Kinko's move aside, students with faxes are stepping in

To the dismay of Kinko's Copies and Federal Express, University students are using the latest in Japanese technology to communicate: their own, personal fax machines. College freshman Sarah Johns finds her facsimile machine invaluable. "I fax home about twice a week," said Johns. "It's pretty convenient and it saves a lot of money on phone bills. A few of my friends needed to use it as well. It gets its share of use." She explained that it is much cheaper to send 30-second faxes to her home in San Francisco than to talk on the phone for hours. Other students have had fax machines for a long time, and for some of them, faxing can be a difficult habit to break. "Once you get used to the fax, it's a necessity," Wharton freshman Greg Share explained. "Faxing something is just so much easier than explaining it over the phone." Apparently many job-hunting seniors would agree. Share shares his fax with upperclassmen on his floor who need to send resumes quickly. In fact, he said, "his Murata" gets more use from others than from himself. But some students have found that all the high-priced technology may just collect dust in their rooms. "I use it occasionally, but basically I have it because it has an answering machine and my dad's business had an extra one," said College freshman Misbah Tahir. He admitted that his fax is mostly used by other students with specific purposes. "I've had a couple of friends send in absentee ballots by fax," he said. "Other people have used it to register to vote or send things to friends at other colleges." Running in the face of student independence, Kinko's recently acquired a new fax machine available to students for about two dollars per page. "Fax machine use is up," Kinko's Representative James Spells said. "More students are coming in to use the machines all the time." But Corporate Health Associates, a Pomona, N.Y.-based partnership, is trying to cash in on students' reluctance to pay high prices to fax at a copy center. The partnership has initiated a plan to install public fax machines on campus. Formal talks with the University have not yet begun, but the partnership has reached a deal with a fax machine company, according to Ellis Barowsky, a partner in the firm. "There's obviously a market out there and most people really don't want to pay ten dollars to send a five-page letter," Barowsky said. Whether students will want to pay anything to send faxes while they still have friends with machines is another issue, however. "Hey, if I can get something sent for free, I'll take advantage of it," College freshman Marc Leferman said. "I'm friendly with Sarah [Johns], and I wouldn't give a company money if I can get something for free instead."

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