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ITU Agrees On V.92 standard

An unnamed correspondent writes: "The ITU has agreed on the V.92 standard. The 3 enhancements are faster upstream (max of 48 kbit/s!), reduced connect times, and internet call waiting. Unfortunately, final approval is scheduled for November 2000. If you can't get broadband, this may be the next best thing."

204 comments

  1. How well suppoted on the server-side? by doogles · · Score: 1

    I was curious how long it would take for the makers of NAS products to implement v.92--looks like availability is scarce:

    Cisco claims support on their AS5400 product line:
    http: //www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/cisco/mkt/ios/rel/1 21/prodlit/1095_pp.htm

    I couldn't find anything on Lucent's website (Portmaster 3 & Portmaster 4 products).

    I couldn't find anything on 3Com's website (USR Total Control Products).

    Anyone work with any of these products and know of any published timelines or press releases on ETAs for working software?

  2. [OT] Usenet binary downloaders by mistered · · Score: 1

    Some apps to make use of your bandwidth:

    For Windows, free (banner ad supported): BinaryBoy

    For Linux: Binary Grabber, brag, Glitter (GUI), PicMonger (GUI), Usenet Binary Harvester (perl)

    --
    Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
  3. Modem Manufacturers Rejoice by Yardley · · Score: 1

    This sounds like an excuse to sell another round of modems to the unsuspecting end-user. Refinements are nice, but I suspect the new modems will cost more than what you are getting. Will flash-rom upgradeable modems be able to handle the new protocol, or will new hardware/software be mandatory?

    --

    --

    --
    He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
    1. Re:Modem Manufacturers Rejoice by Chris+Brewer · · Score: 1

      I would have thought that it would be compatible with 'upgradable' modems. After all, what is the point of an upgradable modem if it isn't upgradable everytime they bring out a new standard.

      Sounds like a gyp to me.
      --

      --
      Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
  4. Re:Glad I waited on V.90 upgrade... by mistered · · Score: 1

    Acutally that copper is just fine for almost all current residential internet needs. VDSL runs over the standard copper pair you have now and is about 30 mbit/s.

    --
    Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
  5. I wouldn't say the /only/ thing by fishexe · · Score: 1

    Didn't you see that Onion article where the African tribesman used an IBM external modem to crack open a nut?

    Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
    Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?

    --
    "I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
  6. Remember? I have one now. by Giordana · · Score: 1

    Right now, I'm surfing with a Diamond SupraExpress 56isp on a noisy phone line. The highest download speed I ever got was 8k/sec or so. My first experience with the Internet was with my college's T1 line, and I definitely feel the difference.

    DSL and cable are available in my area (inner-city Boston), but the prices are steep. I can't afford $80 per month for cable modem (which requires cable service) or $50 for DSL (not including the hub). If I can get comparabvle service using my rinky-dink, $20-per-month ISP, I'll do it.


    --

    Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
  7. Re:V.92 is dead before it even was born by aozilla · · Score: 1

    "Broadband" is the wave of the future! POTS is good for fast and easy voice transmission, but admit it: it's dead for Internet.

    Hmm, guess what... DSL uses POTS.

    --
    ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
  8. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Duke+of+Org · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I live in Batavia, about 20miles out of Cincinati, and recieved a big letter in my E-mail from Fuse(Cinci Bells ISP) Claiming that I can finally get ADSL, Whahoo, nope, it turned out the sent it to me on mistake, Batavia can get ADSL, my road can't, so then they came out and put in new line so I could on my road, guess what, I'm one Telephone pole off, and they refuse to extend the line.
    So I'm getting Cable internet from TimeWarner perty soon now.

    And about v.92? Don't even worry about it, just try to get broadband to everyone.

  9. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by petros · · Score: 2
    I happen to live 22 miles from my dial-up server and I get 49333 bps every day no matter what... Awhile ago I lived elsewhere & because I was only 1 mile from my server I managed 53333 bps (which back then I worked ISP tech support and no one could believe I could tweak my modem enough to conenct that high all the time)...

    Only thing is, the distance from the dialup server is irrelevant. The only distance that matters is between your phone jack and the switch, or the loop concentrator if that's how your line is connected. From there on your line is digitized, and the quality doesn't degrade (not before latency becomes relevant anyway). There are obviously many other parameters. For example, if robbed bit signalling is used anywhere between you and the dialup server, your speed suffers. And if you are server from a loop concentrator, there are two possible configurations, one of which is very good for modem and the other is very bad. If it's configured in universal mode, your line is digitized, carried to the switch, converted back to analog, and then back to digital in the switch. This is a Very Bad Thing (tm). On the other hand, if it's in integrated mode, your line is digitized and carried to the switch, and it's not converted back to analog there. This is good for modems, especially if you're really close to the concentrator, but on the other hand AFAIK current concentrators can't handle xDSL, at least yet, so if you're server by one you're out of luck for the time being. But I digress, my main point is that it's only important how long your line is analog, and if there are any extra analog to digital conversions.

  10. Re:It's a small step... by PolaRis75 · · Score: 1

    Quite true ... it will also probably be quite useful for laptop users.

  11. Re:Really? by Ozric · · Score: 1

    Fixed point wireless.

  12. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Seumas · · Score: 2
    Hm. I don't recall such standards in the first wave of 28.8 -- then again, I didn't exactly go grubbing through dozens of brands, either.

    Heh. The tech support people who had to explain to dopey customers what performing a flash upgrade ment, have my sympathy.

    I really just wish we could throw modems into a giant sea of circuit boards and serial ports and leap forward to global sattelite connections. Ho hum, a few more years...?
    ---
    seumas.com

  13. No Choice by Blooble · · Score: 2

    Here in the UK Broadband is still just a dream. BT are now infamous here for using every excuse in the book to delay rollout of ADSL while the now limited number of Cable companies are giving out no information on availability of cable modems.

    BT claim ISPs haven't given them enough testers. ISPs are fuming since they have been oversubscribed several times for trials which BT have been organising. One ISP has made an official complaint over the tactics while other publically lambast BT over their handling of it.

    Even the tabloids are questioning BT's board members' competency.

    No date is given for my city's exchange upgrade for ADSL let alone street roll-out. Oh, and you need a BT phone line too, I only have cable phone lines :(

    Rediculous.

  14. Re:Does anyone else here... by mattfusf · · Score: 1
    Yeah, until recently. I had a dedicated ISDN line to my old house for about two years, then a DSL connection. I recently moved and have found myself too far away from the CO (also have fiber in my neighborhood) for DSL. The cable company was supposed to roll out cable modems in the spring, but they were aquired by Comcast not too long ago...they have telling me "real soon now" since I moved. So, I'm back on regular dialup until "soon".

    Matt

  15. This is truly wonderful, but... by Soko · · Score: 1

    where the fuck is BlueTooth? That's what the world really needs - a high speed connection whereever you are.

    Oh, and probrably a tan (or a brain tumour) from the all those microwaves flooding the planet ;)

    --
    "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
    1. Re:This is truly wonderful, but... by Stefan+MacGeek · · Score: 1

      No, BlueTooth will not do that - it is very short ranged. BlueTooth is suited for wireless peripherals and the like. This new cell phone standard, UMTS will give you broadband wireless connections, but you will have to wait some years for that... Stefan

  16. Re:funny you should mention tcp/ip by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    FreeBSD does not have a threaded TCP/IP stack. NT does, and Linux 2.3/2.4 does also.

    But at least this is further proof that all the 16year old elitist linux cluebie users have finally all switched over to FreeBSD in response to linux's popularity.

    Why let silly things like facts get in the way of advocacy?

  17. Re:Hoorah! by Robert+S+Gormley · · Score: 3
    The only high bandwidth option available to me here is ISDN, which is laugably expensive (line charges are at the rate of a few dollars per hour)

    Gotta correct you here... ISDN is laughably expensive (coming from someone who has 128kbps to BigPong Direct)... but the line charges are capped: AU$275/month for 64kbps and AU$435/month for 128kbps - for a "permanent connection" (i.e. your line is dialled up to the one number, and when it disconnects it redials that)...

    Pathetic though. But the satellite lag is non existant... I can get 15ms ping times Melbourne to Canberra out of ISDN, unlike POTS :)

    --

    Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.

  18. Don't forget about mobile users... by kenliu · · Score: 1

    Broadband is great and all, but one demographic of users will still continue to use dial-up for a long time - business travelers. How else are you going to connect your laptop to the Internet from your hotel room when you're on the road? Then again, if hotels would put Ethernet connections in their rooms...

  19. Re:V.92 is dead before it even was born by doogles · · Score: 4

    "Broadband" is the wave of the future! POTS is good for fast and easy voice transmission, but admit it: it's dead for Internet.

    For you users sitting at home with the luxury of DSL and cable modems, sure. But what about travelling users, laptops, etc. No reason why we can't milk every bit out of the PSTN that we can, bandwidthwise, for those users who don't always have the luxury of "broadband". (even if the technology ain't perfect)

  20. Re:Why this doesn't matter... by parc · · Score: 2

    A CO is a Central Office. It is were the wires go when they leave your house and head for the phone company. Most likely there is a CO closer to your home than the office you can "see." They're pretty easy to spot, as they are hardened for weather and civil unrest -- usually housed in a large building, maybe with a bill Bell logo on it(if it's pre-divestiture). Interestingly, just because you can get ISDN doesn't mean you can get DSL. ISDN can be repeated, DSL cannot(there's your useless fact for the day!)

  21. Same here... by espertek · · Score: 1

    I just read about this same thing earlier, and realized that's why I can never get above 31kbps. A while back, when we first got a net connection, we called up the phone company here (GTE) and asked for two lines. They came out and installed that type of setup with the 64k channel split into two with a battery operated device of some sorts (oh what fun, leave the ip_masq machine connected overnight on accident and we had to go to the neighbors and call the telco up and have them come change the battery). Finally, i got them to come out and replace the device with one that operates off of house power, however, i still only connect at 31kbps. Now that someone pointed out what the problem is, I think GTE will be hearing from me tomorrow about getting an actual, physical second line.

    --
    If I had something more interesting for a signature, this is where it would be.
  22. Re:Immature by tdean001 · · Score: 1

    That message was meant for two NOW moderated postings. Sorry =)

  23. V.92 makes me yawn, why not a better conn. string? by detritus. · · Score: 2

    What I cannot understand is why they create a standard that offers a symmetrical 56k/56k capability. While the FCC still limits modems to 53k download because of potential bleedthrough on copper lines, it surely would be the next big enhancement.

    Having a somewhat faster uplink really is something that makes me yawn on a dialup. What I am curious about is why hardware hasn't been designed to give a CONNECT string for upload and download. When I see CONNECT 48000 it really is false, still limiting my upload to 33.6. Why not something like CONNECT 48000/33600 perhaps, which would display both upload and download connectivity? Back in the days of symmetrical connections (anything = 28800 modems I believe)
    it wasn't needed.

    - Slash

    "I never really liked computers, but then the server went down on me"

  24. Re:Glad I waited on V.90 upgrade... by journeyman101 · · Score: 1

    Have you ever used ISDN? Many areas (like the one I live in) ISDN is as fast as it gets. (Unless you wanna spend over $1k per month for a T1)Even though not nearly as good as DSL or Cable, it is MUCH faster and MUCH more reliable than analog modem. Expensive? Not really. In our area you can get an ISDN line for $48 per month from Bell Atlantic. Most ISPs don't even charge any extra for ISDN because every connection (even a 14.4 analog modem) uses an entire 64k channel on the ISP end. I run a small ISP in this area, and we charge analog customers and ISDN customers the same price. ISDN customers that want both B channels simply pay for 2 accounts. (at $12 per account per month) . Does it still cost too much....YES! Is it much cheaper than 2 years ago...O YES! Is it worth the extra money for most people....probably not, but for the gamers and downloaders, its the only game in our town. As far as the V.92 standard goes, its a good thing. The pathetic lines in our community will do good to support it well though.

  25. enh... by Kev+Vance · · Score: 1
    I live in rural pennsylvania where DSL/Cable internet access is a myth, where Cable Television is fully operational on a good day. Nevertheless, I never connect below 48000, usually at 49333.

    Perhaps I just somehow have a really good line, but I think most people just have bad modems. Mine is an external USR 56k. External costs more, but it will work better than your average internal mystery modem...

    --
    F0 07 C7 C8
  26. Re:Animal Cruelty by DavidOgg · · Score: 1

    Such a foul mouth! Tis' to be expected from a country with rotten teeth.

    --
    Fear the government that fears your guns. Fear the government that fears your computers. Remove them from my email.
  27. why not make improvements to Z-Modem too? by Sonicboom · · Score: 1

    Isn't a v.92 protocol in today's day and age somwwhat pointless?

    Maybe the 2.88 floppy will make a revival!

    *groan*

    ---
    Connection Closed by foreign host.

    --
    [Connection closed by foreign host]
  28. my experience by Tiro · · Score: 3
    I use a 56K external serial port modem, and I consitently get 48000 bps connections. Its on a dual boot system. Performance under Linux is kickass, with 5-7 KB/sec downloads from bandwidth-rich software download sites. I still get a kick about going to Freshmeat, finding a killer app, and downloading it with lynx all in the time it would take me to even figure out what I need for the job under Windows.

