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3Com Class Action Suit
Petit-Monsieur Pas-de-Cou writes "3Com Corporation has been sued
in California by an alleged nationwide class, asserting claims relating to the advertising
of modems using 3Com's x2 modem technology. Among other claims, plaintiffs in these lawsuits
have alleged that 3Com engaged in deceptive advertising by claiming that modems employing x2
technology could achieve 56K speeds and/or were twice as fast as prior generation modems.
" Wow-that's a lotta legal statements.
Well for one thing, FCC regulations limit download speed to 53 Kbps. Secondly and more important, most analog phones are too noisy to handle 53 Kbps. Do you remember when 56K modems came out? Do you wonder why a newer faster analog modem hasn't been built and sold to the masses? My guess is that Claude Shannon has something to do with this.:)
I started out with 2400. Then I got a 14.4, then a 21.6, and finally jumped to this USR Sportster X2. I am EXTREMELY satisfied with the modem. It's one of the best pieces of hardware i've bought.
My connection speeds were 48000 and 49333 using X2 through Mindspring and MPInet. Then after many months of getting pissed off because they delayed the v90 update for my modem, it finally came out. After upgrading I connect to my main ISP at 52000, and Netzero at 53333. I would probably connect faster to Netzero, but there is that FCC regulation.
I've always gotten consistent 5-6 kb/s transfer rates.. which is pretty much twice as fast as a 28.8.
Lawsuits make me sick.. Last night my dad, his gf's brother, and I were talking about them. There was two families that got overcharged by a cable company. The cable company ended up dishing out 586 million dollars (they overcharged a total $1200). Or how about someone who smokes and dies, and then their family sues for $80 million. What the f*ck does that accomplish ??????????
"As part of the Settlement, 3Com has agreed to provide a $15 rebate of the price actually paid by any Settlement Class member who purchases a new 3Com product (the "New Product") during the Rebate Period (as defined below) for which the Settlement Class member paid to the retailer a price for the product of $100 or more (excluding any applicable taxes). The following information applies, and the following procedures are required, in order to receive the $15 rebate: "
What a blatant rip off. Besides, once you've purchased a 56k modem what else are you likely to buy from 3com? The 3com network cards are more expenesive and slower then the Intel EtherExpress Pro's, and once you've bought a 56k modem what is their to move up to?
I'm glad I implemented a "no 3com" policy last year. Buy Acer modems or Intel NICs.
I bought a USR 56K modem and I never get 53KBps connects but it was still worth it. Why?
Because once I get connected, I don't get disconnected with this modem. I bought it for its reliability, not only for its speed.
Before, I had a Newcom 56K-ish internal piece of crap, using a Cirrus Logic chipset. Talk about unreliable. If someone's looking for a company to sue, Newcom is the one (I still don't have my f***ing $30 rebate and I don't think I'll ever get it).
um.. it's already flown, dude.
the suit is _over_, by way of out-of-court settlement. they have no need to prove anything. read the link.
of course maybe if they'd had some kind of legal basis, they could have gotten a bigger settlement, but whatever.
Since it's quite clear not many of you here understand what the FCC's regulation is on, let's make it clear.
The FCC is *NOT*, i repeat *NOT* regulating the maximum download speed of your modem.
The FCC could care less.
What they *ARE* regulating is the voltages that are going over the wire (it's early, so someone correct me if i put it wrong).
Because 56k is a nasty ass hack, at 56k, it would be over the limitation.
Which is funny, considering NO OTHER TECHNOLOGY BESIDES V.90 HAS THIS PROBLEM.
So please, stop blaming it on the FCC.
I'm quite sure 3com and friends have had a blast being able to say "Well, we'd love to let you connect at 56k, but the mean nasty FCC won't allow it".
Yeah.
Right.
Just because stupid windows tells you you have that port set at 115k doesn't mean you connect at 115k. That is impossible with any modems currently available (and probably will be). I also seriously doubt you get 75k speeds, it is more likely that your programs that attempt to measure it are quite inaccurate (not too surprising, especially with Windows). And lastly, poor performance with a modem connection is not as likely to be the ISP as it is his phone line. Unfortunately the phone company isn't likely to do much about it (Ameritech for example doesn't promise any speeds above either 2400 or 9600 (can't remember which)). A line can be perfectly clear for voice but have lots of line noise that affects a modem, particuraly high speed modems. And line noise at best will force the data to be retransmitted (slowing your overall speed) or at worst cause you to get disconnected.
It's 99.9% of the time due to line signal quality. Because of the modem handshaking, it will not connect a speed that gives too many errors due to noise. The case is not about faulty modems, it's about advertising.
Are you a windows user? (Not that that's really bad or anything)
One thing I hate about a lot of 56k modems is that they suck because they are "Winmodems" - an emulated modem in software. I have one, but it's sitting in a box right now as a useless piece of crap since 1) I'm running FreeBSD, so I had to use my older REAL modem at 28.8 (I only connect at 26.4 anyways) and I have IP aliasing setup here
2) My old crappy Packard Bell pentium only had 3 pci slots, and their all full.
Lawsuits, games companies & movie producers, hmmm. . .
And this lawsuit shows that people haven't learned. People as a group are idiots, while an individual may not be.
Read the fine print people always say, and this it why. I remember a Macintosh add saying "Intel wants you to think the Pentium II is the fastest processor, but the Power Macintosh G3 is upto three times faster." Well, 3 times faster? Not really. That is the same kind of advertising. (Though the TV add poked fun at the Intel commercials w/ the guys in the clean room suits, which was pretty cool).
People have to remember it's an advertisement, and it isn't full of facts. Look at the ads on TV everyday, they are all the same way. So should be sue every major corporation? An idea, but realistically, won't happen, it will just make lawyers filthy rich.
Lucky you. My USR Sportster has NEVER connected at better than 26.4!
Then, in their infinite wisdom, in order to free up that external modem for something, they went out and bought a new internal 56k modem, even though the 28.8k modem worked as good as anything, even though we had an old 33.6k internal modem kicking around. To add insult to injury, the new modem they bought was a Winmodem.
