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8-1
POLLING
Chapter 8. POLLING
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
What Is Polling?
Polling is the process of retrieving faxes from another fax machine. You may use your
machine to “poll” other machines, or you may ask someone to poll your machine. The
party who polls pays for the cost of the call.
How Does It Work?
First two parties set up their fax machines so that they can accommodate polling. Then one
party leaves documents in the fax machine so that the other party can call up and have the
documents transmitted to them during the same call.
When to Use Polling?
Use polling to control the cost of who pays for sending a fax.
1. If you want to pay for the cost of the call: Send out faxes to other parties as normal, and
if another party has documents to send you, ask whether you can poll for it.
2. If you want others to pay for the cost of the call: ask them to poll your fax machine for
the document they want, and have them fax any documents that you want.
* There are some fax machines that will not respond to the polling function.
Helpful Hints
Using Polling Effectively (Examples)
Problem No. 1: You want another party to send you a long fax, but they do not want to pay for the
call.
Solution: Ask them to leave the document in their fax machine so you can poll for it.
Problem No. 2: Sales representatives have difficulty sending in faxes to the head office’s fax
machine because it is busy so much of the time.
Solution: Head office can poll the sales representatives’ fax machines.
Problem No. 3: Because of the time or location, it is cheaper for someone else to call you than it
is for you to make the call.
Solution: Ask the other party to poll for the documents and offer to pay for the call at their
lower rate.
Polling side
Call
Polled side
Receive document