The transmission of documents via facsimile, a process commonly referred to as faxing, historically relied on traditional telecommunication infrastructure. This required a direct connection to a public switched telephone network (PSTN) for the sending and receiving of data. For instance, a standard fax machine would modulate data into audio tones transmitted through a telephone line to another fax machine, which would then demodulate the tones back into a readable document.
This method provided a reliable, albeit relatively slow, means of transmitting textual and graphical information over distance. It became a standard business practice and held significant importance in legal and administrative contexts where physical documents were not immediately feasible to transport. Its enduring benefit lay in its widely established infrastructure and the assurance of document delivery confirmation, a feature crucial in certain professional environments.
