Method and system for distributing and receiving fax transmissions via a data connection that is owned by a service provider

A fax system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having instructions stored therein which when executed by the processor causes the system to
• receive a signaling protocol invite from a telephone service provider in response to the telephone service provider receiving, over a circuit switched network and from a source device, an incoming call signal to a fax telephone number of a cloud-based service provider,
• respond to the invite by establishing, over a data network, a data connection based on the signaling protocol with the telephone service provider, wherein the data connection is owned by the cloud-based service provider,
• receive, through the data connection, an incoming fax message that is in a fax format and is routed by the telephone service provider as the source device transmits the incoming fax message via the incoming call signal over the circuit switched network, and
• transmit, over the data network, the fax message to a destination address.

A method performed by a fax server of a fax service provider, the fax server is executing a fax processing software, the method comprising:

• establishing, over a data network, a first data connection with a source device that is owned by a cloud-based service provider;
• receiving, over a data network and via the first data connection, a fax transmission to be transmitted to a fax telephone number of a destination device;
• converting the fax transmission into a fax format;
• establishing, over the data network and using the fax telephone number, a second data connection with the destination device via a session initiation protocol (SIP) trunk that is owned by the cloud-based service provider;
• and
• transmitting, via the second data connection, the fax transmission in the fax format to fax telephone number of the destination device.