[photon]

To send and receive on a PC there's a few ways to do it:

Have to have a physical phone line with a modem on the PC. This would use the built in faxing software in Windows.

Subscribe to a service like efax which has software that lets you send and receive faxes via your computer without a modem or phone line connection (costs $).

Or some multifunction printers operate as a fax server as well. The one I have I can send faxes out through without having a phone line connected to my computer.

No matter which way you do it, because fax machines are hooked to phone lines at some point a physical phone line has to be involved.