While Fax is a dying technology, it is far from dead (heck:
I had to work with someone recently who was still using DOS). It is silly to have the information in a numeric telephonic field automatically default to an email format without benefit of being able to switch that automatic conversion off. If it were on an
option to turn that auto-conversion ON, that would be fine. But not being able to use the field for its intended and labeled purpose is absurd.
I only recently discovered this as I had previously had very few fax numbers entered and had probably never noticed it.