Then, when that gateway machine (an old 486) died, they went out and bought a new 300 MHz Celeron machine, also with a Winmodem. They needed a computer as massive as that because they were walking (not running) Windoze 98 on it. If it weren't for those $&#&$^#&@! Winmodems I'd have replaced it with Linux.
BTW -- my external USR Sportster connects at 52 kbits consistently. I even saw it connect at 53 once. Of course the telco C.O. is about half a mile down the street.
You can be sure the class action lawyers got their money in cash, and NOT rebate coupons....
I also have had a USR Courier. I had it when 28.8 was blazingly fast. I upgraded to 33.6 and then 56k. I usualy see 45k-50k connects. It may be a hack and the phone companys may have been stupid to keep ISDN so expensive for so long but I'd still rather a 56k modem over a 33.6.
That's why I always stuck with the USR Sportsters, on the internals you could disable the PnP mess by setting the jumpers (PnP is enabled by removing all jumpers). PnP just doesn't seem to work very well with modems, if the modem is picky about it's resource settings, many times it'll conflict with another piece of hardware. Don't know how many hours I spent trying to solve conflicts on PnP modems that don't like some of the settings their PnP config tables allow.
Those and IBM 5250 PnP cards.....
That's also why I tend to stick to external modems, no PnP mess to worry about.
All in all, I've been happy with my 56K modem (External Sportster of course), I get 50666 connects 95% of the time.
Steven
If the technician is present, it will always work perfectly.
--Steven's laws of computing #2
Plus line fees of course. So if I did the math right then being online 100% of the time with ISDN under Bell Atlantic would consume almost 25% of my year's salary in a month. Several companies in NYC offer ASDL, but none of them offer it in Queens. So 56K is my best hope until someone convinces me to move to Manhattan or New Jersey. =(
.01/min charge), but the vast majority of ISPs don't allow that.
One ISP in the area will let you run two 56K modems over two ISDN circuits with load balancing for a virtual 112K connection at a much lower cost (voice ISDN doesn't have the
> Analog phone lines (commonly called POTS, or Plain Old Telephone Service)
:-). 40Hz approaches the range known as "sub-audibles".
> have a frequency response (if I remember this correctly) of about 40 Hz to
> about 4000 Hz.
Only in your dreams
Even many otherwise decent "higher-end" speakers don't do 40Hz well.
POTS frequency response is nominally 300Hz to 3500Hz.
Perhaps you mis-remember because the ringing frequency is 20Hz (at
90 VAC nominal).
2, if I remember right, 9600 actually is the maximum physical transfer rate for modems.
Everything else is just compression. Someone correct me if I'm wrong?
Not only are you wrong, you are obviously wrong. You can not appreciably compress already compressed data, if it was compressed with any reasonable algorithm. And yet you get faster than 9600 b/s transfering compressed files, correct?
And even if you didn't know that, it should be obvious. Because if you could compress the data down to 1/3.5'th of its original size, why wouldn't we be using compression algorithms that good from the start?
That's what this is all about. They were promised that speed by their modem manufacturer. They have no understanding of computers, networking, electronics, communications, or anything else remotely technical.
The best way to deal with those people is to set the modem to always report a connect speed of 115200.
It's not just computer equipment. It's probably everything. At least, it's also vacuum cleaners. I plug a 17.9 amp vacuum cleaner into a 15 amp circuit and never kick the breaker. Of course, that's because the fine print under "17.9 Amps" says something along the lines of "effective cleaning power". An amp isn't a measure of cleaning power, it's a measure of current. But nobody cares about that, and it's just getting worse.
And it's more in the public interest than the other thing. Here's how it might work though:
1) 3com settles with the $15 coupon
2) 3com starts printing 3com T-Shirts that say "Laywers suck"
3) 3com charges $15 for them.
That'd kick ass. Maybe you should suggest it to them...
If you are using AOL then you must be using Windows. Unless you configure it right it will tell you you are connecting at whatever speed you set it to. Set it to connect at 115,000 and it will tell you that.
AOL was probably report the port speed using "atw0"
If you set the port at 115200, then when you connect it'll return that instead of the actual carrier rate
You forgot something. If you have to go through more than a single exchange to get to the ISP, you're unlikely to impossibly going to get ANYTHING over 33.6k. 56k requires digital all the way after your phone line (oooo, that rhymes!)! You'll also miss it if you're connected to an exchange that converts analog to digital, then connects to an exchange that goes the other way, then back... This will just ruin your connection rates.
Note: I live 1 mile away from my copper connection to a fiber line, according to the "ma bell" guy who "fixed" my phone lines (I'm not 100% sure what he was talking about, but he said that was real close, enough for a near perfect modem connection.)... But I can't get over 31.2k on my v.90 newest firmware modem. I just live too far away (about 25 minutes in a relatively large city, but not big by any means.) I figure it takes about 2 or three exchanges to get to where my ISP is, so pooof! there goes any hope at a 33.6-56k connection...
Oh, and just to note, I even tried at a friend's house (with that modem) in the neighbourhood, and tried at the "demarcation point" (the point at which the cable enters the house). No dice...
Not to point anything silly out, but a "chipset" is a "chipset". If you have one HD, and the IDE chipset is built on the motherboard, then it probably cost you about $10 for the option (going by the fact that most extremely low-end boards offer IDE and cost about $70... can't all be for IDE ;-). I figure if you move $10 worth of chips onto the drives, why does it double the cost of the drives?
;-)
I guess it's because the only people who buy SCSI are people needing a "high-end" solution. With IDE you find all sorts of "no-name" brands, like kalok, octogon (sp?), etc... (I remeber these names from various no-name 286 cases I had to look through at one time). You just won't usually find super-low-end cheap ACER/AOPEN/JATON/ZOLTRIX type crap in SCSI (actually, touch wood, they don't make IDE stuff yet, I think)...
Here, in Ontario, Canada, you'll be looking at paying 5 times the price of a regular phone line for ISDN (to start with... if you use it a _lot_, remember it's metered.). Check out www.bell.ca for proof... :-) If you can find it...
