What Happened to v.92 Support for Dial-up Users?

crhylove asks: "For those of us suckers still on dial up, for whatever the reason, v.92 and v.44 compression may offer a substantial increase in bandwidth, especially if you are someone needing to upload lots of files. Also, it would eliminate the need for Callwave for those of us who have to stay connected all the time. v.92 has been out for over a year now, and I don't know of a single ISP in my area that provides v.92 service. So, Slashdot, what the hell happened to V.92? What do we do about it?"

Comments

You need to find a better place to live

[Anonymous Coward]

All the dialup ISPs in my area have supported v92 for a long time, and it's very nice to get that 44kbps upload speed. Hell, for most of the big modem pools, it's just a firmware upgrade on their part, very similar to x2 -> v90. Tell your ISP to get with the times or get a new ISP! ;-)

3com Slow out of the gates

[Anonymous Coward]

Many ISPs (myself included) use 3com Total Control equipment. In order to upgrade to v.92, it's much more than a flash update. We have to replace our network management cards (NMC's) with more powerful (and expensive) HiperNMC's. We also have to ditch all our quad-modem cards that have served us so well for so many years, in favor of HiperDSP modems. Many of our Hiper Access Router cards have get more RAM and flash memory. On top of that, many of us need new chassis or power supplies to handle the extra load. Lastly, we need to purchase service contracts from 3com resellers to get access to the software.

Oh, and the software upgrade hasn't been released from Beta yet!

I'm hearing it will be a month or so before it's out. The 3com marketing machine is warming up, so you'll be hearing more soon.

I also understand many Cisco-based ISP's are unable to upgrade to the full V.92/v.44 feature set without replacing a lot of hardware.

Buggy software

[krikke]

I don't mean to rag on Cisco, but if the ISP is using Cisco Access Servers, the firmware upgrades are a scary thing.

Cisco had a V.92 firmware upgrade for their Access Servers available in July. This (2001) July. We had to upgrade the IOS to an experimental version to get the upgrade (for V.92) to work, but that experimental version wouldn't hang up the modems after they had been used. It was a nightmare.

This could be a reason the ISP's are slow in supporting V.92, since many ISP's tend to use Cisco gear on their network.

Isn't that your job?

[Quixadhal]

I don't mean to sound *too* harsh, but isn't upgrading hardware and/or software to keep up with currently used standards part of your job?

I certainly believe stability is FAR more important than increased speed, and being on the @ss end of an ISP, I'd much rather have a reliable connection -- but there's a limit to how long you can blame the vendors.

If the vendors won't release updates in a reasonable manner (IE: *NOT* require you to purchase all new equipment), then dump them for someone who will.

If the upgrades needed aren't in your budget, than you didn't do your budget properly. Hardware shouldn't be considered to have a lifespan much beyond 2 years nowadays.
The main thing is to setup test modem pools and let people use them at their own (pre-warned!) risk. Don't be like my ISP and test new things on the main network (unless you want lots of angry customers!).

Re:Isn't that your job?

[jbroom]

As tech director for an ISP, yes keeping up with currently used standards is part of my job. The currently used STANDARD for dialup modems is V.90 all over.

V.92 is a pretty hack. If you have to setup from scratch today, you would obviously be looking for something that does V.92, but if upgrading V.90->V.92 means loads of cash or change of equipment then it is just not worth the hassle.

Let's face is, the average dialup user is mainly a downloader, not an uploader, the V.92 standard slightly increases the THEORETICAL speed, but the practical speed will probably move (on the uploads) around 5-10%, with the download staying where it is.

In nearly all areas where V.90 is available from the provider, ISDN is available to the subscriber. If uploading is such a biggie with the end user, he would not be bitching for a 5-10% increase at best, but would be upgrading HIMSELF to an ISDN line, which will not change his running costs, and will get him a nearly 100% speed increase in uploads.

