Heuristic routing of electronic documents

A heuristic routing system comprising:

• a broadcast fax transmitter configured to broadcast a fax formatted electronic document to selected target fax receivers specified according to a list of target fax receivers;
• a data store of statistical data associated with said target fax receivers;
• and,
• a heuristic routing processor coupled both to said data store and also to said broadcast fax transmitter, said heuristic router having a computer program for routing said formatted electronic document to each particular target fax receiver in said list over a corresponding optimal route determined from statistical data in said data store which is associated with said particular target fax receiver.

A machine readable storage having stored thereon a computer program for heuristic routing of electronic documents, said computer program comprising a routine set of instructions which when executed by the machine cause the machine to perform the steps of:

• receiving a request to transmit an electronic document to a target destination;
• retrieving from a data store of previously compiled statistics, a set of statistics associated with said target destination;
• heuristically selecting from said set of statistics an optimal route through which said electronic document can be transmitted to said target destination;
• transmitting said electronic document to said target destination over said heuristically selected optimal route;
• and,
• collecting statistics relating to said transmission, and storing said collected statistics in said data store.