The Mercury Communications Ltd subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Plc yesterday launched Faxess, a data communications service for on-line and voice information providers, which enables them to link their databases to facsimilie machines. Mercury provides the software and hardware necessary to interact with existing databases and link it up to facsimile machines, so that end users can get paper copies of information, either text or pictures. The end user will be able to dial up an information provider using a normal phone, request information by following instructions on a verbal menu and receive the information on any fax machine, depending on which number they leave. The cost to the end user will depend on how much the host information provider decides to charge, but Mercury says its charge to the host depends on the configuration of existing services. Mercury provide the verbal menu service, which sorts out what information is being requested and directs it, probably through leased lines, to the host computer, via a gateway to interface to various communication protocols used by companies. Mercury was unable to say which information services had signed up, but it expects the first system to be running in a couple of months.