    Under win98, net performance is mediocre but I think we can blame that on the win tcp stack. [If John Carmack says it sucks, that's enough evidence for me :]

    That being said, I live in a fifty year old house with fifty year old wiring and fifty year old telephone equipment on the poles in the alley.

    If you or your friends are getting poor performance, try another ISP [not aol btw]

    Also, stay away from winmodems!!! I paid $90 for this generic hardware modem, but its been well worth it over the last year.

    1. Re:my experience by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · · Score: 2
      That being said, I live in a fifty year old house with fifty year old wiring and fifty year old telephone equipment on the poles in the alley.

      I.E. (probably) good quality copper wiring rather than the chinsy stuff they put in today (as time goes on, people cut corners more and more), work that was done by professionals who knew what they were doing and none of those new-fangled pair gain devices (which allow one pair to the central office to connect 2 phone lines with reduced bandwidth). Old can be better.

      --
      Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
    2. Re:my experience by tzanger · · Score: 1

      In the heyday, USR and Cardinals were pretty high-quality stuff. Now it seems to be the land of Diamond.

      I agree. USR used to be really really good. Now I opt for GVC over all. If you want some WinModem that sucks down your P3-700, go ahead. If you've got the system to drive it right, you'll have no problems. However if you want your processor for yourself and don't want to be cluttering up your PCI bandwidth with a trillion requests about how to convert a certain screech into data and vice versa and actually want to have decent ping times for online gaming, get a true blue hardware modem. WinModems just aren't worth it IMO.

      In a slightly different mode of thought... I've found that USR Total Control Centers tend to favour (duh) USR modems and have difficulty with a variety of others, although they seem to speak fairly well to WinModems. Portmasters have the worst time with WinModems in my experience.

    3. Re:my experience by Chep · · Score: 1

      Amen brother !

      I owned several Supra modems (from the time Supra was still an independent quality). They simply *rocked*. And with that continuous speed panel... Mmmm... still getting nice chills thinking about it.

    4. Re:my experience by Seumas · · Score: 2
      In the heyday, USR and Cardinals were pretty high-quality stuff. Now it seems to be the land of Diamond. I've had poor connections with every ISP I've used (never below 28.8k of course) but the last one used Diamond Supra-Expresses. So I dished out a couple hundred bucks and bought a 56k external Supra-Express v.90.

      I connected fine, for three days. Then my connections dropped to around 32k, consistantly. Upon further investigation, I found out that the ISP had dumped all of their Supra's for a cheaper set of Zoom's.

      But no connection was ever as poor as what I have now, while waiting for DSL. I expected to have kick-ass connections and bandwidth available in Silicon Valley. I mean, if you can't get reliable connections there.. well, where the hell can you?

      Of course, you can -- just not over PacBell's lines. You have to get DSL, which is what everyone and their grandmother have around here -- as long as you have the patience to wait.
      ---
      seumas.com

    5. Re:my experience by alecto · · Score: 1

      Also, stay away from winmodems !!!

      Tell it, brother!

      I'll go a step further and recommend that if one is going to invest $100 or so in a new modem, to buy an external. Your mental health professional will thank you when you have to troubleshoot anything.

  29. Why 53k? by h2odragon · · Score: 1

    FCC power regulations. Possibly there's a reason for the rule, somehow I doubt it. They the gubmint, they know best...

    1. Re:Why 53k? by Detritus · · Score: 1

      It's a limit on transmit power to prevent crosstalk.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  30. Re:ITU Agrees on V.94 standard by qnonsense · · Score: 2

    It's the extra upstream!!! The download hardly matters. 32 kbps to 48 kbps. That's a good lot. The download, as you said hardly matters. (The call waiting looks fun though.)

    --
    There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
  31. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Cyberllama · · Score: 1

    While using windows, I was, according to DUN, able to connect at 44000 bps, sometimes 48000 bps. This was using netzero no less. I know of some people who have told me they can't get better than 31200, but usually they've traced that back to bad/old phone lines.

  32. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Eil · · Score: 3


    I would like to agree. Modems were fine when telephone lines were the only signal that could transmit digital data to/from the common household and text-based BBSes were the norm.

    But things have changed. Now that the internet has come about and has the capability to serve multimedia data to millions of people at once, 20-some-odd thousand bits per second just isn't going to keep up.

    I personally have to question the motives of the telephone companies. They claim (or used to claim) that all the modem traffic was saturating their networks to the point of reducing the quality of service for voice callers. They are ticked that ISPs are using *their* telephone networks for essentially free while charging their $20 a month for internet access. This is the primary reason, I expect, that our telephone networks (here in the US) haven't really seen any additional upgrades or accomidations to increase the quality of service for modem users.

    DSL? I think it *could* be the magic ingredient for widespread low-cost internet access if the telco's would only let it. Here in Albuquerque, we've been promised DSL by various companies for the last few years and still there is none available for private consumers. NONE. Rumour has it that our local telephone monopoly, US West, is denying DSL providers access to the lines. If anyone from around here can provide more info or prove me wrong, please do.

    Meanwhile, I'm stuck with a maximum of 28.8 despite my V.90 modem, because all the fucking phone lines in this part of town are multiplexed and AD/DA converted a few times before the signal even sees a CO.

  33. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Cyberllama · · Score: 1

    When I was using dial-up, I always connected at 44000. I do not know how this speed is derived/calculated, but I could tell you that it translated to about 3.5-4k upstream, and 5-5.5k downstream I got. Now I'm on cable (fast cable too, 100k up/300k down), so I dont' worry about such things anymore.

  34. Re:Hoorah! by Goonie · · Score: 2
    Yes, cable might only be available in the capitals, but, if you can get it, it's very good quality connection (reliable 128kbit upstream/400kbit downstream, ~20 ms pings to most Australian sites, and ~300ms pings to the US), and by world standards it's not badly priced either (60 AUD/month - that's about 35 USD).

    I don't like Telstra much either, but this isn't a bad service.

    --

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
    --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
  35. I assume this won't help me at all. by antdude · · Score: 2

    I cannot get any ADSL, SDSL, and cable modem services. DSL is too far from a C.O. (I am on a hill). Adelphia does not service cable modem in my area. I can get IDSL, but I don't have 109.95+ U.S. dollars to pay per month for a year contract and 144kb/sec max (it is too slow for me).

    Worse is with analog modems, I can only get 26400 to 28800 connections. Once in a while, I can get 31200 but my 56K modems (all types) detect major errors at this speed. 28800 is stable.

    Would this V.92 help me at all or will I still be in the same situation? I look forward to receiving replies soon. :)

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  36. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So your machine 40 miles across town has a T1 hooked into a terminal server as its modem? Because you can't get above 33.6K with a 56k modem on each end.

    So you're either lying, or stupid.

    Which is it?

  37. Re:48 kilobits? by sgage · · Score: 1
    "If you can't get broadband ... move."

    Unless, of course, you have a real life.

  38. Broadband statistics from ZDNET... by antdude · · Score: 2

    I read this article today and thought it was interesting: here. I am one of those who can't get high-speed connections and get crappy speed analog modem speed (26400-28800 on a 56K). :(

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  39. Annother technological innovation.... by Arctic+Fox · · Score: 4
    ...spurred on by the demand for pornography.

    ----------------
    Programming, is like sex.

    1. Re:Annother technological innovation.... by Nick+Mitchell · · Score: 1

      Naw, the cost of uploading porn is amortized over more than enough downloads to make upstream bandwidth inconsequential!

    2. Re:Annother technological innovation.... by levendis · · Score: 2

      Highly offtopic, but.........

      A friend of mine wrote a program to hop onto a given list of usenet groups and download all attached binaries that end with .jpg. Running that thing for about an hour on my cable modem resulted in 500+ megs of porn, some of which was so disturbing it haunts me to this very day.

      Cheeio

      --
      ---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
    3. Re:Annother technological innovation.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
      Annother technological innovation spurred on by the demand for pornography.

      From the simpsons:

      Geek: "I've invented a way to download porn off the internet one million times faster!"

      Marge: "Does anyone really need that much porno?"

      Homer: "Mmmmmmmm.... One million times.... [drool]!"

  40. Re:on be accommodate Unit was by sgage · · Score: 1
    "Detritus the standard past on 27awards7"

    I found myself agreeing with your post 100% until I encountered this statement. Surely you meant something different?

  41. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by tzanger · · Score: 2

    Ninety percent of the dial-ups I've used in the last three years have connected at 31200bps or lower, with 56k modems (modems on both ends utilizing either Flex or x2).

    As the technical admin for a smallish ISP (96 lines, moving soon to well over 1300 though) I am kind of surprised to hear this. We use Cisco AS5200s and have competitors with total control centres and portmasters. Nobody has a problem offerring 56k and most of our connections are in the 45kbps range, with a few as high as 53k.

    We will be moving to Nortel CVX boxen very soon (within 2 months) and that'll replace the old 12-port cards and the AS5200s with a single "cube" which interfaces directly with an SS7 and a DS3 and provides 1344 ports per unit. Throw on CNID (Called Number ID, we can tell what number you dialled) and you have a box which can support any number of ISPs, turning yet another technical business into nothing more than a VAR with a RADIUS server.

    Seriously though, even at 7:1 user:line ratios (about as high as you can get before busy signals become the norm) we have not had a single complaint, neither with our connection speeds nor our busys. Hit a 7.2:1 and the busy signal complaints start pouring in. :-)

  42. As George Castanza would say.... by Goody · · Score: 1

    ...jimmy crack corn, and I don't care...

    Eeeking another couple bits out of an already over hacked, compressed, digital signal processed bit stream over 1920's technology (copper loops) is still slow 1920's technology. Oh wait...DSL is also the same thing -- a bit stream coated with vaseline, shoe-horned onto a copper pair !

    --
    Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
  43. Looks good to me... by affegott · · Score: 1

    I wonder when we will start to see modems that can handle this... the call wating feature looks cool. I always wondered why a modem couldn't listen for it... then alert you. Oh well.

    I wonder how much you can actaully pump through a phone line? 56k is pretty darn fast for POTS.

    1. Re:Looks good to me... by trotsky81 · · Score: 2

      My modem supports call waiting, and it's Linux compatible!! Actiontec makes a PCI and USB V.90 Call Waiting modem. The call waiting doesn't work all the time, but it's better than a crappy Winmodem. Unfortunately, if you talk on the phone for more than a few seconds you get disconnected from your ISP, but you get your phone calls. I'm happy with it myself.

  44. Animal Cruelty by MicroBerto · · Score: 1
    This is what you call "Beating A Dead Horse."

    I work in the field and know it all too well.

    Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto

    --
    Berto
    1. Re:Animal Cruelty by DavidOgg · · Score: 1

      Agreed. The future is a dedicated broadband line, name your flavor.

      The ONLY thing a modem is good for mowdays is faxing. period.

      --
      Fear the government that fears your guns. Fear the government that fears your computers. Remove them from my email.
    2. Re:Animal Cruelty by sethgecko · · Score: 1
      Not just a dialect, but a conscious effort on the part of American lexicographers, particularly Noah Webster, to promote American independence through breaking with traditional English spelling. This was at the beginning of the 1800's. Webster was also a simpleminded bastard who wanted to phoneticize English spellings. Fortunately, many of his more drastic changes did not last (dropping of final e's, etc), but changes such as flavour to flavor and civilisation to civilization stuck. Don't blame us poor Americans. Blame Noah Webster, and blame your own British imperialist tendencies which necessitated American etymological independence. Happy Independence Day, aka Fourth of July!

      --
      Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
  45. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Seumas · · Score: 1
    You can enable compression methods when connecting (not sure if this works if the modems are not matched-brands -- probably, as long as they support the same compression algorithms).

    Granted, this is a bit of a cheat, but my theory was that if I could connect at a sufficient speed modem-to-modem over analog lines, then my ISP connection should be similary successful, regardless of the compression (connection itself was still at or near 33k).

    The ZOOM offered at least a couple methods of compression, but I had never used it before, so I stuck with one and gave it a shot. Effectively, you could enable full compression and transfer at 115k. The same amount of data is being sent and received, of course -- but my main point is that if I can do a modem to modem connect with full compression and find better performance, why can something similar not be approached with my ISP? Especially if we're both using the same modems? (I have no idea of your average ISP actually enables such connections - they may not).

    My experience with this is pretty shallow and I've not heard much from people regarding using the compression techniques available with their modems, even back when such a thing would have been extremely beneficial. I'm curious to know if this was a feature manufacturers packed in that was largely overlooked by users and never taken advantage of, or not. Of course, not useful for an ISP in general (and I'm going out on a bit of a whim) but for relatively closed systems still requiring such a connection, I would think it would be to one's best interest to implement this, no?
    ---
    seumas.com

  46. Re:Starcraft/Quake/etc.. by Legerdemain · · Score: 1

    Im just thinking if a modem has the "feature" to allow call waiting to "work", then people wont dial *70. Then when they play some low latency game, they will forget to re-add *70.

