I think he was actually trying to say that he's from mainland China, and VPN support is necessary to bypass certain content restrictions, or at least that's the way I'm reading it.

The procedure at my office would be:

1. Put down document on printer/scanner combo device's page feeder
2. Type the email address of recipient on the touch screen display on that device
3. Push send.

Benefits aside from speed and ease of use are that now the recipient has a digital copy without having to scan it themselves and in my experience the quality is pretty much always better than a fax machine.

I know you said that for you faxing was the easier option, but I don't think gp was advocating the process for you, more for people who have a device built to handle that task. Just as I'm sure you wouldn't advocate fax as the best solution to someone who only had a hand scanner and a fax modem.