Many small offices pay twice as much as they need to for telephone services. In many countries, business users pay nearly twice as much for telephone lines as residential users. Many SOHO operations are located in the home and add two business lines to the residential phone line service. The first business line is for voice and the second provides an incoming fax number for the business.

In many areas, fax-to-email services will provide the small business operator with incoming fax service for a small fee. This provides a local phone number that is answered by the service provider's computer. The server uses the phone number of the incoming call to identify the subscriber, saves the fax as a TIFF file and e-mails it to the subscriber.

In Eastern Canada, this service is available from the local phone company for less than $10 per month. A substantial savings over the cost of a business line.

In the United States, a number of providers offer this service for free. They make their money by limiting the number of incoming faxes allowed and selling their service to satisfied customers.