The FCC limits the amount of voltage that can be applied to the telephone lines, this doesn't mean that you cannot get a connection greater that 53,333. It just means that you are not likely to get a speed higher that this due to the limitations the FCC applies to the amount of voltage to go through you lines at home. This is done to protect you the user from getting zapped from your phone lines, or shorting and starting a fire.
:(
The ringer on the phone line hits about 80 volts here in the US unless you have to many phones hooked up to you house on the same line. Any higher and you would have to protect you phone lines like power lines in your house not the current low voltage wiring that is used at this time.
Also I regularly connect at 50,666 and at times 52,000, the bummer is I am just 3000 ft to far to get ADSL
Ditto that Newcom rebate gimmick. I have two family members that purchased their modems from Circuit City back in November and have yet to see the rebate.
I think the retailer should be held responsible too since they advertise the after-rebate price.
I know a little C from an intro book I read, and I know java a little better from a class I took. I guess I could TRY, but is there:
1) tutorials on how to write a device driver
2) docs on how to interface the winmodem (reverse engineering is beyond my grasp right now)
As far as I know you can't just hook two 56k modems together and xfer at 56k. There's some other digial trickery required at the ISP's end to make 56k work for you. At least that's what my old ISP told me when X2 was being rolled out.
ISDN? In order for me to get the same deal I have now but at ISDN speeds (single channel), I would have to pay $575 a month!
Whoa! Out here in SoCal we can get cable modem service for $39 a month. I know it's not ISDN, and I sure don't get 1.5Mb/s, but I can achieve ~500Kb/s which is still a hella lot faster than 56K. I get the super low pings on 1/2Life too!
fR0993R
The correct statement is "Moof!"
I heard 9600 is max baud, whatever that is. Anybody know analog communications that can help us out here? I heard of a technique called QAM that a modem uses, explain this to us please!
The phone lines are digitized at something approximating 8khz 8bit at the phone company for digital switching. (Have been for a long time.) Doing the math, that's 64kbits/second. Now, you obviously arent going to get all the way there, but you can get awfully close with new modems.
Here are some statistics from all of the Livingston PM3s at the small ISP I work for.
This is the command that generated the output, from the Radius detail files:
grep -h Connect-Info `cat list-of-pm3s` |awk '{print $3}'|sed -e 's/"//'|sort|uniq -cd|sort +1n
The data is for the month of May, until 15:18 EDT 5/31.
The output is of the form
number-of-connections connect-speed
sorted on the connect-speed column.
The pm3s service 7 different cities.
13 2400
119 4800
105 7200
130 9600
228 12000
1940 14400
268 16800
1094 19200
1015 21600
2375 24000
9434 26400
73 28000
11535 28800
45 29333
49 30666
5230 31200
320 32000
43 33333
3131 33600
323 34000
42 34666
531 36000
453 37333
275 38000
216 38666
590 40000
247 41333
1134 42000
580 42666
2298 44000
1649 45333
842 46000
644 46666
2077 48000
2329 49333
767 50000
2029 50666
413 52000
127 53333
24 54666
3 64000
The 64000's are probably ISDN. I have no data on the speed or type of modems in use by our customers. I have only anecdotal data on the quality of phone lines. I believe it is safe to assume that any connection speed over 33600 (except for 64000) is from a 56k modem of some kind.
I thought the USR X2 web site did a much better job of explaining than any of the offical 56Kflex and all of USR's advertizing encourage visiting their X2 web site and provided small print on being limited by the FCC to 53K. After 3COM aquired USR, the X2 web site remained largely the same for a long time. The V.90 web site information under 3COM also was very well done in explaining in layman's terms that it only provided a *down-stream* improvement, that the amount of improvement was dependent on the quality of the line, and that there where FCC imposed limitations. For consumers to now declair that they where mislead by 3COM is like me declairing that Ford motor company mislead me into believing I would get far more miles per gallon that I ever actually have.
Consumers that are upset by the 53K limitation should consider the following:
- The FCC limitation technically only cripples the commerical grade V.90 *server* modem to *sending* at a maxium rate of 53K. The consumer grade V.90 modems are not crippled *at all* and have been and will remain capable of recieving at 56K without ANY modification. If the FCC policy changes then once the ISP modem firmware is updated the consumer will possibly get a higher rate of transfer without the consumer doing anything additional.
Your lucky. I also have Bellsouth, and I live well within the city limits of Mobile, AL (the second largest metropolitan area in the state).
I checked the ISDN rate for my area again and here is what they said:
$195.00 installation
$257.39 for monthly flate rate service
I could chose to only use 60 hours a month, and only pay:
$190.00 installation
$ 57.39 for monthly service charge
$ 0.03 per minute after 60 hours with a usage cap of $245.00
So if I have a very long download, or make a lot of voice calls I could pay over $302.39 not including FCC fees and taxes.
To top it all off, the TELCO does not provide any equipment except for their connection point at that price.
And in order to have "reliable" phone service, I'll need to provide backup power to the phones, and I also was told by another ISDN customer to keep a single POTS line in case of trouble with the exchange office.
Now you know why I use a 56K modem, hoping that Bellsouth would get off its ass and provide ADSL in my neighborhood.
I have been around modems a long time (back when I had my 300 Baud modem on my C64). There was a time when everyone said 9600 was as fast as traditional phone lines could support. But then even higher speed modems started to come into play (USR 19.2s and then they finally get a standard and 14.4s come out and start getting actually affordable). But anyone who uses modems KNOWS that you never get the theoretical top speed of a modem, with high speed one of the things that became common was error checking and bad lines means data having to be retransmited and that really slows it down. Personally I think manufactuers have done a great job continuing to push the envelope further and further. A 56K is faster than a 33.6 and a 33.6 is faster than a 28.8 but NONE of those will hardly ever achieve their actual maximum. Now we have this thing about HD manufactuers using 1000MB=1GB when selling HDs. Of course in this case the consumer stupid enough to want to sue because of their own incompetancy will also probably be too incompetant to know the difference in that case. At any rate I hope this case doesn't hold up. It's not false advertising since 56k CAN achieve 56k (on short and very clear phone lines) and that it is twice as fast as a 28.8. Maybe these people should have talked to someone who knows the technology before buying, but even then what are they going to do? It's not like they can get a faster modem from someone else.
p.s. What *really* annoys me how they decided to rate CD-ROM speeds. Talk about something arbitrary and completely silly.