Throughout most of Europe, users pay for their calls on a per-minute basis. No difference paying (on time) for an analog call than for paying for an ISDN call, hence the end user would want an ISDN link.

We have around 5000 dialup users (we're small), and I really don't think that it would merit us an expenditure of around $50-100K for *this* upgrade.
Not a good investment for maybe 50 users to notice. As CTO, I have better ways to spend that cash, even if it was available (which it isn't).
With analog calls the buck stops at V.90 for us.

Want something fast? Go to ISDN. Even faster? ADSL/cable/...

Re:Isn't that your job?

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

I certainly believe stability is FAR more important than increased speed, and being on the @ss end of an ISP, I'd much rather have a reliable connection -- but there's a limit to how long you can blame the vendors.

If the vendors won't release updates in a reasonable manner (IE: *NOT* require you to purchase all new equipment), then dump them for someone who will.

And blame whom, then? One needs hardware to connect, and a decent terminal server is not cheap hardware by a long shot--you can't exactly build (a scalable) one from commodity components and free software. The last one my company purchased was a $1.2M investment (several hundred digital modems and a few dozen PRI ports). Liquidating it on eBay and blowing that much money again on a piece of equipment strictly for an incremental improvement on the customer side isn't an option--not because I don't care about my customers, but because it isn't economically feasible to do this every time J Random Vendor happens to lose a clue on upgrades.

And, yes, we got screwed on the deal. We also have to replace our modem cards (and the shelf controller!!) to put v.92 on the wire. Everyone involved (except for the vendor, waiting with open arms for our next purchase order) is pissed about the ordeal, but there's really not a damn thing we can do.

It's not like you can evaluate equipment on the basis of what standards will be ratified N years down the road, since we don't know which standards will be ratified. We can guess, but the industry has been surprised before.

If the upgrades needed aren't in your budget, than you didn't do your budget properly.

This isn't an upgrade. This is a complete solution replacement, and almost all the vendors dropped the ball on this one, so shut your pie hole.

Hardware shouldn't be considered to have a lifespan much beyond 2 years nowadays.

Bullshit. Absolute, complete, and total grade-A bullshit. This is the first upgrade in at least five years that has completely broken the server-side of the ISP. V.90 was a firmware update for every major vendor (except for 3com, which never gets upgrades right). The per-modem cost of a decent terminal server is astronomical, and no company can recover that cost in two years and maintain a decent customer-to-modem ratio.

Now, maybe your PC doesn't have a lifespan beyond 2 years, but networking hardware Just Isn't That Way.

I suggest you stay on the @ss end of your ISP for now. You don't appear to understand what is actually going on.

The real reason most ISPs do not support v.92 right now is bacause there are no reliable server-side implementations. 3com has an update package consisting of "replace everything at 80% of the cost you just invested last year". Alcatel says "replace everything, oh, and, by the way, we changed all the part numbers again, so your catalogs are out of date for the third time this year, also, since this is new and better equipment, be prepared to pay 20% more than you did last year". ciscoSystems says "here, this might crash your terminal server and void your TAC onsite agreement, but, then again, it might work flawlessly--do ya feel lucky, punk?". Lucent is still trying to iron out the bugs in its v.90 implementation, and they've been contemplating EOLing the TNT modem cards for years now--they've only held off, as they don't have a replacement part that works yet.

Believe me, there are far more factors in this equation than "$ISP doesn't want to fork out $20 and a few minutes to upload some firmware". Most of us just have our hands tied behind our backs because we just bought a buttload of equipment a year or so ago, and, with the economy being what it is, don't have the funds to replace all of it.

FWIW, I connect via dialup at home. I can't say that I'm waiting for v.92 with bated breath. v.90 is fine for me, and, from what I've seen, v.92 is only incremental--barely noticeable except in absolutely perfect conditions. Basically, if your phone line and ISP are such that you can achieve the highest-quality v.92 connection between the two points, you can probably get DSL, due to the stringent line quality standards for v.92. With that in mind, a lot of companies (including the hardware vendors) are pushing DSL a lot harder than v.92 for customers that want better upload speeds.

