The international fax service growth is attributed to the recent expansion of eFax® to Europe and Japan, where the online fax service launched a new website and placed a dedicated sales team. In Europe, the online fax provider expanded its German presence with the addition of a number of new cities, including Nuremberg, Heidelberg, and Hamburg.

“The expansion of our eFax® global network demonstrates the continued worldwide acceptance of Internet fax as a reliable communications medium, both for businesses and individuals,” j2 Global Communications, Inc. CEO Hemi Zucker says.  ”This growth continues to position us well to support the demands of those in need of a reliable Internet fax service.”

The eFax® branded service has been operational since 1988. Offering a 30-day free trial and unlimited online fax storage, eFax® serves more than 11 million customers every day.

Learn more about eFax® and other popular Internet fax services, such as MyFax, RingCentral, and Nextiva, at ChooseWhat’s online fax comparison guide.

“Our customers know the value of connecting with local customers and that appearances matter. MetroFax local fax numbers provide a way to add a local presence to their organizations,” says Brent Wayland, CEO for MetroFax. “We know that in tough times, businesses face many challenges in attracting customers. A local fax number emphasizes a local presence and helps businesses make that all important first impression. We’re excited to expand our local fax number coverage across the country and Puerto Rico.”

MetroFax has expanded local fax number availability in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.

MetroFax is introducing local fax numbers in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

For a monthly fee of $12.95, MetroFax customers receive a combined total of 1,000 incoming and outgoing pages. To learn more about MetroFax and other online fax services, check out ChooseWhat’s Online Fax Comparison.

“For both individuals and organizations, offsite document storage is critical to reducing business risk and maximizing business uptime,” says Mike Pugh, vice president, marketing for j2 Global Communications, the owner of eFax.  ”Lost notebooks, crashed hard drives, and deleted files hit you when you least expect—and can least afford—them.  Since faxes are among a business’ most important documents, offering lifetime storage is one way we can maximize the value of our service to customers by providing them with an easy way to preserve and access these critical documents.”

The upgrade from two years to lifetime storage is a big perk for customers of eFax’s Internet fax service. Our experiences with eFax were fairly positive, as they offer 24/7 customer support and wide-ranging international service in almost 50 countries.

To learn more about email fax services, and to read reviews from popular Internet fax service providers, such as MyFax, RingCentral, and Nextiva, head over to ChooseWhat.com’s Email Fax Service Comparison page.

These business communication services approved by “Guerrilla Job Search” and provided by Protus support the “Put America Back to Work” initiative. They are designed to help bring people together and focus on adopting “Best-Practices” when it comes to job hunting.

Read more about this initiative at the ChooseWhat.com Blog.

In addition to its North American service, MyFax now offers both toll-free phone and local numbers across the United Kingdom. MyFax offers its UK digital fax users the tools to send receive, store or forward faxes securely without fax machines, dedicated fax and phone lines, long distance phone charges or fax modems.

“Demand for our services continues to increase around the world,” says Joseph Nour, CEO of Protus IP Solutions, the provider of MyFax. “MyFax meets business needs in ways that aren’t possible with traditional fax services with the reliability and comfort of knowing you’re using one of the best-known brands in the business. We are pleased by our early successes in the International market, and are excited to officially launch MyFax services into the UK.”

MyFax allows faxes to be sent and received using an email account, thus removing the need for a dedicated phone line and bulky and expensive fax machine. The service, which fully integrates with Microsoft Office, IBM Lotus Notes and ACT!, enables users to manage their fax communication and corresponding document management work flow more efficiently and at a lower cost than traditional fax servers or fax machines.

For more information on MyFax and other leading email fax providers, please visit www.FaxCompare.com.

This growth further expands on the company’s 72% increase in geographic coverage reported in the previous three years.

“The growth in our worldwide network to include local fax numbers in Brazil and Peru demonstrates the increasing importance of fax as a stable, reliable tool for transacting business intra-nationally, as well as internationally,” said j2 Global’s CEO Hemi Zucker.  ”As we work toward adding cities in those countries where we already have a presence, such as Australia, Egypt, Hong Kong, Japan, the U.S. and Britain to name a few, we are excited to be increasing our global footprint to 48 countries with the addition of Peru and Brazil.”

While eFax is one of the higher priced plans reviewed by FaxCompare, eFax does offer its customers a 30 day free trial and online fax storage for up to 2 years. The expansion of local numbers to now 48 countries makes eFax one of the most international internet fax providers on the market.

For more information on online fax services and reviews of other providers, check out www.FaxCompare.com.

Customers can go to www.InnoportExpress.com and easily begin sending faxes through their email. Created to accommodate business users looking for a pay per use online fax service, Innoport Express Fax provides customers with round the clock capability to send faxes to international destination. Those who have little faxing needs now no longer need to sign up for an account or pay monthly fees when they want to send the occasional fax.

