Press release Mar 04, 2008

Cebit 2008: FRITZ!Box with Fax and Voicemail Function

FRITZ!Box Supersedes Millions of Fax Machines —
Fax And Voicemail Function Integrated Into the FRITZ!Box Large Potential Savings in Energy Consumption

	FRITZ!Box can now send and receive faxes
	Potential savings: 5 million fax machines always on stand-by
	The FRITZ!Box also makes a separate answering machine redundant
	The FRITZ!Box can send faxes and voice messages directly by e-mail

Fax machines could always be connected to the FRITZ!Box, but now the FRITZ!Box itself is a fax machine. For the first time, the developers from the Berlin-based communications specialist AVM have integrated a fax function and a voicemail service into the FRITZ!Box FON WLAN 7170 and the FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7270. In many cases, this makes separate devices redundant. As fax and answering machines are on stand-by 24 hours a day, there are enormous potential savings in energy consumption.

5 Million Fax Machines on Stand-by

Even in the digital age of the Internet, DSL and e-mail, fax is the accustomed form of business and private communication for many people. In Germany alone, around 5 million fax machines are installed in homes and offices. Assuming an average stand-by consumption of 10 Watts, this gives an annual energy requirement of around 421 million kilowatt-hours just for often redundant stand-by operation. That is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of around 140,000 two-person households.

FRITZ!Box Replaces the Fax Machine

The fax function newly integrated into the FRITZ!Box family will help to avoid this consumption in the future. No other devices are required to send and receive faxed documents. The FRITZ!Box can tell from the signal whether an incoming call is a fax and will process the message according to the settings entered. The fax is forwarded immediately by e-mail to a specified e-mail address. If required, the document can also be saved to a hard disk attached to the FRITZ!Box or to a USB stick. Using the FRITZ!Box as a central data hub connected to the DSL and fixed network line makes it possible to receive faxes 24 hours a day. In this way, the fax service introduced in Germany in 1979 becomes completely digitised and largely paperless.

An Integrated Answering Machine Too

There are more potential savings to be made with the voicemail function, as this function is also integrated into the FRITZ!Box. If an incoming call is not picked up by a telephone, a voice message can also be sent as an e-mail or saved. The extended fax function is currently available in the FRITZ! lab ( www.avm.de/labor) as a free download for all users of the FRITZ!Box 7270 and 7170. It will shortly become part of the regular firmware, in which the voicemail function has already been integrated.