MCI Pioneering Separate Network for Fax Messages

Cashing in on the fax boom, MCI Communications Corp. announced the first network just for the transmission of facsimile messages.

MCI, the No. 2 long-distance company behind American Telephone & Telegraph Co., said the MCI Fax network will allow companies to monitor their fax use better, get consolidated fax bills and use the storing and forwarding capabilities of MCI’s computer-controlled phone network.

Fax users in the United States will spend $3 billion this year on transmitting facsimile messages, most of it on long-distance calls, and the market is expected to grow to more than $9 billion by 1991, MCI said.

All fax messages are currently sent over regular phone networks, including MCI’s. MCI said it hoped to grab a large chunk of the transmission business because its costs will be about the same as normal phone service.

No other companies are in a position to match the MCI offering quickly, said William McGowan, chairman and chief executive. For example, AT&T; is not set up to bill customers separately for their fax use.

McGowan declined to predict how much revenue or market share MCI would gain with its new service, but he said in an interview: “It could have a dramatic impact on MCI. It tells us we were right to make the investment we have over the last four or five years” in a computer-controlled network.

Using MCI Fax, someone could broadcast a fax message to hundreds of machines around the country and abroad simply by sending the fax to MCI along with its list of recipients. As it is now, a machine that broadcasts a fax message is tied up as it sends it to one recipient after another.

The service is both national and international. MCI said it is accepting orders immediately for service to begin by the end of November.

The creation of a facsimile network does not require laying new cables. Instead, MCI uses computers to “carve out” the network from its existing network.