    Right now it is easy, everyone simply disables call waiting because you get hung up.

  47. Upgrades? Call interruption in the OS? and more.. by Karpe · · Score: 1

    Will I be able to upgrade by upgrading the flash in the modem? I guess this is possible, but this will not be an option for "monetary" reasons..

    And if the uplink connection can go as high as 48kbps, isn't it possible to connect now two regular modems at higher speeds, like some upgrade of v.34+?

    And when the modem interrupts because there is an incoming call, how will it signal to the OS? Perhaps it will be transparent, the connection just stops sending/receiving data while you are talking, but then our pppds should not be any timeouts..

    Comments?

  48. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by porky_pig_jr · · Score: 1

    On a very noisy line I was getting something like 19Kbps, Compaq Armade with built-in modem; at some point I've downloaded a new microcode and got around 45Kbps, on the same noisy line. If you got a shitty modem which is not PROM-upgradable,and can't shelve a few bucks to get a decent one - well, it is *your* and not v.92 problem.

  49. Re:You're spamming beer guy, aren't you? by Money__ · · Score: 1

    Aren't you the same /.er who just got done spamming the message area of the last few stories with ascii art?
    ___

  50. Sure, it's not important for you, but... by Nicholas+Vining · · Score: 1

    Sure, we've got DSL and Cable Modem and what-have-you, but not everybody does. There are still places where these things are a rarity, or too pricey to afford. (Or, in some areas, where Linux users can't actually USE the local DSL provider's system because the proprietary logon software is Windows only...)

    Think, for instance, third-world countries. No way will broadband connections be affordable. I believe that it's even pretty bad in some parts of Europe.

    The complaints about "too little, too late" just go to show that most /. readers come from the States and Canada. :-)

    Nicholas

    --
    disclaimer: opinions contained therein are not neccessarily those of my employer.
    1. Re:Sure, it's not important for you, but... by treke · · Score: 1

      Unless I'm missing something, that takes two machines. Not everyone has or has room for two machines, especially a useless win98 box.
      treke

    2. Re:Sure, it's not important for you, but... by DigitalDragon · · Score: 1

      where Linux users can't actually USE the local DSL provider's system because the proprietary logon software is Windows only...)

      Try using Samba.


      --
      http://dtum.livejournal.com
    3. Re:Sure, it's not important for you, but... by alecto · · Score: 1

      I'm hoping 3com will provide me an upgrade to my USR Courier, just because I want it to still be "v.everything." :>.

      If you want DSL and the only thing stopping you is a proprietary login that only runs under Windows, here is a remedy:

      1. Acquire a legally licensed, Bill sanctioned, Mother approved, copy of Windows 98 Second Edition. I understand eBay is a good source.

      2. Attach the DSL modem to the machine. Let the telco tech do his/her thing (install network card, attach DSL modem, set up evil proprietary login software).

      3. Wait for the tech to leave (this step may be skipped in some locales).

      4. Install another network card (ideally the same kind--only one set of drivers to deal with then).

      5. Enable "Internet Connection Sharing". Reboot several times in the process. Run the evil properietary login program.

      6. Plug your Linux/FreeBSD/VMS/Amiga box into the shiny new second network card, via a crossover cable or a hub. Make sure to set it to use DHCP to get an IP address.

      7. Congratulations, your Linux/FreeBSD/VMS/Amiga box is now attached to the internet at DSL speed! If you don't use the Win98 box for anything else, you should only have to reboot it about every 47 days.

    4. Re:Sure, it's not important for you, but... by alecto · · Score: 1

      It does take two machines, but you can use a darn minimal Win98 machine to do this. It can be a headless beige uATX in a corner somewhere once it's running. And if someone can't spare $150-$200 to make one, they probably can't part with $40-$100 per month for DSL, either.

    5. Re:Sure, it's not important for you, but... by treke · · Score: 1

      But the 40-100 bucks for dsl is providing a useful service to me. The 150 bucks for another machine that is simply serving the DSL really isn't. Honestly I could afford the machine, although i could probably come up with something cheaper than 150 bucks, but for some people it would be an extra expense without much gain. Obviously support for linux would be much better, but won't likely happen if people were to just buy a Windows machine to logon.
      treke

    6. Re:Sure, it's not important for you, but... by alecto · · Score: 1

      Given the relative number of Linux advocates compared with that of nice, docile Windows users, I don't think pressuring the ISPs will be effective in changing login schemes.

      Telling an ISP they're losing a customer if their service is Windows only is like voting for the Green or Libertarian parties. It's standing on priciple, and things would change if everyone who felt the same way did it. Unfortunately, they don't, and that's the reality operate in.

  51. xDSL and Cable isn't everywhere by Shut · · Score: 2

    This is good for those who are just about out of the loop for getting DSL or have a Cable company which isn't even equipped to roll out Cable internet in the general area of the Cable building.

    You can check for DSL subscription rates and service areas at DSLReports, but they themselves claim that phone companies may disagree with the distance or service areas we provide you with.

    Cable and DSL providers are not equipped to handle the millions of people who would love having a broadband connection now, what makes you think they'll remedy this by November 2000, rendering this standard useless? I've been checking with BellAtlantic over the past 2 years for DSL, and they haven't even come close to exdpanding their service area to my home. I doubt they will compensate 2 years sloth in the period of 5 months. Nevermind Cablevision's arcane method of rolling out Cable Internet to its customers (its only available in Rhode Island and Connecticut, while its main offices are in New Jersey). Whatever spruces up my Dial-Up internet connection is a good thing in my, and any other Dial-Up user's, opinion. The only bad part is that I'll have to find a hardware-based modem that supports the new standard.

    1. Re:xDSL and Cable isn't everywhere by Van+Halen · · Score: 1

      Wow, if I had moderator points today, I'd bump this comment up another notch. I just tried DSL Reports and found lots of great information. After checking with several ISPs, I was under the impression that I was too far from the CO for DSL. It turns out they were all using erroneous information from Covad and my CO is 262 feet away (which I was kinda suspecting...). Time to look into DSL again!

  52. Really? by Whelkman · · Score: 3

    I live in South Jersey, and this area has been slated for broadband access "in the next three months" since early 1998. Our local cable company who was bought out by Comcast no longer even mentions the idea of bringing cable Internet to this area.

    I spoke with a person who works at Bell Atlantic and he said the demand for DSL in this area is huge but Bell doesn't want to put the money in for upgrading the backbone. They don't believe they'll profit even with the large demand. Far from it: in many areas around here, they're doing some "splitting" trick with the phone lines, breaking the 64 kbit channel into two 32 kbit ones. Of course, this makes dialup access suck like hell. I almost cream myself when I get 3K/sec on binary downloads.

    ISDN is nearly impossible to afford around here since "residential" plans aren't offered. All the plans are aimed for medium sized businesses and are priced accordingly.

    At this point, I'd love to have anything: cable, DSL, or even cheap ($50/month or less) ISDN, but it ain't happening. So for you who think DSL is "everywhere," think again. it's not, and not even close.

    Intrestingly enough, Bell Atlantic says that DSL will be available in my area "in the next six months," but I have a feeling any area which does not currently offer it carries that message.

  53. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Stephen+Samuel · · Score: 1
    Essentially free?! What are you smoking?! The ISP I work at pays approximately $2400 per month for the use of 96 DEAs (phone lines).
    OK, so that's about $25/line/month .. not much more than a regular residential phone line. Difference is, most residential phone lines are used less than a couple of hours a day. Modem lines probably have ~30-90% utilization. That's what originally pissed off telco's about them.

    Then telcos started to notice that (a) people started installing second lines for their modems, (b) heavy modem use was after business hours (non-peak), which meant that

    1. They were getting more money per household
    2. It was using existing infrastructure at off-peak hours
    Although they might have continued to lobby regulators for extra charges on the line ($why not?), most telcos were probably secretly happy to have modem lines come in.

    There are, of course, exceptions. In the mid '90s one ISP opened a large modem pool in New Westminister because it gave them toll-free access to the Largest part of the metropolitan Vancouver population. The telco sales people were happy, but I guess that they didn't explain things to engineering. Nobody bothered to provision extra bandwith for all of these high-utilization lines. They brought up the new modem pool and, soon thereafter, brought down phone service for the whole exchange.
    `ø,,ø`ø,,ø`ø,,ø`ø

    --
    Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
  54. Re:Hoorah! by ncc74656 · · Score: 1
    Gotta correct you here... ISDN is laughably expensive (coming from someone who has 128kbps to BigPong Direct)... but the line charges are capped: AU$275/month for 64kbps and AU$435/month for 128kbps - for a "permanent connection" (i.e. your line is dialled up to the one number, and when it disconnects it redials that)...

    Ow...even after converting to US $, that's still a fortune. Do they include Vaseline in that price? They should. :-)

    (I probably shouldn't mention that I'm getting the same upstream speed and 4x the downstream speed through my cable-modem hookup for $40/month. Even here, ISDN is a ripoff by comparison...not as bad as you have it, but it costs at least as much (probably more) as cable-modem service, and it only delivers 128 kbps. Two POTS lines and a MLPPP connection would be almost as good as ISDN, and cheaper too.)

    _/_
    / v \
    (IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
    \_^_/

    --
    20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  55. Re:Upgrades? by pen · · Score: 1
    (Yes, I know that I'm replying to a troll, but I couldn't resist.)

    When I was buying a new modem, I needed an external one. Besides, IMHO, being more reliable, they also have those neato LEDs that may also come in handy.

    Since I'm familiar with the brand, and since I considered them to be reliable, I went for a U.S. Robotics at first. I bought an open-box unit for about 2/3 the price and went home to enjoy it. After about 12 hours of continuous use, it died.

    Not being easily discouraged, I returned that one, and bought a second identical unit, this time still in its original shrink-wrap, and for full-price. Guess what? The same thing happened.

    So I returned another modem, and bought a Zoom modem instead.

    • It's been happily chugging along ever since. It is connected virtually 24 hours a day, and I haven't had any problems yet.
    • It has more LEDs than the U.S. Robotics modem, and they are actually useful. It has four "mode" lights: V34, 56K, FAX, and MSG. Since I have a sucky phone line, there is often noise, and sometimes the modem will lose the connection, and renegotiate into V34 mode. The LED lets me know this, and I know to drop the connection and reconnect.
    • It isn't nearly as ugly. Besides the old 2400 Hayes modems with the aluminum bodies, I've yet to see a nicer-looking external modem.

    --

  56. Re:Wonder How The Telcos Have Been Taking This by Schnedt+McWapt · · Score: 1

    For a slightly higher fee?

    I have an amusing anecdote to tell.

    I was a US West customer about six months ago. I established a dialup account with them with the understanding that they would be billing me direct on my phone bill. A few months later I switched to Earthlink. I called up US West and told them to get rid of my account.

    About two weeks ago I decided to give US West another try. I connected to their website to establish another account. When I submitted my phone number, it told me there was already an account at that phone number. So I dug out my old dialup settings for the US West account. Lo and behold it still works! And they've never, ever, charged me a dime for the account on my phone bill. My account must have slipped into a crack in the floor or something.

    My friend has a DSL account with US West. He claims his phone bill since getting DSL (just a single line of regular service in addition to the DSL) has never been less than $70 a month.

    So I would say that the 'slightly higher fee is more than infinitely times higher, at least in my case, since even infinity times zero dollars doesn't equal 70 dollars.

    If I need broadband, say to grab the latest NetBSD ISO or some more Slackware, I can connect to my workplace (SecureID dialup) and telnet into an OS/2 machine at night and manually FTP a whole 600MB .ISO in less than an hour. I have a CD burner at work to bring it home.

  57. Re:ISDN in the States ? by Dahan · · Score: 1
    Sure, ISDN has been available for quite a few years... I think I got my line in 1994. The problem is that the phone companies here supply a U interface, rather than an S/T. This means you have to supply your own NT1, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but that's led to CPE manufacturers integrating the NT1 into the device. Bad... now you can't hook up anything else to the line. (Unless the manufacturer was nice enough to include a S/T port... Cisco 7xx routers, for example).

    In the US, people just use ISDN for a fast Internet connection, rather than actually using it as an Integrated Services Digital Network. Almost nobody uses ISDN telephone sets, and as a result, they're pretty expensive. The phone companies don't know what to do if you do want to use an ISDN phone; I've been trying to get my phone company (Southwestern Bell) to add a few call appearances to my line, and they screwed it up, making my line non-functional. They reverted back to the previous configuration, and are now trying to figure out what to do next... it's been over a month now.

    Anyways, I guess that wasn't really relevant to what you were saying, but I felt like complaining :) At least in my area, a plain ISDN line with no extra voice features (no calling number delivery, no call forwarding, no call waiting, etc...) is about the same price as two analog lines, with no per-minute charges for local calls. Not a bad deal... However, if you do want the extra voice features, they cost more than the equivalents on a POTS line :(

    I'm generally quite happy with my ISDN line; I can't get DSL or cable modem access where I am, but if/when I can, I'll probably keep the ISDN line and use it just for voice calls.