Re:Isn't that your job?

[penguinboy]

At least in my part of the US, getting an ISDN line and accompanying ISP service would cost around three times what it costs to have a dedicated analog phone line ($25/mo) and an unlimited-access PPP acount ($20/mo) that I can keep connected 24x7.

And of course, DSL and cable aren't available in a lot of areas.

Re:Isn't that your job?

[threephaseboy]

Also the per-minute costs on ISDN push the price up to about the same as a frame-relay, in my area at least.

Re:Isn't that your job?

[FLaMeBoY]

Think thats bad? Around here isdn is over 6 times as much per month including the isp account. Then you pay per minute you are connected and then per MB over 600MB as well on isdn (from the local teleco, not the isp!). Compare that to pots which has no charge for local calls per minute, no charge per MB from the line provider.

Re:Isn't that your job?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about ShotGun Technology! It's much cheaper than ISDN and it can be used just about anywhere, not to mention it's much faster then V.92! More ISPS should support ShotGun Technology.

Re:Isn't that your job?

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

Heh... I'd completely forgotten about that. We've got a fair number of customers on that. It's a lot more feasible with big terminal servers, though, and that incurs a cost--you can't shtogun across multiple terminal servers, so the ISP has to eat the cost of high-end gear up front. In our case, that's not a problem, since our last purchase was a consolidation of a bank of Lucent gear.

The only problem I've seen in that Windows (read as: the OS used by > 90% of my customers) doesn't seem to want to sync the two modems up (reliably) unless the two modems are using the same driver, and the majority of WinModems (at least the Lucent ones) will only allow one instance per PCI bus.

So... you're left looking for hardware modems. I could rant for hours about how customers don't want to pay the extra $20 for a used USR Courier (or another -decent- hardware modem), and then bitch about connection quality, but I'll save that for another day. :) Suffice it to say that those people will never benefit from shotgunning, since WinModems tend to suck at it.

I agree, though. Every ISP should support it. Every modern terminal server does. Any terminal server that supports ISDN does. It's just a configuration change (turn on MPP support), and it can generate a lot of revenue (charge an extra $10/mo per port--it's still cheaper than ISDN or DSL) and a lot of happy customers, if they're willing to buy decent client-side kit.

How to upgrade to V.92 from Linux ?

[fredlwm]

Anybody know how to upgrade a Courier V. Everything to V.92 ? Of course, from Linux. I heard you can with minicom, but don't know the right steps.

Re:How to upgrade to V.92 from Linux ?

[jrp2]

I have no idea if there is a V.92 upgrade available for the Courier, but if there is you need to grab the Xmodem variant of the upgrade image. In your terminal package, type the following command to the modem "AT~X!" and use the Xmodem send command in your term package and send the file to the modem.

A solution in search of a problem

[Indomitus]

IMO, v.92 is a solution in search of a problem, that's why nobody is going to it. Beyond the modem vendors making it difficult to upgrade in a lot of cases, I haven't had one customer ask about it. Not one. Where's the big benfit that people are going to throw away their old modems? (If you think most modem customers are going to upgrade their own modems you're crazy.) Wow, the connect time is down to 10 seconds from 20. Ooohh, I can upload at 40k instead of 33.6! (most people don't even know you only upload at 33.6, not 56) The only benefit is that you can use the phone while online for a certain amount of time. You won't be able to hold a conversation, your ISP can set the amount of time you can put your connection "on hold" and you can bet it's not going to be more than 5 minutes. If you "need" to stay online all the time, you're a business and you should be able to pay for a second line or ISDN. You don't "need" to stay online to play Diablo or download MP3s. v.92 might come to be the prevailing standard eventually but only because all the v.90 equipment has died and been replaced by stuff that happened to be v.92.