What's the difference? Dataport vs. LAN

[intheflow]

Howdy! I'm a librarian with an uncooperative IT department. I'm hoping one of you DU computer geeks can help me out here.

I have a scanner/fax machine that is currently stationed somewhere very inconvenient to both patrons and staff. I want to move it to an area that has three working data ports but one is inoperable. The two working ports are in use (my computer & my assistant's computer). The data port looks like an old fashioned landline outlet, pictured below.

They (IT) tells me the scanner/fax can't be moved because we don't have enough working data ports. But couldn't we just get an adapter that has 2 outlets, changing our two-working data ports into three? I mean, maybe I'm missing the big picture, but this seems like an easy and cheap fix to the problem.

Am I missing something? Or is my IT department just a couple of idjits? (It's a two person department and I know one of them, the department manager, doesn't have any formal IT training. She was a library assistant when we got computers in the 1980s and she's been Peter Principled up the chain of command.)

Thanks in advance!

[Nictuku]

1. I'm pretty sure that most FAX machines also require a telephone port

I've been retired for a while, so Don't quote me on that, I'm pretty sure that newer technologies can 'fax' over a network cable as well, if the software on the computers supports network 'faxing'.

These machines receive print jobs via the network, but when sending out faxes, if it is done at the machine (vs sending a FAX from your computer directly), it might need a telephone port as well.

[intheflow]

2. This is a brand new scanner/fax machine. I assume it faxes over the network cable,

primarily because there's only one cable and the system sends emails as well.

[Nictuku]

3. But who is it sending the fax to?

If no telephone port is being used, then the receiver must also have the required software to do it via a network (vs analog telephone lines).

At one point is it more like email than a FAX? Just wondering out loud. Again, I've been out of IT for a few years now.

[intheflow]

4. According to a NYT article last month,

efaxing is the norm now. Assumably that means the tech on the other end either receives a digital fax, or there's software on the receiving end that converts digital to analog.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-online-fax-services/

[SWBTATTReg]

5. I'd say YES, it would work. Also, just unpluging the data cable from one of the current users and plugging in the

3rd one temporarily would work too, until their business is done, and then replug the unplugged data cable. And I don't know your unit, but sometimes they have an extra data port on the back of the scanner/fax machine (so you would have 3 data ports in effect). I suspect that the manufacturers did this to simplify the cable congestion by allowing the fax/scanner to piggyback an extra data channel. You would just have to experiment w/ it.

[LastDemocratInSC]

6. Aside from the fax issue, an ethernet switch / port extender / splitter

should solve the "not enough ports" issue. They are inexpensive. Your organization may not allow the use of one due to policies but I've never seen that. The company from which I recently retired is a DOD contractor and I always used a splitter when working at a DOD site but my work was not on the highly secure SIPRnet. If a splitter is allowed your IT department may have a preferred vendor but the fact is that you can buy them even at Walmart. Your problem is quite common and I think only a policy conflict would stop you.

[intheflow]

7. Yes, I wondered if a splitter might somehow impair privacy or network security.

I don't see how that could happen, but, maybe?

I know how inexpensive they are, as I looked at our local Staples store and saw the adapter I think might work is under $5.