  58. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by tzanger · · Score: 2

    They are ticked that ISPs are using *their* telephone networks for essentially free while charging their $20 a month for internet access.

    Essentially free?! What are you smoking?!

    The ISP I work at pays approximately $2400 per month for the use of 96 DEAs (phone lines). I guess you could claim that we are using their switching equipment (what routes our customer's exchanges to ours) for free but I don't buy it. If they would clue in and drop the prices on allowing us to either lease ports off their DSLAMs or put in our own I could see your arguement. The telcos don't want to put in the infrastructure to take the burden off. They're making more money off dialup.

    Hell one of the towns we have a POP in doesn't even have the infrastructure to support ISDN let alone DSL!

  59. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Schnedt+McWapt · · Score: 1

    I'd rather own the wiring in my walls, and be able to upgrade it at will, than have to deal with 'Central Services' (ob. 'Brazil' reference) tearing into the walls anytime they liked, and prohibiting me from doing anything to it.

  60. ITU Agrees on V.94 standard by jmv · · Score: 4

    The ITU just agreed on the V.94 Standard. This a great improvement on the older V.92, which allow only 56 kbps of download, while V.94 allows 58 kbps. That's a huge improvement of 2 kbps, allowing 1 free Meg of download every hour!

    My point is: who needs those improvements? 14.4 to 28.8 gave you a factor of two. V.90 to V.92 gives you almost nothing (add teh fact that the line noise will likely eliminate all this gain). It's like upgrading from a 700 MHz CPU to a 750 MHz. Except for marketing, I really don't see the idea.

    1. Re:ITU Agrees on V.94 standard by bjb · · Score: 1
      My point is: who needs those improvements? 14.4 to 28.8 gave you a factor of two. V.90 to V.92 gives you almost nothing (add teh fact that the line noise will likely eliminate all this gain). It's like upgrading from a 700 MHz CPU to a 750 MHz. Except for marketing, I really don't see the idea.

      Why? Because every little ounce of speed that I can get out of my modem cool, and especially since I made a wise decision back in 1994, I haven't bought a new modem in years. What I'm referring to is my USRobotics Courier v.Everything modem. I bought it in September of 1994 (it still has v.FAST markings on it) and back then it only did v.34, v.32 and v.FAST/FC (beta). Since then it's been upgraded several times and now does v.90, x2, etc. The cool part is I never paid a nickel for an upgrade (yes, publically legitimate, BTW).

      If its coming out, I'll take it!

      --

      --
      Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
    2. Re:ITU Agrees on V.94 standard by mede · · Score: 1

      Well, maybe you were reading another press release... As the press release instates, the real deal with the new standard is that the UPSTREAM is upgraded by a factor of 50%! (not 5% like you suggested) 33.6 to 48 Kbits/s means 15 Kbits/s more, which is about half of 33.6 Kbits/s. Also, you leave behind the great news that you can now put on hold your modem to take another call. Maybe you'll say you can always get another phone line, but there are some people whose internet usage doesn't deserve it (they may use it too little just for sending some messages), but want to be able to receive phone calls all the time.

  61. Re:ISDN in the States ? by treke · · Score: 1

    We've got it here in the US, but my experiences with it have been bad. It was more expensive than a traditional line, billed minutly. The speed was admittidly better than normal phone lines. I had a time getting both channels to connect reliably, but they seemed to be a problem with Win95s dial up networking.
    treke

  62. Any modems available yet? by Dahan · · Score: 1
    I admit I haven't been keeping up with the latest in POTS modems, not having had a need for 'em in a couple of years... but I haven't heard of any modems that have preliminary versions of v.92. Are there any? If not, I don't think v.92 will get anywhere... many months before v.90 was ratified (wasn't it over a year?), X2 and K56Flex modems were out and supported by ISPs. Before v.34{bis,ter,whatever the 33.6k standard is} came out, there were 33.6k modems using a preliminary protocol. The same was true back to the 9600 days, and perhaps even earlier. I remember when USR came out with their 9600 HST modems, before there was a v.32 standard. (v.32 was much nicer though... symmetric :)

    So, v.92's supposed to be approved in four months or so... shouldn't there be modems out already?

  63. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by tzanger · · Score: 2

    crap modems at the ISP's (Internet service, only $9.95/month!!!)

    Whoa there. Back up.

    We are offerring unlimited interactive dialup internet for 9.95/month (prepaid 1yr, $14.95/mo otherwise). Our equipment yields over 46k connections more than 75% of the time and we're expanding into a Nortel CVX POP box within two months.

    I certainly don't consider our service crappy, although I do agree with all your other points. Especially the WinModems. People seem to love buying a $25 WinModem and throwing it in a P100 and wondering why their connect rates are so shitty and there are so many line disconnections.

  64. Re:Upgrades? by Schnedt+McWapt · · Score: 1

    Yes. My USR Courier says 'V.everything' on it's front badge, and it started out as an x2, so it better be possible to upgrade it from v.90 to v.92.

  65. Re:Upgrades? by garcia · · Score: 1

    well, AFAIK 3Com/USR should have one out ASAP. When the 33.6 standard came out I know that soon after that I was upgrading my 28.8 Courier to a 33.6. When the 56k standard showed its face I did the same.

    I can only assume that vendors will allow upgrades on *some* of their modems, but I *know* 3Com/USR will have upgrades for at least the Courier :)

  66. Speaking of quick downloads... by Decimal · · Score: 1

    Why are the v.90 modems limited to a download
    speed of 53K? Will v.92 correct this shortcoming?

    --

    Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
    1. Re:Speaking of quick downloads... by troc · · Score: 2

      The v.90 etc limits have a lot to do with the fact that current modems (not cable modems etc) are analogue in nature and the set-up of an analogue phone lins is such that that's about all the data it can reliably handle - and then only in a perfect world.

      Most people with v.90 modems will never get anywhere near the limit of the technology due to crosstalk and other noise on the line.

      This has nothing really to do with the fact that it's a copper wire to your house, if you sent digital data through the copper, all nicely packet switched and stuff, you'd get Mbit rates with ease.

      Analogue bad, digital good :)

      Troc

      --
      Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
  67. Re:V.92 is dead before it even was born by Menthos · · Score: 2
    Just about everyone I know in my city has been using DSL.

    I think that's exactly the reason why old telephone modems won't be obsolete yet. Not everybody lives in cities. And getting ADSL or cable modem or something to that part of the population isn't going very fast. It's just to expensive. I can't imagine my parents getting anything close to that any time soon.

    On the other hand, I'm enjoying the 10 Mb/s ethernet connection I have had for two and a half years now, since I moved away from home. But one must realize that internet access can be entirely different worlds depending on where you live.

    --

    GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.

  68. V90 Standard... and this new thing by Cpt.+Fwiffo · · Score: 2

    Oh my,

    Being a helpdesker I really, *really* hope never to see *this* supported. I know the amount of troubles V90 gave (and K56Flex - oh, and let's not forget USR's X2), because to actually *get* a V90 connection you need to be *lucky* - i.e.
    - *your* telephone line shouldnt have too much interference,
    - the telephone company's switchers shouldn't interfere too much,
    - your modem should support it well (gawd the amount of time I've seen that those "WE ARE V90" stickers and found out that they *werent*...)
    - and for all windows users, there's this issue with Windows which has an instable Dial-up Networking which seems quite happy to NOT work when you reinstall everything - even if it did before.

    and if *all* that works for you, and you actually *do* get a connection at more then 33k6 bps then you can only hope that it's *stable* - which, in about 50 % of all connections, it isn't, due to the aforementioned reasons.

    No, V90 is like balancing on the edge of the cliff of what's possible using analog (non-DSL) modems, and as such it's just another way to drive up sales.
    (and make crappier modems - the modem industry probably learned from MS that you dont need a good product, as long as the people dont know it's not good).
    Pushing it even further is nice for a theoretical discussion and proof of human capabilities to crank (possibly) even more out of an already overstretched way of communication, but it's already too unstable.

    Cpt. Fwiffo

  69. It's Internet Call Waiting! by LJ · · Score: 2

    Forget the speed increase -- I want Internet Call Waiting! That will free up my phone line until my DSL arrives. Imagine that, talking to real people! (For me, a little more important than 16 kbps)

    Additionally, this feature will allow others to avoid giving the monopolistic telco's another $20/month for a second line.

  70. The ARPANET backbone was built from 56Kbs Links! by edhall · · Score: 2

    And the leased lines it used were damned expensive, too; the cheaper leased lines used by some leaf nodes were actually as slow as 8Kbps. This was true as little as 18 years ago, back when TCP/IP was just being invented. (Betcha didn't know that the ARPANET didn't always use TCP/IP.) So it's silly to say that TCP/IP wasn't designed for such low datarates -- at the time there wasn't much that was faster.

    -Ed
    ARPAnaut since '76
  71. Wrong definitions! by Amadawn · · Score: 1
    I beg to differ, but your definitions are not (totally) correct.

    There are two main parameters that define a channel, its central frequency (sort of "how fast the signal changes on average") and its bandwidth ("how fast the signal changes around that average").

    Narrowband, as you said, is a signal transmitted through a narrow band. That usually means that it's bandwidth is "small" compared to the central frequency at which it is transmitted. What is "small"? There is not an exact definition for that, but let me give you an example. The GSM wireless telephone system is considered to be narrowband. In it the central frequency can be around 900 MHz, 1800 MHz or 1900 MHz, while the bandwidth of each channel is 200 kHz (i.e. 5000 to 10000 times smaller than the central frequency).

    On the other hand, wideband and broadband are more or less the same, i.e. the opposite of narrowband. The future UMTS wireless telephony system will be wideband, with a central frequency around 2 GHz (2000 MHz) and a channel bandwith around 5 MHz (i.e. 400 times smaller than the central frequency).

    What you call broadband is in fact called "frequency multiplexing", "Frequency Division Multiple Access" or FDMA, i.e. using multiple carrier frequencies to diviede a medium into many different bands.

    Baseband, as you said means that your central frequency is zero. However an Ethernet system is also able to have more than one user at a time. But instead of using Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) it uses Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), because all users use the same frequency but do not transmit at the same time.

    This is in fact a simplicitation and sligthly inaccurate, because normally in a TDMA system there are "time slots" or times at which you can start to transmit, while in ethernet you can transmit anytime you want and you only stop if two or more users transmit simultaneously, thus causing a "collision" between them. In that case they will all wait for a random amount of time and try again. This procedure is often called Random Access.

    I hope this helps. Cheers,

    Angel

    1. Re:Wrong definitions! by mindstrm · · Score: 2

      Thanks for the clarification... as you say, though.. tdme deals iwth 'time slots', not simply having more than one transmitter separated temporally.

      A PRI circuit would be TDMA, as each 'channel' is defined by a particular timeslice.

      Ethernet is CSMA/CD, and may or may not be baseband depending on the medium. Also, according to 802.3, the backoff is not'random' but binary exponential.

  72. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by ncc74656 · · Score: 1
    Dozens of people have complained to me over the last year or two, about their inability to connect to their 56k account at anything higher than 19200bps. That's 19200bps! I haven't seen connections like that since late in 1994!

    You think 19.2 kbps is bad? The company for which I work had (until recently) a store in Milpitas, CA. My understanding is that Milpitas is somewhere in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley general neighborhood (having never lived in the People's Republic of California, I'm not too familiar with what's where there). Anyway, each store had a point-of-sale system that we could dial into and take over with pcAnywhere. We use US Robotics controller-based modems (usually externals, never Winmodems) at each store and at the home office. Connections to most other stores would run from the mid-20s to the low 30s, but we'd always connect to the Milpitas store at the whopping fast speed of 9600 bps!

    (When we called PacBell (the local phone company up there) about the problem, they passed some BS off on us about how that was as much speed as they'd guarantee for a POTS line. Yeah, whatever...)

    At least I get a consistent 512 kbps out of the cable modem at home...I've not even had the bog-downs that other people have complained about.

    _/_
    / v \
    (IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
    \_^_/

    --
    20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  73. Re:Call Waiting (SOT) by tzanger · · Score: 2

    Why would anybody want a PCI OR an ISA modem in the first place? Don't you realize that with any internal modem, you're plugging your computer into a big antenna for lightening strikes and other unpleasantries?

    Any lightning strike great enough to blow your modem to ratshit is great enough to travel along a 5' length of 26AWG to your computer and take it out, too. If the lightning strike only fries the modem and/or it's protection circuitry that same circuitry is in the internal modem as well, as part of the Part-15 interface.

    I used to think the same way as you but in the last three years I've come to the conclusion that the extra wall wart and cabling and plastic box with lights doesn't give me a whole lot of advantage to the card in the computer. I can tell what's going on with pppd -debug or -kdebug and ifconfig.

    Besides, that's what backups and insurance are for.

  74. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by linzeal · · Score: 1

    Pacbell, eh ?

    They have oversold the 408-650 area codes over by 5000 subscribers +/- 1000, and guess what they keep on advertising!!