I thought I read somewhere that sCSI as a more complicated controller on the drive itself, which accounts more much of the benefit. That would also make it more expensive.
But I understand the point. SCSI drives can't be THAT more more expensive (there isn't $100 worth of logic on the drive, and a scsi controller card can't cost $100 to produce than EIDE).
Buyer Beware. When 56k modems came out, I saw tons of information, that wasn't very hard to find, saying how FCC regulates the speed down, and also how connect speed depends on phone line quality, how far your are from the fully digital part of the telco network, etc, etc. The information was there, and it wasn't hard to find. I even think on the package there's an asterisk that says "FCC regulations require that blab blah blah."
My point, the information was there, all over the place, its just that people don't want to look for it. 56k is max connection speed, and I'm sure under lab conditions 3Com managed to get it up to that speed. I bet the "average consumer" won't know it if they connect at 26.4 kbps (like me) as opposed to 28.8 and that a 36.6k won't do them any good. Some of these people I bet bought a 36.6k modem even though their phone lines maxed out at 26.4k. So, when they quote a connect speed, that is a maximum, but crappy phone line noise can slow it down.
Well, ISDN is still a pretty expensive solution for not that much more bandwith, and it is a hassle to install and have to go through the phone company to install it. Compared to satellite, ADSL, cable etc ISDN isn't anything to brag about. And cmon, IDE isn't that bad. I certainly don't mind being able to add 17 gigs for less then 250. So what if it isn't the fastest for the "mission critical" apps. I am using it for data storage, and it doesn't have to blaze along. With the new IBM deskstars and other drives, they seem to be competing with scsi on storage space and sometimes speed.
As to the 56k issue, it really isn't that bad. It depends entirely on where you live, and you don't have to limit the connect always. Where I am my 56 k does fluctuate, and only sometimes receives the connect. But at a relatives they received 52000 connect every single time. It may not be the wonder it was always advertised, but as always there is a caveat. In the advertisements and brochures the fine print was there...telling people it may not work where they lived. So I don't think 3com will necessarily lose the lawsuit.
Seriously, isn't this what goes on with all high speed technologies.
Let's take a look at cable mdoems. Your cable modem provider, let's just say @home says you will get a 1.5 Mbit/sec downstream bandwidth cap and a 256k upload cap.
Now, the chances of you actually getting 192 KB/s is not possible. You have protocol overhead, other people on your segment eating bandwidth, @home's limited bandwidth, the ISP you are pulling files from limited bandwidth, and the limited bandwidth of the backbone provider in between.
The fact of the matter is, at least where I am, the max speed you'll ever see is around 60 KB/s, with packet loss, high latency and unstable routes.
No ISP out there tells customers what the average speed they will get is (unless you are selling guaranteed rate circuits), so why should 3com?
The modem business has always listed the maximum speed of the modem. Buy a 33,600 modem and put it on a shit line, you won't get 33.6. Buy a 56k modem and put it on a line not capable of 56k and you won't get it.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
They AREN'T! they're 56k modems! using "K" means you're talking about kilobytes per second, but you're not-- you're talking about kilobits per second, "k". there's, like an 8x difference in bandwidth there. i realize i'm nitpicking, but keep in mind that misleading labeling of speed numbers is the point they sued to begin with!
The way I always understood it, the 'k' simply ment kilo, bytes or bits were not implied. You don't say, "i'm going to drive 56 k" and expect everyone to know you are talking about kilometers.
Bits are a lowercase 'b' and bytes are uppercase 'B'. The 'k' is supposed to be lowercase, but people use it in uppercase because 'kB' looks sorta funny.
56 KB or 56 kB - 56 kilobytes
56 kb or 56 Kb - 56 kilobits
Not to mention this is pretty worthless. My modem can go 56 Kb. What does that mean? Does that mean it can do 56 Kb a minute, 56 Kb a day, it can hold 56 Kb of data?
Anyway, this point is moot as USR/3com modems are marketed as '56K' (capital K) modems so them refering to them as 56K modems makes perfect sense.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
Oh and one more thing, remember K means means 1000. 56K means 56,000 and when talking about modems it's implied as bits per second.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
They're going to have a hard time proving it.
---
Spammed? Click here for free slack on how to fight it!
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
put \v0 somewhere in your modem init string and it'll report the actual carrier speed, rather than the speed you have the port set to.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
How about a Palm Pilot? :)
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
I have one of the modems in question...
What makes me sick is the amount of money the lawyers are gonna make.
For the hassle I will get a 15 dollar coupon?
I'd be more inclined to spend my time if they were giving away 3Com T-shirts that said "Lawyers suck".
Last one in jail is a fascist.
Actually, I live in the Atlanta, Ga. metro area. The ISDN line itself isn't so expensive, it's the hourly usage charges that add up. That also causes the ISP to charge more. TN for some reason has dirt cheap prices for ISDN.
MediaOne has been advertising broadband services including cable modems since '95. They also promise availability EVENTUALLY. Of course, if it's anything like the cable TV service, it'll be useless.
I'll agree that 56k is a nasty hack. The problem is it had to be done. The reason it exists at all is that the local phone apparently are determined not to be dragged into the 21st century, and intend to claw the ground kicking and screaming all the way.
ISDN? In order for me to get the same deal I have now but at ISDN speeds (single channel), I would have to pay $575 a month! I do not HAVE $575 a month to spend on internet access. Without 56k modems (connecting at 41-44k), I would be at 26.4k, not ISDN. In fact, at $575/month, I could run Gigabit fiber from home to work and break even in 29 months (If I were allowed access to utility poles and conduits). As for DSL, I am promised it will be available in my area EVENTUALLY. I live in a metro area BTW.
The entire history of modems has been an end run around telcos that haven't improved in any substantial way since the mid '70s (and that was a small improvement on a system that itself hadn't changed since the '50s). If you think about it, the whole idea of analog encoding of a digital signal looks kludgy in itself. The only reason it was done was because analog circuits were widely available (POTS) and digital circuits were nowhere in sight.
