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RingCentral Review: Internet Fax |
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Rating: |
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| Low-cost yearly plan with 6-month discount, nice tools and great mobile apps; a little finicky with emails | |
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[Editor's note: RingCentral is offering NextAdvisor visitors 20% off the first 6 months of service on either the monthly or already-discounted annual plan. No coupon code is necessary, just follow any of the links from NextAdvisor to RingCentral]
Setup Setting up an account with RingCentral is rather easy. You are given several options for toll-free numbers to choose from. Once that's done, you can download the RingCentral Call Controller, but it's not really necessary. The real work is done using a web-based interface, the stand-alone fax program, or your email client. User Interface The RingCentral Internet Fax program is RingCentral's strong point, and the true differentiator for this service. You can use the program to not only send your faxes, but sign and mark them up. Not everyone will need this, in fact those with the full paid version of Adobe Acrobat may find it somewhat redundant. The online interface is fine. It lets you send and receive faxes, as well as administer a block list. The inbox is a crowded affair, however, and gives you a bit too much info. RingCentral does much better with attachments than it does with faxes that are composed directly in emails. In our testing, RingCentral had some of the slowest transmission times, taking an average of 2 minutes 17 seconds to send (the fastest was Fax87, with 1 minute 1 second). It's receiving time was similar, taking an average of 2 minutes 13 seconds for us to see a fax in our inbox. Again, these times should not make much of a difference for most users. In regard to HIPAA compliance: Since Internet fax companies themselves cannot control where the user sends or receives faxes and information, none of them can legally state that they are HIPAA compliant. RingCentral's representatives told us that they are still working on their HIPAA statement and there is nowhere on the site that talks about specific HIPAA guidelines. However, some of the other Internet fax services we review specifically state guidelines they follow in accordance with HIPAA. If you want to know what HIPAA is, please visit our FAQ page. Pricing RingCentral is cheap, only $7.99 per month for 500 total inbound and outbound pages, if you sign up for a year. A 20% introductory discount brings the first six months down to $6.39. Like most internet fax providers, RingCentral assumes one page takes a minute to fax, so a particularly graphics-heavy page may end up taking more than one minute, and therefore be considered more pages. Conclusion RingCentral is a solid service with an affordable price tag. Though it doesn't work perfectly with emails, most users will be satisfied with their easy-to-use web interface. Remember, there's a 30-day free trial so you can test it out and see if it works well for you. |
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| Annual Plan Price: | $6.39/mo for 6 mos $7.99/mo thereafter |
| Free Trial: | 7-day free trial |
| Pages Included: | 500 combined receive and send per month |
| Additional Pages: | 5.9˘ per page |
| Send/Receive Times: | 2m 13s receive; 2m 17s send |
| Toll Free Number: | Free |
NextAdvisor Internet Fax Blog Headlines
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Does Internet Fax Have Busy Signals?
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RingCentral Forum Posts
- What is the max file size and max associated emails?
Using RingCentral's email-to-fax feature, you can send a maximum of 200 pages at a time. Additionally, there is no file size limitation other than... - What is the max file size and max associated emails?
1) What is the max file size that can be sent or received? 2) How many email addresses can be associated with the account? - Can I port my current landline to RingCentral fax?
Yes, for free. If your current number is portable (which they will check for your) what RingCentral will do is set you up with a temporary number,... - Can I port my current landline to RingCentral fax?
Does this company allow you to port a local landline fax number? - RingCentral Review
Here is NextAdvisor's review of RingCentral: http://www.nextadvisor.com/internet_fax/ringcentral_review.php