    I'm running on a pacbell DSL circuit right now in the 408 luckily. However, when the install techs came out here to do their 30 dollar an hour overtime hocus-pocus for 6 hours they still could not even manage to install the PPPOE adapter on a Win98 box, and I will not play with windows 98 and it's perverted routing to fix it. Running fine on mandrake 7.0 with Roaring Penguin's wonderous little PPPOE client.

  75. Re:Glad I waited on V.90 upgrade... by fekihr · · Score: 1

    Hmm... ...
    When it's free?
    (yeah, right - just like I said. never.)
    Just look where ISDN went. It's still expensive as hell. It still sucks. It Still Does Nothing - lol - I love that one.

    Who I feel sorry for are those people who rushed out and picked up ISDN lines ... (LOL). And got ripped good. (L-even-LOUDER).
    IMHO - It's - like you (pretty much) said - just another waste of time / money / etc....
    -FekIhr : monkey - scripter - jerk -

    --
    -FekIhr : monkey - scripter - jerk -
    http://www.fekihr.com
  76. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Seumas · · Score: 2
    Machine to machine? What are you talking about? You mean, modem to modem? What brand? As I explained above, when I was goofing around with modem to modem connections from work to home, I was enabling the provided compression methods. My real connect was likely 33k (or pretty damned close).

    If you were getting a literal 40k+ connection, you were probably not connecting from (or maybe to) a standard modem? If you're using anything but an analog connection from one machine, you probably weren't connecting directly to your other modem. In fact.. I'm not even sure how you could connect if it were from an ISDN or other service to a modem...?
    ---
    seumas.com

  77. Re:Glad I waited on V.90 upgrade... by Stefan+MacGeek · · Score: 1

    ISDN works well for me - but I live in Germany. You can say much against the german Telekom, but they did a good job of supporting ISDN. I have two 64kBit channels that can be combined for Internet access, or I can surf with 64k and leave the other channel free for phone use. Monthly cost is twice that of an analog line, but I effectively get two lines. And while 64kBit/s doesn't seem a big improvement over a 56k modem, it is noticeably faster - partly due to the lower latency of an ISDN line compared to a modem, I think. On the other hand, you cannot get a cable modem over here - the cable TV network is hopelessly outdated and must be upgraded to support a return channel. Our beloved Telekom has only recently been forced to sell of the TV cable network, and they evidently had no interest in upgrading it. But you can at least get ADSL now in most cities. Stefan

  78. Get your terminology right by moonlit2 · · Score: 1

    I'm getting mildly irritated by the use of the word "broadband" in the media today. Broadband has absolutely NOTHING to do with bandwidth or speed. Broadband is a term used to describe a medium that can carry data over several channels at once (e.g. wavelengths in a fiber, carrier frequencies in radio etc). Mediums that can only carry one channel at a time (like Ethernet) are called Baseband. Remember "10baseT" ? Guess what the "base" stands for... / Moonlit

    --
    - Yup. He got it.
    1. Re:Get your terminology right by Detritus · · Score: 1
      You are all wrong :-). Baseband means the data signal is directly connected to the wire, like an RS-232 serial interface. Broadband means that the data signal is used to modulate one or more carriers, also known as FDM (frequency division multiplexing). Broadband supports multiple channels.

      The signal transmitted by an FM radio station is broadband, the audio output of an FM receiver is baseband.

      The base in 10base2 stands for baseband, the broad in 10broad36 stands for broadband.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  79. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Heero+Yuy · · Score: 1

    Sympathy well taken.... :-)

    No Joe Average user wants to hear that their brand spankin new $1200 computer has a $15 POS Winmodem in it.

    Customer: Why do you keep booting me off?
    Me: Sir, we do not boot users of under normal circumstances.
    Customer: Well, you boot me off all the time.
    Me: I can assure you we do not sir.

    Then after much repeating of instruction I find out what modem he has.....9 chances out of 10 its a Rockwell/Conexant HCF modem with an extremely outdated driver version.

    If Winmodem didn't exist call volume in the office would drop 75%.

    oh and btw, I live in a very rural area and have had access to a cable connection for about 2 years and ISDN even longer.

  80. international by kevin805 · · Score: 1
    You misread what Network Solutions told you. It isn't an invalid TLD, it's a TLD that Network Solutions doesn't register.

    For example, here's what a search for dwelle.de (German TV station) returned:

    Incorrect domain name query: Please use a valid tld[.com,.net,.org,.edu] or no tld at all. Alphanumeric characters and hyphens [which are not the first and last characters]are valid for a domain name query.


    .int is reserved for international organizations. I believe all UN and EU sites are registered under .int.

    --Kevin
  81. Re:Not a waste by orange+syringe · · Score: 1

    The above moderation, at the time of this writing, is (Score:0, Overrated). Proof Slashdot's moderation system is corrupt. Just because I pointed out a problem in Linux some $3 crack-smoking moderator has to mod me down.

    --

    Enjoy life, drink beer.
  82. Actually it's USA telcos' fault by enVee · · Score: 1

    Most of the 56k connections I've ever seen worked really well, sometimes up to 54k and rarely less than 48k, even in the small alpine towns I live around... (and this is Italy, not exactly the Eden of technology...(. Phone lines in the USA suck and everyone knows that.

  83. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by ncc74656 · · Score: 1
    But to test this theory, I tried connecting to another machine of mine 40 miles across town, running the same modem (at the time, a Zoom 56kFlex) and made it consistantly at 44k.

    How did you do this - the modem to modem connect?

    56k modem connecting to a 56k modem will only connect at 33.6k *maximum*.

    He could've had something like a USR Courier I-modem, which is an ISDN adapter that can act as the "server side" of a V.90 connection, at the remote site. A connection between two ordinary modems certainly wouldn't get anything beyond 33.6 kbps, as you noted.

    _/_
    / v \
    (IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
    \_^_/

    --
    20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  84. Re:ISDN in the States ? by Quidam · · Score: 1

    ISDN is not nearly as bad as ADSL. I work for an ISP that offers both, and most of the outages occur in ADSL. Personally they're both overrated. Road Runner on the other hand....*drool* I had to buy a new hard drive for all my MP3's...*LOL*

  85. Re:V.92 is dead before it even was born by Molina+the+Bofh · · Score: 3

    Last week my local central office installed DSL. I have been using it since. In fact, just about everyone I know in my city has been using DSL.
    "Broadband" is the wave of the future! POTS is good for fast and easy voice transmission, but admit it: it's dead for Internet.


    Sorry to disappoint you, but DSL *DOES* run on POTS by definition. That's the good thing about DSL. It doesn't require re-wiring, and your POTS will do. You can have a good explanation of DSL and its variations (ADSL, HDSL, SDSL, and others) here.

    --

    -
    Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
  86. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by pygat42 · · Score: 1

    then again, I have a 33.6 modem, and ever since I set my MTU to 1024, I've been downloading at 6.5-7K, occasionally going up to 8 for short amounts of time, so in effect, I HAVE a 56K (sometimes 64) modem.

    --
    Think --> Think Different --> Think OSS
  87. Wonder How The Telcos Have Been Taking This by Seumas · · Score: 2
    I bet the telco's put up a pretty big fight over this. They gain nothing from providing faster access over analog lines. Instead, they'd rather you switch over to one of their slick DSL lines, for a slightly higher fee...

    One thing I'm a bit curious about is this 'v42bis reccomendation'. I've never heard of this, and as far as I know, only v32 is currently supported or used.

    Anyone know more information about it?

    You know, I'm not so sure service providers are going to like the 'hold' feature that allows you to take an incoming call without disconnecting your network activity. Just what they need, someone taking up their network connection while they spend an hour talking to Aunt Beatrice...
    ---
    seumas.com

  88. Re:V.92 is dead before it even was born by Shadow99_1 · · Score: 2

    Frankly I am forced to live outside of the city where they don't understand someone might like DSL... Heck 3 cities within 75 miles of me are capable of using either DSL or Cable modems. I'm not living in the middle of a desert either... So their are probably 50 cities within that 75 miles which makes 3 of 50... Which is pretty small... I can't even get ISDN here, and only about another 20 or so cities in that area can get that...

    Guess what that means? That means that most of us around here have to use dial-ups. That or the phone company has to decide we are a market... Frankly the local cable company doesn't even have an office in this city because we are 'only' 5500 people, so I doubt they care for providing us broadband.

    My point is we don't all have the option of living in broadband access areas, so your point is completely worthless in the real world outside of the large cities with huge markets to spur the use of broadband installation...

    --
    we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
  89. More juice for us by DigitalDragon · · Score: 1

    Less household people will have cables the more bandwidth our providers give us. Already in some cities @Home is almost as slow as 56k modem. :)

    --
    http://dtum.livejournal.com
  90. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Seumas · · Score: 1
    Silicon Valley.

    Ironic, no?
    ---
    seumas.com

  91. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by B1ood · · Score: 2
    it's far too easy to blame the ISP's cheap modems than it is to realize that the phone lines and garbage modems that customers have are truly the problem. whenever i see an hcf winmodem i cringe because i know that they are utter crap and there are plenty of other types of modems being shipped by big names like compaq and hp that are a v.90 modem in name only. coupled with the fact that most telco's are less than willing to guarantee anything above a 14.4 connection and you have an equation for disaster. but what do people do? they read 56k v.90 on their spec sheet (if they even read it) and assume that if they don't get 56000 connects that their isp is cutting them short.

    B1ood

    --
    Note to self: pasty-skinned programmers ought not stand in the Mojave desert for multiple hours. -- John Carmack
  92. Re:Starcraft/Quake/etc.. by mwillis · · Score: 1

    Depending on your region, you might want to use the prefix *70

  93. Re:They said it couldn't be done! by Detritus · · Score: 4
    The limitation on modem speed was not a lack of imagination on the part of modem designers, it was a matter of cost. For example, a 9600 bps full-duplex modem in 1976 cost about $10,000. It replaced a 2400 bps full-duplex modem that used up half of a 19" rack. The availability of cheap, high-speed modems is directly related to improvements in integrated circuit density, speed and cost. Modern V.34 modems are the result of cheap, high-speed digital signal processor (DSP) technology.

    There is no magic bullet that will make modems run significantly faster that 33.6 kbps. For a given bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio, you can push only so many bits through a channel. V.90 technology cheats this by exploiting the fact that a subscriber's telephone line is not limited to 3 kHz of bandwidth, and is directly connected to a CODEC (coder/decoder) at a modern central office switch. If that isn't true, you are going to have to live with V.34 class speeds.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  94. DSL everywhere? Phone lines arn't everywhere... by Felinoid · · Score: 1

    The phone network is still expanding. There are areas it has yet to reach.
    It's taken decades to get the phone network everywhere it is today and it's not "job done" yet.
    I expect DSL to take less time but it won't be done very quickly...

    For people who wern't very importent to the POS network this'll be great for them.. becouse they won't see DSL for a long time yet...

    --
    I don't actually exist.
  95. Some of us are still on POTS. by jridley · · Score: 1

    I'd buy broadband if I could. No luck. Our cable company isn't interested. Also our phone switch won't do ISDN, and I'm too far away to do 56K, so even this won't help me. It's 28.8K for me, baby! Having a laptop with an 18GB drive helps; I telnet in, DL big files, then copy them to the laptop the next day. Yes, it's sneakernet. Remember, it'll be a lot of years before getting rid of modems is even an option for EVERYONE.

  96. Broadband is so important to me by ChozSun · · Score: 1

    I know and I sympathize with people who may not have a choice in receiving broadband services.

    The choice of country, state, city, neighborhood block is nearly solely dependent on one thing: is 1.5Mbps DSL available at my place of location.

    Don't give me "you will live in the area" b.s.. I want a technician who has been to the apartment/dwelling/home and verify that the line does work.

    Anything less is not acceptable. I have not access the internet with speeds slower than a cable modem. I will not go back.

    Thumbs down to Southwestern Bell and every other DSL provider who utilizes PPPoE and ends up strangling the life out of the customer's bandwidth


    ChozSun [e-mail]

    --
    ChozSun
    ChozSun.com
  97. Re:Call Waiting (SOT) by tzanger · · Score: 1

    According to Ann Landers, 3-5 people a year get killed by lightning over telephone wires a year in the US. Something to think about the next time you are smoking rocks.

    I fail to see what you're getting at.

    If you are on a computer with a modem (external or internal) and a lightning strike capable of killing you (i.e. it's directly on the telephone line outside your house or *very* close to it, not down at the CO or induced from the nearby power lines) you are at just as great a danger if the modem is internal or external. That 5' of 26AWG cable is not going to save you or your computer.

    Any sufficient length of phone line out on the pole will have some kind of lightning arrestor helping to protect it. Most lightning strkes that take out the modem without blowing it apart are just overvoltages which the metal oxide varistors (MOVs) weren't quick enough or powerful enough to protect against. Let me repeat it again. Your computer is not safe from a direct lightning strike, no matter what kind of modem you're using. You can only hope to save your equipment if you're using a combination of protection, and you don't have a hope in hell unless you're using station-class lightning arrestors. Those puppies don't fit into your typical external modem.