As far as the class action suit goes, I don't think there was deliberate deception. I was completely unsurprised to see that 44k was the best I could get. What it amounts to is that modems are now being bought by a different class of consumers. When modem sales were restricted to people who understood computers, the probability that the modem wouldn't reach it's top speed went without saying. Apparently, it's going to have to be said now. (Warning, do not eat this modem. May cause injury if used as a frisbee, Consult your physician before using any electronic device....)
>Why doesn't anyone form a suit against these
>lawyers for misuse of the legal system?
It's kind of tough when what they're doing is perfectly legal, and they "win" by getting a settlement.
But one of my pipe dreams is a class action against the so-called trial lawyers, the personal injury plaintiffs' bar. While it is normally the plaintiffs that form a class, it is also possible to form the defendants into a class.
And the tort? Warning labels. The silly warning labels have become so prevalent that they are ignored, eliminating the value of serious warning labels. So find people who have been injured by not reading warnings that would have been useful to normal people . . .
It's not from the plaintiffss' bar, but as an example: earplugs/ear protectors are required on constructions sites near certain equipment--because the mandated sound levels of the back-up beeps exceed the permissible levels for the sound. Hmm, and since people wear the sound-blockers, maybe we need to make the signals louder . . .
hawk, esq., who thinks the warning label on McDonald's coffe should read, "Only a low grade moron would hold this cup with her upper thighs and remove the lid in a moving vehicle."
Disclaimer: I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need advice on this matter for yourself, see an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
This is a fairly typical class-action settlement.
The underlying claim will strike most people familiar with the issue as silly. In all seriousness, how many people in the US took a 56k for the exact speed of 7kBytes/second? 3? 5? They diddn't buy it for a particular data rate, but for being the fastest available.
And the defense: This looks like one more that the defense would win after fighting. BUt it comes down to:
The settlement: coupons, and pay off the plaintiff lawyers. Coupons are becoming an increasingly common way of handling nuisance class action suits. There have been rumors in the past of manufacture trying to rummage up suits for this very purpose. It either locks in the consumer to buy from the same manufacturor, or it doesn't cost anything.
That is, it doesn't directly cost anything. Switching hats briefly, and speaking as an economist, this drives up prices by distorting the demand for the product. Class members pay less than they otherwise would have, but everyone else pays more. As a corrollary, the net settlement ot the consumer is less than $15, as the $15 relates to the new higher price.
Since they could win, why does the manufacturor settle? Quite simply, it's cheaper. Instead of the legal costs of fie years of litigation, the depression of the stock price from having to report the litigation in reports, and the general effects of "consumer advocates" screaming, the company cuts a bunch of coupons, and pays hush money to the plaintiff lawyers. (MY civil procedure professor referred to these suits as a great way to get paid just for going away).
The reason that class action suits exist is the notion that they are an effective way of handling suits that are too small to bring individually, and that they cut down on the required judicial resources--it's not worth suing a major corporation ofer $100.
On the other hand, when the damage per consumer is less than forty cents, it makes no sense to worry about the matter. So the system gives them a ten cent coupon, and their lawyers a couple of million.
The only class action that I know of that has actually benefitted people who were actually injured was the Iomega settlement, in which Iomega paid rebates that it had wrongfully withheld--and in full (plus a disk). TYpically, the payment to class members is negligible, or the connection to the alleged injury spurious (e.g., the breast implant litigation).
In practice, iomega excepted, the only beneficiaries of the class action system are the attorneys who feed from it.
Another thing to remember is that for 56k you need to be (if memory serves) within 5km or so from your CO. Longer than that and it's almost a certainty that you will be connecting at 33k6.
Just something else the don't tell you in the fine print.
It's either 2400 or 9600, but I believe it's 2400.
older modems (not oldest, they used discrete frequencies) used both phase angle and amplitude to encode bits to send to the other side. 9600 baud was really 2400 baud, but it sent four bits at a time. Imagine it like the old crappy parallel port cables which could do 4 bit transfers.
as modems get faster and faster, they still stick with this 2400 baud (a signalling rate) but pack more and more bits ber baud. What you end up with is what's called a constellation pattern. a 000 is sent as a 3/4 power 24 degree signal, a 010 as a 1/8 power 0 degree signal... picture a grid that's 8x8. x is your phase, y is your amplitude. whereever the lines cross, there's a possible signal.
I'm a little dozy here after lunch but I'm pretty sure that's how the terms are used. baud is the signalling rate, and bps is the signalling rate times the number of bits sent per signal.
now there is a limit as to how "fine" this grid can get. ideally you'd want infinite changes in both phase and amplitude, but you're not gonna get it. On connect, modems do all kinds of fancy frequency and amplitude sweeps and basically "shape" the channel they're in so that they can then use adaptive equilization to flatten out the frequency spectrum and get optimal communications. I think that 8-QAM is the best you can get right now.
BTW, IANACE (communications engineer)
I presume that you are in America (110 volts!). In continental Europe the maximum current that can be drawn from a socket is 16A and in the UK (with the somewhat unusual ring circuits there) it is 13 Amps and then the fuse in the plug will blow!
... In the end I bought the one that was on special offer from a known manufacurer. I can sympathize with people who know as little about modems as I do about the purchase of a vacuum cleaner, and their annoyance to discover that they don't always work as well as they could for reasons beyond the control of the user... I just don't think that suing people left, right and centre is a constructive approach.
In Europe it appears that vacuum cleaners are sold by the power rating (Watts) or the depression at the nozzel (kPa). Not so long ago I bought a vacuum cleaner and was completely confused by the price versus performance metrics that were employed
The power restriction is there to minimize crosstalk between the various different lines between the CO and the end user (i.e. where it's still straight analog twisted pair wires bundled up together). Push to much power through, and people will end up hearing your modem hiss at the ISP underneath their call.
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
Well, ISDN is still a pretty expensive solution
Because it isn't mainstream. Also because of regulatory issues in the USA, as I understand it.
or not that much more bandwith
It's not so much the bandwidth, as the low latency, fast connects and total reliability
IDE isn't that bad. I certainly don't mind being able to add 17 gigs for less then 250.
