Copper is dying: fax carries on

Key dates, warning signs, solutions and your number: the decisions ahead.

In France, Orange halted PSTN line sales back in November 2018. Since late 2023, the operator has been migrating traditional telephony to IP, region by region, and from 31 January 2025 it has been shutting down the copper network technically, town by town, through to 2030. Fax survives this transition intact: your numbers stay reachable and the T.30 protocol remains unchanged. What suffers is the machine plugged into a wall socket, cut off from its line on the day, or reconnected behind a router whose voice compression interferes with the signal. Four options emerge: a T.38 adapter, email-to-fax, online sending via Faxeroo, or any other channel your contacts accept. Before choosing, ask yourself: do you receive faxes, or only send them?

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“Telephony and networks” covers several pages, each tackling a distinct question. Choose the page that fits your situation.

Copper, PSTN, IP: let's clarify the terms

Two shutdowns occur in sequence and are frequently mixed up. The first affects the PSTN, the legacy switched telephony: the copper pair remains in place, yet voice travels via IP these days. The second targets the copper itself — the wire running from your socket to the exchange: once a town shuts down, nothing flows, neither phone calls nor ADSL. Fibre or a 4G box takes over.

For fax, the fundamentals are still reassuring. Landline numbers keep their value, T.30 remains the universal standard for every fax device, and government offices, practices and laboratories that received faxes still receive them. What differs is the path taken: an online sending service has nothing to migrate, because your PDF leaves from the browser and Faxeroo reaches the recipient's line.

Are you affected?

Four quick checks, in this order.

  • Trace the machine's cable

    If it runs to a wall socket (T or RJ11) and not to the box's “telephone” port, the machine lives on the classic copper line. It will stop dead the day your town switches over.

  • Check the name of your subscription

    A line billed separately from internet access — “analogue line”, “telephone subscription” — signals a PSTN subscription. Your operator will confirm in a few minutes.

  • Look at your failed sends

    Faxes that once went through now drop every other attempt, especially since a new box showed up: the typical sign of a line already converted to IP. Chances are the machine itself isn't at fault.

  • Reread the operator's letters

    Subscribers receive several months' notice before their area closes. That date is the only valid one for your address: two neighbouring towns can switch years apart.

Fax and VoIP: a fragile coexistence

A classic fax machine translates each page into modulated tones, emitted the way a conversation is. On a digital line, however, those sounds pass through codecs shaped for the ear: compression, jitter, packets lost and blindly rebuilt. Voice copes with those approximations; the fax modem stalls: it loses the thread and gives up, often mid-document.

T.38 approaches the issue from the opposite angle: the fax signal is converted into data the moment it reaches the IP network, and the machine at the far end rebuilds it. You need an operator that permits it, plus compatible hardware at both ends of the IP leg. When considering an adapter, get written confirmation from your provider about T.38 support in your plan. If the answer is no, the uncompressed G.711 codec may work — though nothing is guaranteed.

Four solutions to keep the line

  1. Keep the machine with a T.38 adapter

    An ATA adapter hooked up to a plan that tolerates T.38 keeps the machine and your paper habits alive. Be ready to handle hardware setup, configuration and testing — the most technical path, and also the most fragile.

  2. Choose email-to-fax

    A dedicated provider hosts a number for you, new or ported, and forwards received faxes to you as PDFs in your inbox; sending uses the same path. End of paper, end of the dedicated line — in exchange for a monthly subscription, and document security that depends on that of your email.

  3. Adopt online sending with Faxeroo

    Only a sender? No migration to plan: a browser and your document are the whole setup, with no account and no software. The first page is free; every send from the second page onward costs €3.99 incl. VAT, whether your file spans 2 pages or 40. Faxeroo, for its part, allocates no number and receives nothing: for receiving, see the two options above.

  4. Drop fax, where that's an option

    Ask your main contacts: many have opened a portal, an encrypted messaging service or a dedicated address. If nobody imposes fax on you any more, the copper closure becomes an opportunity to slim down your tools.

Keep your fax number

Your number is not tied to the copper that gave it birth. In France, number portability covers landlines: yours can migrate to another operator, or to an IP fax service. It is the receiving provider that starts the process, on the basis of your RIO (operator identity statement), which you obtain by dialling 3179 from the line concerned. Headers, forms and address books remain usable.

Follow the order: choose the solution, begin the portability, then let the old line fade out on its own. If you cancel first, the number may be gone for good, and with it every contact who has known it for years.

Copper switch-off: frequently asked questions

When will my town switch over?
It depends on which batch your town falls into under Orange's schedule, extending to 2030. Your operator warns you months in advance, while Orange releases the towns concerned one batch at a time.
Will my fax machine stop abruptly?
Copper line closed: yes, the device gives up at once — no dial tone, so nothing left to send or receive. Line already moved to IP: the symptoms are more discreet, the machine dials, the connection opens, then the transmission breaks off at random, page after page.
Would a new machine settle the question?
Most often no: it is the transport of the signal that is at fault, not the machine. A brand-new model behind the same box will hit the same obstacles. Check instead whether your box and your operator support T.38.
Can you send a fax without any telephone line?
Yes. With Faxeroo, you upload the PDF from the browser, and our servers then pick up the line on your behalf to reach the machine on the other side. No line and no device on your premises: for sending, the copper closure does not touch you. The single page remains free; for a longer document, the complete send is €3.99 incl. VAT, however thick it is.

Keep reading

Pages chosen to help you prepare a send, track it, or keep proof of it.

See also