    Now there is a small band of lightning strike intensities which would fry a computer with an internal modem but not one with an external modem but that band is so narrow it's not worth the extra bother with the box and cabling and everything. That is what my reference to insurance and backups were all about, Mr. Coward.

    Now you are probably safer using a computer during a lightning strike than you are a phone but that is beside the point in this discussion.

    Next time you try to blow off a valid point with some inane bit of trivia and accuse me of drug abuse, think for a half second and ask yourself if what you're saying really really matters. I bet you'll close the window instead of hitting the submit button and polluting /. with just another bit of anemic squitter.

  98. Did i miss something? What is the .int TLD? by CaptainSuperBoy · · Score: 1
    Since I'm happily on my cable modem, the most interesting thing in this story to me is the URL: www.itu.int. What kind of new TLD is this? Who registers it? I tried to do a whois on it and network solutions told me it was an invalid TLD..

    I want to register www.sex.int and sell it for millions of dollars!

    --

    1. Re:Did i miss something? What is the .int TLD? by Phroggy · · Score: 2
      First time I've actually seen it in use, but .int is for international organizations; here's the IANA's page explaining what you have to do to get a domain under it.

      --

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  99. Why not update the POTS standard ??? by Stavr0 · · Score: 2

    Why don't the ITU start designing a new copper line standard with a, say, 8kHz bandwidth.
    1- The sound would be much clearer, AM radio quality
    2- It would immediately triple the bandwidth of dialups modems
    3- Unlike DSL, it would retain compatibility with existing equipments (Modems, Phones, FAX)
    ---

    1. Re:Why not update the POTS standard ??? by Detritus · · Score: 1
      It would never happen. As soon as the analog signal from your telephone reaches the telephone company's central office, it is converted from analog to 64 kbps PCM (8-bit samples at 8 kHz sample rate). From that point, it travels over 64 kbps digital channels until it reaches the central office of the person you are connected to. At that point, it is converted back to analog. The whole telephone company infrastructure is built around 64 kbps channels. It would be insanely expensive to change it to something else.

      The sound quality could be greatly improved for voice if a more modern encoding/decoding algorithm replaced the current standard. That wouldn't help modems and it would be incompatible with everything now in use.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  100. Re:Hoorah! by waddlebla · · Score: 1

    Yahuh sorry i did forget to mention the 'onramp' capping - which makes ISDN viable for businesses to get permantently connected. Those capped prices however, are still out of reach of ordinary Australians. Yes any POTS connections have an inbuilt 100-110ms lag (question: is it like that everywhere else in the world?), but thanks to the speed of light, the fastest ping you'll be getting from a geostationary satellite is approx 260ms - not unmanageable but certainly 'existant'. In any case it aint nothin on the 15ms intercapital pings you rich 'terrestrially connected' city folk can obtain :)

    --
    "For spirit of Minjin, who feeds on the souls of those who graze too late"
  101. Why is this flamebait? by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 1
    Is some moderator pissy because they can't download their hot anal pr0n faster than 33.6?

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  102. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Robert+S+Gormley · · Score: 1

    This I can understand.... Courier I-modems are not available in .au *he says in his defence* :)

    --

    Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.

  103. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Detritus · · Score: 1

    Just as an example, I live in a medium density suburban area and my modem is 6300 meters away from the central office.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  104. It stands for "number base" by cthulhubob · · Score: 1

    I don't seem to see what that has to do with anything you just said.

    10baseT == 10 base ten (10) kilobits per second.
    10base2 == 10 base two (2) kilobits per second
    100baseT == 100 base ten (100) kilobits per second (fast ethernet)
    1000baseT == 1000 base ten (1000) kilobits per second (gigabit ethernet)

    baseT means base ten number, as in using the decimal system.
    base2 means base two number, as in using the binary system.

    What on earth does that have to do with multiplexing (carrying multiple channels at once)?

    --

    In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
  105. A Significant Improvement by Potatoswatter · · Score: 1

    No one in this thread seems to be mentioning the added ability to sense call waiting beeps and put the connection on holduntil you're done handling whoever called. Currently, I have to change my modem init string to include "atm2", and then listen to the white modem noise through my computer speaker for call waiting beeps by ear. People w/ less modem knowledge don't have any choice.
    There's more to this new standard than increased upstream (which helps Quake playability) and better compression (which makes a difference when downloading 500K of Slashdot comments), which everyone here seems to be poo-pooing.
    Looks like I'll actually use that flashable-firmware feature on my modem after all.

    Ramble on!
    foo = bar/*myPtr;

    --

    Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
  106. Re:Hoorah! by Robert+S+Gormley · · Score: 2
    Yeah, definitely laughable pricing :)

    Ping times reminds me of something I heard, about a large company (Yahoo? definitely not sure tho), one of whose managers complained that the ping times between the US and UK were too high.

    "What do you want me to do? Bend the laws of relativity?"

    --

    Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.

  107. Narrowband, Wideband, Definition please? by mindstrm · · Score: 4


    'Wideband' - Broadcasting the same signal over many bands at once.
    'Narrowband' - using a very narrow band to transmit. Sort of opposite of wideband.

    'Broadband' - The use of multiple 'bands' for transmission (or reception). ie: cable TV is broadband. Using multuiple carrier frequencies to divide a medium into many different bands.
    Baseband - using a single, base channel for all transmission. ie: Ethernet.

    Please not that although there are obvious real-world examples of how broadband has a higher capacity than baseband, neither definnition has anything whatsoever to do with speed of data transmition.

    Your cable modem is 'broadband' only because it modulates it's signal up into RF for transmission on the cable line. Technically, it doestn' really have 'broadband' characteristics; it can't receive on multiple channels at once.

    If you had a 100baseT ethernet connection to your house, that would still be baseband, not broadband (hey.. that's what the 'base' stands for)

    Perhaps one could consider CDPD data (19kbps or whatever) to the palmpilot or something, whatever it is, to be broadband. It is modulated up over a broadband medium (space).

  108. I have that problem, too by Whelkman · · Score: 1

    As I mentioned in an above post, Bell Atlantic is using some splitting methond to double the lines by splitting 64k channels into two 32k ones. Add this to the fact that my line is awfully noisy (even though I've had two line noise checks in two years), and this degrades me to typical downloads slumping just over 2K/sec, even with my USR 56K (real) modem running in Linux (with it's better than usual TCP/IP stack).

    Even though I connect at 31200 usually, getting the full bandwidth out of 19200 would be a real luxury these days.

  109. Re:okay by llzackll · · Score: 1

    Zoom isn't a generic brand. They have been around since 1977 and make the best damn modems in the world. imho

  110. Good to hear... by NoWhere+Man · · Score: 2

    I have a few friends in remote areas that broadband access is not possible. This will lift their spirits. I personally only got broadband cable access in my area last year, which really sucked. Service is not bad though.
    Atleast this isn;t taking the same route as 56K did. X2 and KFlex, before finally settling at V.90. That created alot of unhappy people

    --

    "Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
  111. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by doogles · · Score: 1

    Silicon Valley. Ironic, no?

    Ha. Painfully so.

  112. Re:You're spamming beer guy, aren't you? by mikpos · · Score: 1

    And? I'd rather have a spammer than a whore any day.

  113. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Detritus · · Score: 3
    I have no idea why you guys in america get such poor rates. (I'm guessing that here)

    The average local loop length is much longer in the United States than in Europe.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  114. Re:damn... bad timing... by Phroggy · · Score: 1
    It kinda gets me how it is announced only two days after i order my DSL...

    Hmm, odd coincidence, I did the same. I wonder if Monday was a busy day for DSL signups?

    Not that this changes anything; I've been waiting for DSL for a couple years now....

    --

    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  115. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by jnik · · Score: 1
    Telco's don't want you using DSL. They see DSL as the road to long-distance, and nothing more. The FCC requires a telco to have a certain number of DSL lines before they can start competing in long-distance. They don't care about actual service on those lines. The Internet is just a fad, long distance is where the real money is.

    Yes, they do have their heads in the sand.

  116. Oh mercy :-( by BlueCalx- · · Score: 1

    Like it or not, the Internet was not designed to operate on conventional phone lines. Sure, people are getting along fine on dialups, but bad mean corporations like AOL are making it mad easy to get online thru your dialup, while sufficiently screwing over many broadband providers ("Cable? I don't want some weird guy to destroy my house just for a cable modem that might not work") ... at least as far as how they're perceived by the public.

    When cable, DSL, or even ISDN (which I've been on since the dawn of time, it seems) becomes the de facto standard, I'll be happy. Until then, the concept of dialup connections is simply too horrible for me to stomach, no matter how sweet (or less bitter?) the bandwidth may seem.

    --
    -- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
    1. Re:Oh mercy :-( by orange+syringe · · Score: 3

      Your comment is completely false. The Internet is transparent upon the networking medium. Take a look at RFC1011 "Official Internet Protocols". Basically, IP is used to handle getting a packet somewhere (routing et cetra), and transmission protocols like TCP/UDP are used to handle transfering of data via packets.

      TCP/IP does not define any standard protocols in the OSI "Physical" layer. This is the job of the physical network medium itself. In fact, IP has a Maximum Transmission Unit field to specify the maximum transmission or receive unit of the underlying medium -- in other words, how much the given medium can send at a time. Ethernet, being the most common on the Internet, has a MTU of 1500 but this is no means the only possible networking media.

      The Internet can and will adapt to any media, even something as unreliable as two cans and a tight string. TCP provides reliability services, allowing the Internet to run on anything -- even a noisy phone line.

      --

      Enjoy life, drink beer.
    2. Re:Oh mercy :-( by Molina+the+Bofh · · Score: 2

      Your comment is completely false. The Internet is transparent upon the networking medium

      Just to reinforce this statement, I'd like to remember there's RFC 1149 regarding Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers, i.e. pigeons. It's worth reading :) Of course it was posted on April 1st, but it's technically correct.

      There's also an amendment, RFC 2549 that adds QOS to Avian Carriers.

      --

      -
      Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
  117. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Peyna · · Score: 1
    Main reasons for slow dial-up connections or less v.34 connections are the following:

    LINE NOISE LINE NOISE LINE NOISE if the line quality is crap, so will your connection be.

    The number of digital to analog and analog to digital switches between you and your provider. I don't remember the exact number, but I think if that goes over 3 or 4, anything for 33.6 is impossible, regardless of the modems on either side.

    The problem isn't the modems the dial-up providers are using, it's the fact that copper sucks.

    --
    What?
  118. Re:ISDN in the States ? by mrscorpio81 · · Score: 1

    I was just over in Germany for a few weeks and was astounded by the proliferation of ISDN. My host family has a 3 number, 2 line ISDN service and it is actually cheaper than having 2 analog phone lines! Also, I wish USA cellular companies would impliment the SMS (short message service), where people can type a message on their cellphone to someone else's cellphone. Stupid country. Chris M. Hickman

  119. V.92 is dead before it even was born by orange+syringe · · Score: 1

    V.92 will never take off. It's like releasing an operating system tied to the x86 architecture which will be obsolete eventually. V.92 is tied to POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).

    Last week my local central office installed DSL. I have been using it since. In fact, just about everyone I know in my city has been using DSL.

    "Broadband" is the wave of the future! POTS is good for fast and easy voice transmission, but admit it: it's dead for Internet.


    --

    Enjoy life, drink beer.
    1. Re:V.92 is dead before it even was born by MadPhatTim · · Score: 2

      V.92 will never take off. It's like releasing an operating system tied to the x86 architecture which will be obsolete eventually. V.92 is tied to POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).

      Think about that statement for a minute. What's the first OS that springs to mind that's tied to the x86 architecture which will be obsolete eventually? MS-DOS/Windows was pretty popular last time I checked. Plenty of businesses still run on Windows 3.11 and plenty more will be running Win95/98/NT4/2000 for many years to come.

      Sure dial-up sucks, but it's what people are used to. Just last week, I had to help out a friend who got a new dial-up account for $25/month. For about $40/month he could have had a cable modem which is faster, more reliable, and easier to set up (click "DHCP"). When I asked him why he didn't just pay the extra $15 or $20 instead of wasting hours trying to get his modem working, he said he didn't need the extra speed.

      Why is it that people will choose the crappiest possible solution, even if the superior alternative is almost the same price or even cheaper? Do they feel guilty if they don't use all the benefits, so they choose something with fewer benefits to use? When I can answer that, I will understand why dial-up is still so common-place. (I live in Canada and have been enjoying cable modems for years now.)

    2. Re:V.92 is dead before it even was born by Shadow99_1 · · Score: 1

      Well strangely I talked to a phone company tech today (he was out doign work nearby) & I found out they don't even have to do much more than add one device to the central switching office in town for DSL support (or maybe even ISDN which currently isn't supported easier than DSL). But more to the point I confirmed I'm less than 5000 feet from the central phone switching office for my little town. Checking elsewhere online I found out that this means I could have the best DSL connectiosn possible & I live on the very boarder for this small town so that means the whole town is within 5000 feet.