But if IDE didn't exist you would be able to add 17 gigs of SCSI for less than 250. There's nothing inherently more expensive about SCSI, it's just that the existence of two incompatible standards has enabled the disk manufacturers to overcharge the high-enders, knowing they don't have the option of going to EIDE because limited cable lengths and the low maximum number of units would make it unusable. And the max cable lengths on EIDE are much shorter than people think. That's apart from all the other issues people have because IDE keeps running out of bits every other year.
When I read how 56k was supposed to work, I thought it the most gross hack imaginable, and it seems it is. Almost everyone has to limit the top speed in order to stop it flaking out, dropping the connection at random moments and generally being a piece of analogue technology pushed far too far.
Apparently one of the best places to put a 56k modem is on the analogue port of an ISDN adapter. That way the analogue signal has the shortest distance to travel.
Its $72 a month when I finally dropped it here in Starkville, Mississippi. Sure, the 15KBps transfer speeds were nice, but with a 56K modem, I hardly know the difference with Netscape. I now pay $25 a month, not the $100 with ISDN (taxes, etc...)
The real reason I dropped ISDN is that the connection would die about every month or two and getting to a like human on BellSouth's "business" repair line was insane. Once I logged 6 hours on my cell phone to finally to convince them it wasn't my problem and get a tech to get the line fixed. Try getting the runaround and telling every supervisor and department that you put a scope and a meter on the line to prove it was an opened circuit (10 megaohms) with no signal. It was a game I got tired of playing.
Its analog for me at the moment.
I've been looking at digital cameras, hoping that they will soon become a viable alternative to 35mm photography. I think these people are some of the worst offenders on stretching specs.
Most egregiously, they count the RGB sensors as three separate pixels. By this logic, the laptop I'm typing on has 3072 x 768 pixels; pretty impressive, hm? On the very best of the digital cameras (the Nikon 950), the effective number of pixels (measured using resolution targets) is about half the claimed spec, and even then the image suffers from moire, chromatic aberration, and other artifacts.
What really opened my eyes was looking at Sound Vision's camera, which is only 800 x 600 pixels, but blows away the "megapixel" cameras in total image quality. Unfortunately, because this camera has to take three separate shots through three separate filters (R, G, and B), it's only useful for a limited range of work, so it's foundering.
As if this weren't bad enough, Kodak came out with a digital camera with about a million "pixels", but marketed it as about 1.5M, because they estimated that it delivered quality slightly superior to the 1.3Mpix cameras they were competing with. Can you imagine printers competing on this basis? At least dpi claims have tended to be fairly solid (although I'm more than a bit suspicious over Epson's 1440).
Caveat emptor, I guess.
LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs
I just got a new Xerox laser printer and it seems to be up to par with it's PPM rate. But Ive noticed that all the PPM ratings on the InkJets are BS.
I have to return some videotapes...
...if you get 2 of the same brand modems and hook them up together with a 4 foot phone cord. :)
But realy now..I have always used the USR exteral modems and have never had a problem with any of them. The only other people that i thought made a good external modem was Hays, but they are gone now i think. I havent seen a better modem then my 56K X2/v.90 external USR.
I have to return some videotapes...
what the hell is wrong with the people who are complaining...
I have gotten 53k connects, and I have gotten as low as the high 40s... These people who aren't getting better than 24000 are probably using category 3 wiring for a quarter mile in their house, exposing it to all forms of radiation and crosstalk...
Beyond that - It says on the box that you won't get 56k... It also says that you may not even get the 53k if your line is not prestine... Maybe they should have read the box before purchasing.
At my last home I had beautiful self wired phone lines, and I was less than 6 blocks from the central office... 53k was absolute...
Where I live now the phone line is shared with my neighbor and spliced quite a number of times... While standard 33.6k modems will only connect me at 26.4 -31.2 tops on this line, 56k modems get me up to 44k... I am quite greatful...
Ofcourse I did order new phone lines, and now I am not sharing and am back up to 53k, so 44k can kiss my ass...
thanks you USR and all other parties involved, nice work...
--
Marques Johansson
displague@linuxfan.com
Marques Johansson
One thing I hate about a lot of 56k modems is that they suck because they are "Winmodems" - an emulated modem in software
On the other hand, a lot of them are not. Just check the box man... My 56k isa modem [generic.. OEM.. no brandings] even has jumpers and dipswitches!
Stan "Myconid" Brinkerhoff
SB.
Yeah. Damn those newbies who aren't trained computer techs. Who the hell are they to be using a computer if they don't know the zen of all that is the modem! Damn newbies.
What happened there, is the phone company probably installed a "Pairgain" Unit, which compresses 2 lines into one pair. This is used if they run out of wire leading into the residence. Internet connection speeds are greatly affected by the use of this device.
I bought stock in US Robotics after they announced plans to develop a modem that was faster than their 33.6, and it went pretty high. then 3COM bought USR, and its been hell ever since.
Absolutely rock bottom. Now, this can not POSSIBLY help it. In regards to the lawsuit, I think it is just some dumbfuck looking for someone to sue. We all owe a lot to 3com and US Robotics, else we may all be surfing at 14000 right now.
----------
"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
I have a cable that runs from upstairs to the second floor, down to the basement, and then crosses the basement to the phone jack in the corner, and I still connect at 44000. It used to be 48000, but its better than 33600.
----------
"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
I love my X2 modem... 28.8 connects every time!! (and I live less then a mile from Bell Alantic)
Bits are a lowercase 'b' and bytes are uppercase 'B'. The 'k' is supposed to be lowercase, but people use it in uppercase because 'kB' looks sorta funny.
Some people use that convention but it isn't universal. I've been working with modems and data links for over 20 years. The standard terminology has always been BPS (bits per second), KBPS (kilobits (10^3) per second), MBPS (megabits (10^6) per second). The size of a byte is not always 8 bits. That is why many telecommunications standards refer to octets instead of bytes.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
USR has slimy sales practices in general and their hardware (except for the Palm Computing series) is not all that great either. 3Com modems/NICs are fine for consumption by the general masses but for anyone who wants to do the slightest thing nonstandard with them, they're out of luck.