Priced at $1.95 per 10 page blocks for sending faxes to U.S. and Canada destinations and the ability to fax worldwide, Innoport Express Fax provides a convenient and affordable alternative to retail locations or online services with monthly fees. Features include automatic re-tries for busy faxes and status tracking capability. There is no mention on the site if you can receive faxes through the service.

Although www.FaxCompare.com typically reviews Internet fax companies with monthly fees, we do discuss the pros and cons of PayPerFax, which, like Innoport Express, is a pay as you go fax service. The first outgoing page is $0.75, and each additional page is $0.40. Your fax number is assigned from PayPerFax’s inventory of toll-free numbers and is available to use for 30 minutes. If you need additional time, however, the rate is $0.50 for each additional 30-minute block of time.

To learn more about online faxing and to read Internet fax reviews, visit www.FaxCompare.com.

Local fax numbers are now available in most major cities in the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan.

Businesses in the newly available area codes can choose either a toll free number or a local fax number from which they can send and receive faxes using MyFax at just $10 per month.

“This expanded availability of local numbers enables more businesses to emphasize their community ties,” said Steve Adams, Vice President of Marketing for Protus, the provider of MyFax. “It also allows large national corporations with local branches in those areas to project more of a local presence in those communities. We’re excited to be able to offer this additional local service to Canadian businesses that are looking for an affordable and more convenient way to send and receive faxes.”

MyFax’s services allow users to send and receive faxes using an email account, removing the need for a dedicated landline and fax machine. The service enables users to manage their fax communication and corresponding document management workflow more efficiently and at a lower cost than traditional fax servers or fax machines, regardless of physical location.

For more information about MyFax and other digital fax services, please visit www.FaxCompare.com.

An Internet fax service, MyFax sends and receives faxes using your email account, erasing the need for an expensive fax machine. Internet fax allows users to quickly manage their fax correspondences online and quickly send and receive faxes straight to their computers—or Smartphones.

my1voice is a virtual phone system that works with a business’ existing phones through the Internet instead of PBX equipment, making it a fraction of the cost of traditional PBX systems. It provides communications features such as a virtual receptionist with auto-attendant, unlimited extensions and professional voicemail services.

“INTERNET TELEPHONY is proud to grant Protus a 2009 Product of the Year Award for MyFax and my1voice. Protus has proven its commitment to quality and excellence while addressing real needs in the marketplace,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “We’re happy to recognize and honor Protus for their development of IP communications technology. We look forward to more innovative solutions from them in the future.”

A complete list of Product of the Year winners is published in the February 2010 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine. The publication has been the authority in IP communication since 1998.

“Protus is committed to IP communications technology across our product line,” said Joseph Nour, CEO of Protus. “It’s one of the primary reasons we were able to surpass the 400,000 subscriber mark and report explosive growth in 2009. We are delighted that TMC’s INTERNET TELEPHONY has chosen to honor us again this year.”

Protus offers its subscribers advanced communication tools on all fronts: MyFax’s Internet fax service, my1voice’s virtual phone service for small business and Campaigner’s email marketing service.

To learn more about online fax services, please visit www.FaxCompare.com.  And to learn more about virtual phone services, please visit www.PBXCompare.com.

While it’s not unusual for brands and services to create podcasts as part of their marketing strategies, eFax is spotlighting an interesting array of business professionals in these interviews, including graphic designers and authors, social media communications agency owners and even magicians. Yes, magicians. At first we wondered, “what do magicians need to email fax? Orders for white rabbits?” But, magicians are just like every business owner who needs to send and receive completed forms, applications, contracts and any other hard copy documents with hand written notations or signatures quickly and easily. The thought of ordering top hats or bunnies through Internet fax is still pretty funny, though.

“[eFax] is real magic,” says magician Rob Lake in the podcast.  Lake is apparently the youngest magician to win the coveted Merlin Award.  ”We travel all the time and it’s wonderful because my home office can contact me directly via fax and we can do contracts, signatures, forms.  It’s especially useful when we’re overseas.  It’s really like our whole office is able to travel with us, just due to eFax.”

The eFax Solutions podcasts are online at www.efax.com/podcasts.  iTunes users can also subscribe to the eFax Solutions channel by going to the iTunes Store and typing “eFax” in the “Search Store” box.

The fact that eFax is utilizing podcasts as another part of its marketing strategy is fairly interesting, and we wonder how many potential customers are actually taking the time to listen to these testimonials. Podcasts seem less ubiquitous than Twitter or Facebook, and we don’t typically check out advertorial podcast ourselves.

Learn more about online fax services at http://www.Fax-Compare.com.