advertisement;

a 2 nd format converter configured to receive and convert the fax and return the fax page as a fax-encoded bitmap image; and

the fax server is configured to receive a fax-encoded bitmap image and transmit it to a fax destination.

43. The system of claim 42, wherein the network operations center further comprises:

in a database in communication with the Web server, the user can upload an address book with a list and associated fax numbers to the database.

44. The system of claim 42, wherein the network operations center further comprises:

an advertisement and statistics server in communication with the Web server, the Web server further configured to allow advertisers to open accounts and upload advertisements to the advertisement and statistics server.

45. The system of claim 44, wherein the network operations center further comprises:

an interactive voice response method in communication with an advertising and statistics server and a Web server.

46. A communication method for transmitting a fax to a fax destination via an e-mail input, comprising the steps of:

logging in a Web server of a network operation center;

composing an electronic mail including a facsimile number indicating a reference facsimile destination;

grabbing a fax number;

converting a fax number;

converting the e-mail to a fax number;

generating a return fax page;

inserting an advertisement into the return fax page; and

sending and returning the fax page to the fax destination.

47. A communication system for transmitting a facsimile to a facsimile destination by a facsimile protocol compliant communication device, comprising:

the facsimile server is configured to receive a facsimile in a facsimile image format by a communication apparatus complying with a facsimile protocol, the facsimile including a facsimile number indicating a reference facsimile destination;

a character recognizer in communication with the fax server and configured to retrieve a fax number from the fax;

the 1 st format converter is configured to receive a fax and convert a fax image format to an email format suitable for transmission on an email system;

the e-mail server is configured to receive e-mails and take out fax numbers;

a format 2 converter in communication with the email server and configured to receive the email and convert it to a facsimile image having a facsimile image format.

48. The system of claim 47 further comprising an advertisement server in communication with the email and configured to receive the transmission status from the email server.

49. The system of claim 48, wherein the advertisement server comprises a confirmation page composer configured to generate a confirmation page.

50. The system of claim 49, wherein the confirmation page is configured to receive a transmission status and to generate transmission and non-transmission notifications.

51. The system of claim 50, wherein the fax server is configured to receive the send and non-send notifications in a fax format for transmission to the fax protocol compliant communication device.

52. The system of claim 49 wherein the confirmation page composer is further configured to retrieve the advertisement from the advertisement server and insert the advertisement in the confirmation page.

53. The system of claim 52, wherein the fax server is configured to receive the confirmation page in a fax format for transmission to the fax protocol compliant communication device.

54. The system of claim 47 wherein the character recognizer extracts the facsimile number by optical character recognition.

55. The system of claim 47, wherein the facsimile number is handwritten.

56. The system of claim 47, wherein the facsimile number is printed in a machine-readable format.