At home I have a 3Com VSP cable modem (internal ISA card) which is basically the cable equivalent of a Winmodem (and seeing as how Paul Allen owns my cable company, Charter Communications it almost makes sense why). Tried every hardware hack possible to make it work, but it doesn't. My Cable Co. hopefully will have an external multiplatform modem soon, or so they tell me, but until now I'm stuck with using it the way 3Com makes me.
At work I was working on a 2x450 PII Linux machine last week with a 3Com NIC which refuses to cooperate with our network. Did a clean install of Linux, nothing nonstandard or weird in the hardware or software. I'm sure the thing works flawlessly under WinNT but under Linux it occasionally stops talking to our Sun NIS and NFS servers and is just really flaky in general.
I can't knock the Palm series though - love my Palm III....
The box reads something like "...Current FCC line voltage regulations limit transmissions to 53Kbps." They say the current regulations make it that way, but by saying "current" they make it sound as if the FCC will change the regulations to accommodate 56K users. Frankly I doubt if they'd change the regulations just so modem users can get an extra measly 375 bytes/sec......
I've always wondered, what is the voltage limit for, anyway? Will increasing line voltage for 56K modems fry peoples phones?
You have to be careful with how you initialize the modem. The initialization string I was using for a few months actually somehow disabled high speed connections. When I trimmed it down, things started working. And there are locations from where you can't connect--too noisy or too far from the switch. But my phone wires aren't perfect (water damage), so there seems to be at least some robustness.
My 56k modem came with my PC. I was quite sceptical about the 56k stuff and probably wouldn't have bought it, but I'm happy with it now. It will still be months until DSL becomes available, and ISDN is much more expensive.
My modem tells me I connect at 115k, but it is a 56k modem.. I have run some progs (iptraf), and it turns out taht I have had downloads from 2k to 75k. Sounds to me like they neeed new to get a new ISP, not su 3COM.
Only 'flamers' flame!
this is really just kind of silly.. i don't think one single person would be happy with a $15 coupon, or even use the coupon.. i realize three people have said that already, but i think it's worthy of being said four times.
the thing that throws me the most is, there's no remedy of the problem. the modems are still labelled 56k; 3com is still free to claim their modems are twice as fast as 28.8 modems. You'd think that 3com would be required to rename them 53k modems, or something.
and dammit, who WROTE this class action thing? throughout the entire document they refer to "56K" modems. They AREN'T! they're 56k modems! using "K" means you're talking about kilobytes per second, but you're not-- you're talking about kilobits per second, "k". there's, like an 8x difference in bandwidth there. i realize i'm nitpicking, but keep in mind that misleading labeling of speed numbers is the point they sued to begin with!
anyway, look at this bit here..
If you do not request exclusion from the Settlement Class, you will be represented free of charge by the class counsel for the Settlement Class listed below. You may also appear through your own separate counsel at your own expense
i suggest any 3com users here (unless they for some reason want a $15 coupon) request they be excluded, and maybe band together later for a class action suit with more meaningful results (assuming you care). Because if you send in a request of exclusion, that means the lawyers get paid less.
And we all know that even though the 3com users get basically nothing, a lawyer somewhere is getting millions of dollars in fees.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Of all the calls I get here in my company's call center, the whinney, cry-babies who can't get 56K on their phones are the worst.
It's especially funny when they call in on a line that is so noisey I can barely understand them through the static. "Why can't I get 56K speeds? I can only connect at 19200!".
Sometimes they have 20 feet of phone cord between their computer and the wall when their computer is right up against the wall and 2 feet from the walljack... I could go on, but why waste even more space...
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
I can't speak much for their NICs (although I use one) but regarding their modems, you are seriously overgeneralizing. My USR Courier (Which I guess, is now a 3Com Courier) is the greatest modem I've ever used. I even lent it to the company I work for once, because it was the only modem we could come up with that could do synchronous connections (we needed to connect a couple of MUXes over a leased line). If it weren't for the Courier's ability to handle this once-in-a-lifetime weird situation, we would have been S.O.L. for a few days.
Oh, and ... I bought this modem in 1995, and last December I upgraded the firmware to V.90. Firmware upgrades w/out having to touch the hardware? The Courier was one of the first.
Sheesh, if I ever have to buy another modem and I think there's any chance that I might have to do something "nonstandard" with it, a 3Com Courier would be my #1 choice. Couriers rock! And it just goes to prove that black equipment is usually the best. ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This is all actually kindof funny. According to the not-quite-finalized agreement, if you bought a modem that's in the set in question, then you are entitled to a "$15 Rebate Coupon." Not $15, mind you. A $15 coupon that's good only for purchasing more 3Com products. If it didn't have the phrase "Class-Action Suit" attached, I'd think it was just another promotional campaign.
the highest stable connection that I've ever seen was 54000bps. I still think that is a real nice speed.
I find this incredibly hard to believe, considering that the FCC prevents speeds higher than 53k. And connecting with a 56k modem (USR model) returns that it's downloading at 53333bps (which I attribute to a) the fact that modem speeds are always returned as specific numbers, or using powers of 2). This is when going through my ISDN modem so it goes through the very clean ISDN line.
I have never failed to achieve maximum modem connection while using this line.
On another note (more pertaining to the actual topic) I don't remember if 3com actually made it clear that the FCC restricted connection speeds, but even if they didn't, I honestly believe them when they say these modems can achieve 56k... in closed circuit tests in which the FCC cannot intervene. However it's a real world occurrence (in the US at least) that you just can't go above 53k. This would be like an auto manufacturer advertising a top speed of 150mph on their car, and then suing them when you get a speeding ticket.
I connect at 57600 bps almost 100% of the time.
/etc/ppp/options file in Linux. Whatever is so magic in this number, I'd like to know.
I'd wager you NEVER connect at 57600. That speed isn't attainable (to the best of my knowledge).
It is, however, one of those speeds that is always listed in dropboxes and that you have to put in your
Anyway, if you want to see your true download speed, I'm fairly sure there's a modem init string that will return that value to Windows DUN.
One thing I hate about a lot of 56k modems is that they suck because they are "Winmodems" - an emulated modem in software.