      So distance isn't much of an issue in this case...

      --
      we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
    3. Re:V.92 is dead before it even was born by tzanger · · Score: 1

      Frankly I am forced to live outside of the city where they don't understand someone might like DSL...

      Actually it has nothing to do with them not understanding your want for DSL. DSL has a very limited distance requirement between its endpoints and the further out you are from the other end (usually the central office) the slower your connection goes. Pairgain has the best distance "records" for their DSL equipment (we use the Megabit Modem 300S for our DSL customers) but even they only get 128kbps at 35kft or so. That number is right out of my ass, BTW... Please refer to the spec guide/manual before quoting that number elsewhere. It's midnight and I'm just about off to bed.

  120. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by jayhawk88 · · Score: 1

    I always had to laugh at customers who used to come in to the shop and complain about getting 26.4 on their 56K modem. Usually, they had one of four problems:

    - shitty phone lines (most of the time)
    - 25 foot phone extensions, run through 2-3 splitters (signal loss? What's that?)
    - shitty Winmodems (The stuff they put in Compaq Presarios and HP's are just garbage)
    - crap modems at the ISP's (Internet service, only $9.95/month!!!)

    The phone system in the Wichita area here is horrible. I've installed computers for customers from one side of town to the other, and I've never seen a solid connection speed above 38K. Of course, considering Southwestern Bell offers DSL, it's no wonder they aren't interested in the noise on their regular lines.

  121. Slightly OT by MacJedi · · Score: 1
    Last night Charlie Rose interviewed Jeff Hawkins, the co-founder of Palm Computing and chairman of Handspring. While the entire interview was enthralling, one part stood out especially to me:

    Hawkins pointed out that places of the world which haven't yet deployed traditional communications infrastructure (I think he was specifically refering to Africa and parts of Asia) probably never would!!!

    /joeyo

    --
    2^5
  122. I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Seumas · · Score: 5
    Ninety percent of the dial-ups I've used in the last three years have connected at 31200bps or lower, with 56k modems (modems on both ends utilizing either Flex or x2).

    Dozens of people have complained to me over the last year or two, about their inability to connect to their 56k account at anything higher than 19200bps. That's 19200bps! I haven't seen connections like that since late in 1994!

    It's only become worse. I'm still waiting for my DSL and the company that is providing it offered free dial-up service until my DSL is actually installed and running. Only problem? I can't actually connect to a single one of their dial-up numbers. After a flurry of handshaking and choking on signals, both modems give up and I'm left with the recorded voice of the operating piping through my computer, telling me that if I'd like to make a call, perhaps I should hang up and try again.

    As long as dial-up providers keep implementing cheap modems to so they can claim "20,000 modems -- no busy signals!", connections will still be poor. Clinging to a v.92 standard is fine, but a lame-duck modem is still a lame-duck modem.
    ---
    seumas.com

    1. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Seumas · · Score: 2
      Yes, modern modems. But this was the first 56k I'd purchased and it was (I believe) the first one Zoom released. This was before there was much of a consensus for compression as far as I can tell.

      Also, back with 28.8k modems, there were numerous compression methods you could choose from, depending on the manufacturer. This meant that your USR may connect (excuse me, transfer an equivalent amount of data) at 115kbps, but if you connected it to say, a Zoom, Cardinal, Cobra, yadda yadda yadda, it would probably transfer at 28.8k -- if it would even connect (I'm not sure what happened if you tried to enable compression and then connect with a modem that couldn't understand that compression method. I think it just resorted to a standard mode?).

      You're right, that compression doesn't matter much when you're transfering ARC'd files or JPG's, but back in the day when more people were online with their favorite BBS than the Internet, the speed would have been nice. There was nothing like playing BRE, LORD or TW2002 on a slow modem (or worse, a noisey line -- when line noise used to actually show up as cryptic characters on your screen before dropping the unpleaseent [NO CARRIER] on your lap), watching the ANSI images literally crawling acrossed yoru screen... well, it sucked!
      ---
      seumas.com

    2. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Inoshiro · · Score: 4

      "with 56k modems (modems on both ends utilizing either Flex or x2)."

      You answered your own question. End to end analog modems will never connect above ~33kbps (less overhead), because that is the maximum your phone system can handle. For the real ~50kbps (less overhead), one of the ends must be a digital connection. This is why your ISP needs ISDN or a T1 endpoint to feed the 56k modems. Please read the documentation that comes with your modem if this concept eludes you.

      [analog] === ~33kbps === [analog]

      [digital] === ~50kbps === [analog]

      Of course, digital to digital is best. So what you should do is petition your local cable/telco monopoly to get some real broadband access. That way the Internet will come to you in a nice, high-capacity pipe, instead of like a bowling ball through a garden hose.
      ---

      --
      --
      Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
    3. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Shadow99_1 · · Score: 3

      I happen to live 22 miles from my dial-up server and I get 49333 bps every day no matter what... Awhile ago I lived elsewhere & because I was only 1 mile from my server I managed 53333 bps (which back then I worked ISP tech support and no one could believe I could tweak my modem enough to conenct that high all the time)...

      But really their are just to many things that determine what speed you'll get with a modem. So it's a matter of tweaking the modem, your internal phone lines, the phone lines between you and the server, the phone companies phone switches, and finally teh settings for the ISP's servers... 2 people in the same house can get 2 very different speeds.

      --
      we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
    4. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by grahamsz · · Score: 1

      I have no idea why you guys in america get such poor rates. (I'm guessing that here)

      I'm in Edinburgh, Scotland and before getting a cable modem last month I dialed in and would consistently get 53-56k and could hold connections for several days without a dropped line. Even out where my parents live in the country we get 48 without any difficulty. Perhaps the problem is with your telco's or ISPs. That said the biggest speed improvement i've seen comes from switching to US Robotics 56k External Sportsters from having winmodems.

      However I would sooner promise you my first born child that surrender my cable modem :)

    5. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Seumas · · Score: 2
      Ah, this is typically true -- however, the people I'm speaking specifically of are not your run-of-the-mill home user. They are tech professionals (many colleagues) who would rather cut off their right arm than stoop to a Winmodem.

      Poor lines are often the case, too. But to test this theory, I tried connecting to another machine of mine 40 miles across town, running the same modem (at the time, a Zoom 56kFlex) and made it consistantly at 44k. Not great, but a huge jump from the 31.2k I'd been connecting to the ISP at.

      Granted, there is the possibility that the ISP's lines were poor, too -- but what ISP would set up shop in an area of town without testing the quality of their lines first?!
      ---
      seumas.com

    6. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by tzanger · · Score: 1

      Connections to most other stores would run from the mid-20s to the low 30s, but we'd always connect to the Milpitas store at the whopping fast speed of 9600 bps!

      That's the speed I usually get when I hook my Ositech Jack of Diamonds PCMCIA modem+ethernet. If I'm way out in the boonies I'm lucky to get 2400. And if I'm in Northern Quebec, I don't connect at all!

      If you're not trying to grab some huge binary file 2400 is more than enough. It brings back the old days of BBSes and 232 characters per second. :-)

    7. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by raditzu · · Score: 1

      (fast cable too, 100k up/300k down)

      is that all?
      i have 1 mb both ways, it rocks.

    8. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by doogles · · Score: 1

      Ninety percent of the dial-ups I've used in the last three years have connected at 31200bps or lower, with 56k modems (modems on both ends utilizing either Flex or x2).

      Ouch. While I'm living in St. Louis, MO, USA now, I use to live in Cincinnati, OH, USA. Perhaps Cincinnati Bell is on the ball (well, compared to Southwestern Bell--my new CLEC--they're 1000x better), but I rarely would see less then 44-46k unless you were REALLY out in the sticks. Even in those cases, you'd usually see a v34 connect of 28.8k or 31.2k if v90/K56Flex wasn't possible.

      What part of the world are you in?

    9. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Shadow99_1 · · Score: 1

      Well my main point in regards to the distance between me & where I'm calling is that it can run into times where it is reconverted to analog from digital. For instance their are 4 cities the phone lines run through before going to the city I'm calling & with each city their is a chance of hitting outdated phone switching tech that will convert the call again. I worked ISP tech support & it was obvious to note the phone routing being a problem normally if you dialed more than say 20 miles from your location. The second ISP I worked for was even a phone company itself and we knew their were areas that the phone switching was horrid and if your call passed through that region you were just screwed.

      --
      we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
    10. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by petros · · Score: 1
      Southwestern Bell--my new CLEC--

      I hate to nitpick (ok, I don't really hate it), but are you sure it's your CLEC? I'm asking because CLEC is Competitive Local Exchange Carrier, while the Baby Bells that used to be monopolies are ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier)...

    11. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by Robert+S+Gormley · · Score: 2
      How did you do this - the modem to modem connect?

      56k modem connecting to a 56k modem will only connect at 33.6k *maximum*. This is because when you dial an ISP, you're not connecting to their USR or whatever, you're connecting to a digital condenser which (probably oversimplifying here) fools the phone line into thinking it's ISDN.

      These cost rather a bit more than a modem.

      --

      Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.

    12. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by h0udini · · Score: 1

      DSL? I think it *could* be the magic ingredient for widespread low-cost internet access if the telco's would only let it. Here in Albuquerque, we've been promised DSL by various companies for the last few years and still there is none available for private consumers. NONE. Rumour has it that our local telephone monopoly, US West, is denying DSL providers access to the lines. If anyone from around here can provide more info or prove me wrong, please do.

      I'm in Santa Fe, and Jato.com would provide me with DSL if I had the money and wherewithal to do it. I had a contract for a New Edge DSL from SWCP, but New Edge is slacking on bringing it in, so Jato is the only choice for now. Try http://www.swcp.com/swcp-web/dsl/ for details. Or, alternately, check out the Jato.com site for more carriers in your area.

      Just keep one thing in mind: do not, under any circumstances, deal with USurf America, if they have dialups or DSL up there. Take my word for it.

    13. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by h0udini · · Score: 1

      fsck. s#http://www.jato.com#http://www.jatocommunication s.com#

      sorry.

    14. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them by logiceight · · Score: 1

      I remember many article saying the limit in the US is actually 53k because of some FCC regulation.

      I usually get 48k on my modem connections

  123. Re:HOW Narrow minded? by mindstrm · · Score: 2

    Wireless will save the outback. Really.
    Just wait and see.

  124. 25% ??? by mickwd · · Score: 2

    So they've increased the compression when downloading by upwards of 25%.

    But how can they claim to have increased data throughput rates from 150-200 kbit/s to over 300 kbit/s ? This is a 50-100% speedup.

    1. Re:25% ??? by Signal+11 · · Score: 1
      Statistical slight of hand.. they probably added the download "speedup" and the "upload" speedup together and wound up with the magical 50-100% number, instead of the more realistic 25-50% number. Yeah, I'm being pessimistic, but it wouldn't suprise me...

  125. damn... bad timing... by MoldyZero · · Score: 1

    It kinda gets me how it is announced only two days after i order my DSL... at least it isn't that old 2400 i used up til early last year... then i upgraded to a full 14.4 woohoo... now what to do with my two 56K's... -Moldy

  126. You're the poor sucker by Dwonis · · Score: 1

    Sympatico sucks. They filter (badly) all outgoing HTTP requests, they give you annoying NATted pseudo-IPs, they have high latency, and they just generally suck.

    Note that I'm not saying DSL sucks, just Sympatico DSL. Our cable provider is much better, here in Regina, SK.
    --------
    "I already have all the latest software."

  127. Re::-( Same Here too (Superior, Colorado) by sethgecko · · Score: 1
    Dude, it's your phone lines. Try a line filter to clear up the line quality. It's NOT your area, its the lines going to your house.

    --
    Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
  128. Hoorah! by waddlebla · · Score: 2

    Whilst all you Americans, Canadians and Europeans may think this 'too little, too late', this is great news for us Aussies.

    In Australia there is a keen, competitive dialup ISP market - but the one & only local loop telco, telstra, is a complete joke.

    The great thing about this new modem standard is that the upgrading need only be done at the ISP end and the user end.....

    No need for the telco to do anything - Telstra has been able to do ADSL for years, but there is not a single available ADSL connection in Australia.

    And aside from the capital cities, cable is very much over the horizon, looking into 2001 or 2002.

    The only high bandwidth option available to me here is ISDN, which is laugably expensive (line charges are at the rate of a few dollars per hour) or satellite, which is expensive to setup and the lag means that quake II isnt happening over it.

    Thus ive found the best solution is to multilink in three 56k modems to the ISP - 168kbps d/l - i can almost pretend I have ADSL.

    With the introduction of this standard, hopefully sometime early next year Ill have the upstream to go with that d/l speed.

    --
    "For spirit of Minjin, who feeds on the souls of those who graze too late"
    1. Re:Hoorah! by matlhDam · · Score: 1
      Try living in Perth. Even if you're in the small areas with cable, they haven't turned on Internet access over cable anyway (apart from Ellenbrook, which is a new housing estate and they're trialling it there).

      As for DSL, even when Tel$tra does roll it out it's only going to be in limited areas, so it looks like I'm going to be limited to my crappy phone lines and 40-42k connections for some time yet.

      Yay, 64 kbps satellite here I come. Well, that's broadband, isn't it? </sarcasm>

  129. Re:Upgrades? by llzackll · · Score: 1

    If you have a Zoom modem. they have a few flash upgrades on their site. I upgraded mine a few weeks ago so I could get the call waiting features.. It's pretty cool, the speaker on the modem makes an audible alert whenever you have a call, and you can choose to take the call or not. Of course, this will drop your connection.

  130. Re:I'll Believe The Results When I See Them (more) by grahamsz · · Score: 1

    Oops I forgot to ask how far you guys have to actually use copper for. I think i'm about 50m from optic fibre here and it's almost certainly more where me 'rents live.

  131. HOW Narrow minded? by Halster · · Score: 5

    There are a lot of people on here that seem to think that a new standard for transmission over the POTS is a waste of time because of the availability of DSL/Cable/Whatever.

    This is, as usual, a very narrow minded and selfish approach.
    Of course internet over POTS is going to survive.

    I live in Australia, here we are just beginning trials of DSL, and even when it comes in it'll only be available in metropolitan areas.
    Considering we are a country that has some of the most remote internet users (many hundreds of kilometres from the nearest city), I can't see broadband or services with similar speeds for a similar price getting out into the rural areas for a long time! Hence net over POTS lives on!

    Then you have to take into consideration all the other third world countries where the internet is only available to a select few. These people aren't going to be getting DSL to their houses like the rich fat americans any time soon!

    Next to consider is the average household user. The person who just wants to get/send emails and maybe do a bit of surfing sometimes. Why would they bother with anything other than a V.92 modem?

    There's also the people using satellite .net connections to think about. A lot of those use a modem as their uplink. I'm sure they'd welcome an extra 15Kbps upstream!

    With all that, without even mentioning the cost difference between analogue and digital services, I think the humble modem will live a while longer. Even if only half what I've said is valid!


    "How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47

    --

    "How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
  132. Does anyone else here... by TheDullBlade · · Score: 1

    ...have trouble remembering what it was like to have a POT connection?

    I was running on a 19.2K modem right up until I got a cable connection (maybe a year ago). I didn't see any reason to pay for the upgrade to a 28.8K modem, let alone those newfangled 56K models. Now it seems bizarre and unnatural when a web page doesn't load instantly (except from /. -- then I'm just happy when it loads at all).

    Oddly enough, I only started using Lynx after I got my fast connection...

    --
    /.
  133. okay by Tiro · · Score: 1
    This would have been great... a couple of years ago. Maybe if we push the companies to standardize faster they can get technology like this to consumers sooner in the future.

    I'm not complaining about this tho; it could make it much more feasible for me to upload crap to my cable modem friends machines, IFF there are patches avaliable for my generic ZOOM brand 56K modem.

    My box can download 7KB/sec from cdrom.com under linux but is lucky to get 4KB/sec under windows...

  134. Re:Why this doesn't matter... by buck-yar · · Score: 1
    I would like to know what constitues as a Central Office. I always hear you have to be X feet from the CO to be able to get X service. I was told by the phone company that I would be able to receive ISDN, and probably DSL (if they ever get around to rolling it out). Yet I am 10 miles, line of sight, away from their main building. Far beyond the limits of the servies offered to me.

    What is a CO?

  135. What a waste. by Dest · · Score: 1

    This is pretty pathetic stuff. People actually worked to make old-fashioned dial-up connections faster? I don't care how fast you make them, how quick you can download, and many new protocols you come up with. If this is not to be the standard until 2001 then why even bother, by them even more people will have broadband connections. It is true that AOL is making it pretty much AOHell, making connecting to their worthless and pathetic internet service so easy. If these people are so attatched to AOL they can connect with broadband too, I think there is a TCP/IP selection in AOL. Oh and I leave by saying this: "The line is busy please hang up and try your call again"

    1. Re:What a waste. by nstrug · · Score: 2
      Why bother? Because broadband connections are only available to a tiny minority of potential internet users perhaps? Try getting a broadband connection anywhere in the developing world - or indeed in any rural part of the US.

      Nick

      --
      -- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
  136. How? by doogles · · Score: 5

    Anyone have some good links on exactly how the increased upstream works?

    I thought the whole "trick" to v90 was taking advantage of the lack of an analog/digital conversion on the ISP/provider end (straight telco trunks in to NAS equipment), which was why the 56k downstream was possible (64k per channel + robbed bit signaling = 56k).

    It's quite obvious the "customer side" is analog though, so how are we scamming 48k upstream?

  137. flamebait? by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

    I say nothing but pure facts. Such linux bigotry, can you not even admit a linux shortcoming? Without resorting to modding me down? Also check out the netcraft whatis for andover.net.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  138. Upgrades? by LinuxGeek · · Score: 5

    Does anyone have reliable information about upgrades for existing v.90 modems? This could be quite interesting for a software update, but not very handy (or cost effective) if new modems are needed.

    Also, it would be nice if the high and low-speed channels were reversible like the old courier 9600-HSTs. The 9600 and 1200baud channels were reversible to accommodate the direction that needed the highest bandwidth. Is this possible with the mixed analog-digital signaling of a 56k modem?

    --

    Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
  139. There's initial speed and current speed by blogan · · Score: 1

    I work for an ISP. People complain alot that they're 56K modem is only connecting at 49.2 (or some really good number). Anyways, we can check our Total Control box and see what they connect at and what their current connection is. There's an initial connection speed and a current connection speed. Windows only displays the initial connection speed, even though it may vary during the course of the connection. The people getting a 49.2 initial end up having a 52 kbps eventually and they still complain. It's pretty good considering the telco here isn't the greatest.

  140. Re:Q: What's current upstream on V.90 ? by Svenne · · Score: 1

    The current maximum upstream of v.90 is 33600 bps.

    /per

    --

    Slagborr
  141. Re:It's a small step... by sgage · · Score: 2
    "High speed internet access is available to pretty much anyone"

    No it's not. And it won't be for quite some time. Check out this page for the reason why, complete with actual numbers. Where I live (rural NH, USA), we won't have a high speed internet connection until/unless 2-way satellite systems come online at an affordable price. No way will I ever see cable or ADSL here, ever. Population density is simply too low.

    Y'all might want to keep this article in mind while designing your web pages :-)

    - sgage

  142. so what this really means... by NickRipley · · Score: 1

    ... is that DoubleClick can spy on me at a faster rate, I can connect faster so that spam is still nice and warm when I check my inbox, and I can also see if my favorite telemarketers are calling me while I am on-line! I can't wait. --Nick

    --
    http://cassettefetish.com
  143. ISDN in the States ? by Murphy(c) · · Score: 1

    Do you guys have ISDN over in the US ?

    Because back here in Switzerland and Germany as well it's been doing quite well.

    Over here it's about the same price (or even less expensive) than traditional analogue lines. And a 100% clean, 64kb (or if you use both channels it can be 128kb), low latency line is pretty nice if you just don't want to go ahead to DSL.

    Murphy(c)

  144. Why this doesn't matter... by weave · · Score: 2
    If your close enough to your CO to get decent speeds over 33.6K, you can usually qualify for DSL. The poor bastards that are 18,000+ feet from their CO can't get DSL and they can't get more than about 28.8K either because of all the bridge taps, repeaters, whatever, that the telco throws into the loop when you are that far out. So the ones who "need" it the most can't benefit at all from V.90, let alone V.92...

    And I'm one of them. Around here (northern Delaware), all of the COs are in run down urban areas. Bell Atlantic hasn't built a CO in Delaware for over 40 years. And guess where the cable company is offering cable modem access? Yup, only in the urban areas, the same damn areas that can get DSL. Poor bastards in the 'burbs around here can't get DSL *or* cable modem....

    In '96 our cable system was TCI and they began test deployments of cable modems in downtown Wilmington (the people who can least afford it). When they were ready to expand deployment, they got bought by Suburban Cable (of Phila). When I called them in '98 they said that all cable modem rollouts were delayed due to the sale of the cable system. So last year my area was scheduled for cable modem capability "in six months." So what happens, Comcast Cable buys out the system and what do you know, they now tell me that cable modem expansions are "on hold" for at least six months due to change of ownership.

    Sigh... No DSL, no cable, and V.92 won't help me out in the least....

  145. Unstable Connections by restless_ne'erdowell · · Score: 1

    Good point!
    V.92 will probably work great for someone who lives close to their provider's modem banks, and has a good modem. But for all-too-many users who live 10 miles outside of Bufutown, have a POS Winmodem, and are using phone lines that were probably put in as a WPA project -- they'll still have to limit DTE to 19200 and disable compressions to have a prayer of getting/staying connected.

  146. Freaking broadband by 51M02 · · Score: 1

    Damn I have no use of my ADSL anymore. :-) I still don't know why they have limited the upload connection to 28.8 on V.90 when I think of all the time I have lost upload on FTP server before I get broadband. But the most valuable asset with broadband line is the always on feature... no connection waiting time. Something like 20 secondes to get connected is way too much, when dialing gets through. Anyway if the phone line where better here in the US I am sure we could get twice or more speed on a simple modem.

    Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too"

    --
    --- Bouh !!! ---
  147. Re:Starcraft/Quake/etc.. by thopkins · · Score: 1

    This has been happening for years already if you have call waiting and don't disable it (there is a prefix to disable call waiting you add to your isps phone number, I don't remember it). Call waiting has been disconnecting ignorant AOLers for years.

  148. Sorry - should have been more clear by cthulhubob · · Score: 1

    The first post IS correct, except for the last sentence - or at least, that's what my Comp. Eng. courses said. (not saying my professors were always right, but it made sense to me)

    I agree that broadband means multiplexing, and that it's used in ways it shouldn't be, but the "base" in, i.e. 10baseT doesn't mean "baseband".

    --

    In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
  149. Re:The ARPANET backbone was built from 56Kbs Links by Detritus · · Score: 1
    Back in the 1970s, 9.6 kbps was a high-speed data line and 56 kbps was a wideband data line.

    And we had to walk 10 miles to school through the snow :-).

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  150. Glad to see this by Krellan · · Score: 1

    I'm really glad to see this! I remember reading a while ago about an increase in upload speed, to 45kbps. It was announced by a modem manufacturer, a year ago or so, then not implemented because they didn't see a demand for it. They suppressed it from the marketplace. I'm glad to see it become an official standard now! And at 48kbps instead of 45, a small bonus.

    Having fast connect time (perhaps by skipping all those old legacy connection probes that are done) is another good idea, one that will sell well, especially with places that get frequent disconnects.

    The third new thing they announced, Call Waiting standardization, is also something I've been hoping for a while to have. I remember having a 14.4 modem that always would disconnect when Call Waiting was received, but could be set to prevent this if desired (increase carrier loss wait time, I forgot the S-Register for this). The newer modems were "too good", just plowing right through the Call Waiting beep (regardless of their settings) so I missed some important calls back in the day.

    Now, I have a DSL connection. Like a 56K modem, it is much faster downstream than upstream. Do you think there's a conspiracy here? Content providers don't want to make it easy for people to pirate or come up with their own ideas, so they lobby the industry to restrict upload speeds and condition people to only consider the download speed when choosing a connection service. I'm glad to see this official standard, it's a step in the right direction to restore upload speed!

  151. They said it couldn't be done! by evilj · · Score: 2

    Every time they bring out a new standard, they said that it was the limitation of analogue carrier modulation over the copper medium that would prevent any advance in speed. When V34 came in, they said we'd never get higher than 28.8Kbit/s. With the V90 standard, they said it was absolutely impossible to get more than 33.6Kbit/s upstream out of the copper, and now they're saying we'll get 48Kbit/s!! Next thing, in two years time, we'll have 64Kbit/s from one phone line!

    Well, I'm not complaining. I get free internet access via modem, and it can only be a good thing. My area will some time this year get ADSL, but the spec keeps getting worse. Originally it was going to be 128K upstream, 512K downstream. Now it may be limited to 256K downstream. It looks like it's gonna cost $75/month. I'm quite happy getting free modem access at V90 speeds for now. My cable TV is good enough for watching movies on, and V90 is good enough for VOIP if I want to use that.

    Cheers,
    J

  152. Re:HST by LinuxGeek · · Score: 1

    Thanks for refreshing my memory. It seems like 20 years have gone by since the opus/binkley days. I don't think we have a single bbs within local calling range anymore.

    Modem speeds sure haven't increased with computer speeds. If they had, we would all have broadband over simple copper... Maybe someday.

    --

    Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
  153. Why? by p0d · · Score: 1

    I know most of the world is stuck on dialup. The ITU and everyone else should be concentrating on getting rid of that situation, nevermind trying to eke out every last bit from an outdated technology.

  154. It's a small step... by raille · · Score: 1

    towards pacifying and improving the internet speed for people without access to high-speed connections. Let's face it, not everyone lives in a city with cable or DSL hookups. This is a much-needed upgrade to basic phone service until broadband solutions are more widely available.