This is a great reason to learn C and take the time to write a Winmodem driver for Linux/*BSD. Not only will it let you use the cheaper hardware, but you will probably be considered a hero to alot of people who were duped into buying a Winmodem (I was too, luckily the store I bought it from let me exchange it).
Tennesee's ISDN prices are't the norm. The Public Utility Commission there has forced BellSouth to offer ISDN at prices well below the national norm.
Unfortunately, this is the way these thing usually get settled. I own a 1986 Chevy pickup (the ones that blow up when you hit them) and the class action suit settlement was a $1000 certificate good for a new GM vehicle.
Do this don't do that Can't you redesign.
Why ISDN? M1 is 9 months overdue in getting service to my area, I am too far away from the main office for xDSL, and my line is too bad for 56k. Besides, single channel ISDN is costing me $20/month plus another $20 for ISP; i.ow. same as a regular phone line and isp. I get consistent speeds of ~7.5Kps. In short, cheaper, faster solutions are NOT available.
Avi
I was personally glad that 56K modems came out. My transfer rates jumped from 3.5kps to 5.1kps when I went from 33.6 to 56K and a 50% speed increase may not be double, but it certainly is enough to be noticable.
I am on a cable modem now and I could never go back to a plain modem, but for people who are in areas where they can't get highspeed access, they're better off with 56k than 33.6.
Just my 2 cents.
Just a SkiBum stuck in the east...
My 56.6 modems have never even gotten connection speeds close to 56.6... I'm currently connected at 31.2. It's annoying.
--
RumorsDaily
I do believe the original poster stated "in my country" implying to the majority of US readers he wasn't an American. Believe it or not, your FCC regulations don't apply to us! ;p
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
It's quite clear from the document linked above that the lawsuit is being settled.
In days past, if you bought a 300 bps modem, you would expect nothing less than 300. This probably held true up to about 9600 bps, then, gradually, we got used to not connecting at full speeds. It's funny now that the happy posters in this topic are happy at 45K, not 56K or even 53K. Nobody would have been happy with 220 bps from their 300 bps modem.
But modem's aren't special; they're just following the trend. Show me a printer which will really live up to its pages-per-minute spec. In fact, show me an old dot matrix printer that got anywhere near its characters per second spec. Show me a monitor that's actually sold based on its viewable screen area. (Actual viewable area is only a footnote now, and only because of another one of these class action suits.) And I'd take any hard drive or CD-ROM drive claims with a huge grain of salt, too.
As consumers, all we can do is become informed. I don't expect the manufacturers to start selling 17.9" monitors -- they'd be afraid of being excluded from a PC Rag's roundup of 300 19" monitors. But maybe we can insist on more realistic reporting. It just might be possible now that there are lots of web sites reviewing hardware and basically making PC Rags obsolete.
Best damn peripheral I ever bought.
It was a 28.8 back when the 28.8 standard had just been finalized.
It got upgraded to 33.6 when the 33.6 standard was finalized.
They added caller ID and distinctive ring while there were no new standards to add.
They added x2 (and I got it for free even because I registered for the enabling key while they were free).
Of course it was also a $700 modem... But if anyone remembers BBSes, they probably also remember that most of the good ones had these modems.. why? because they cost $250 for sysops (and I had a good BBS back then).
Of course the modem is for "Demonstration purposes only, not for resale". Like I would ever want to sell it, I'm kind of attached to it now.
Oh.. and it's external too (I like the lights).
As far as connection speeds go, I *ALWAYS* get greater speed than with a 33.6.
Also, don't forget that what your OS says the modem has connected at is total BS, it is constantly changing speeds to accomodate line conditions.. Load up minicom -o and type in ATIn where n is somewhere around 10 and see what speed it achieved.
I was at comdex '96 in Las Vegas, near when USR was touting X2. I walked up to a guy in the booth (more like a small theatre) and asked if it was another standard like the cool 28.8 modems that everyone had. He said, "yep". I wasn't convinced, so I stayed for the show, which pretty much told me that X2 modems were just like normal modems, only twice as fast. "That's twice the email, twice the web pages, twice the porn, etc" In other words, it wasn't especially (well, at all) technical. But I did get two t-shirts for agreeing with usr propaganda.
You must live in a rural or lagging area
I can tell you that Memphis is not at the leading edge in telecommunications, but I've been using ISDN for years and will be getting a cable modem soon.
I just looked up Bell South's prices for my area: Installation of the line is $45.50. Basic ISDN (two phone numbers and caller ID) is $33.44 a month - not much more than a POTS line, and not a bad deal since it is equivalent to two POTS lines.
Access? A single 64K channel is $19.95 a month with Bell South. I use a different ISP, but prices are comparable. Perhaps the prices you were quoted were for ISDN with a fixed IP address?
57600 is the serial port speed the modem is using to talk to your computer.
This is probably limiting the actual data transfer rate, as the modem may be doing data compression over the phone line, but does not do this over the serial link.
I would recommend changing the serial speed to 115200, if your UART can handle it. Only relatively old hardware would have a problem with this speed.
I have heard stories about 56k modems only capable of connecting at 28.8. This is what happened to a friend of mine. He has a USR (3com) X2 modem and it connected fine at 50-53k. Then he got a 2nd phone line and now his 2 phone lines can each connect at 28.8, so it seems getting a 2nd phone line split his bandwidth in half...
The sad part is that we have dsl here and he can afford it, but he lives about 2 blocks too far away to get it.
I connect at 57600 bps almost 100% of the time.
I was connecting at 44k but I installed new firmware code from Motorola. Your connection speed mainly depends on your phone lines. You should also verify that your ISP supports V.90. x2 and 56K are not as good as the V.90 standard.
If you want excellent dial-up access and superb technical support, use Voyager Online (www.vol.com)
I personally don't see how 3com would lose this lawsuit. They, just like every company made it clear in the fine print what was going on. It was a bit deceptive to say all this stuff about x2, but EVERY business says the deceptive stufff as loudly as possible and makes you read the fine print for the real deal. If 3com should lose this, pretty much any company that has done any advertising owes their consumers.
When I got back from my fast ethernet conenction and had to use my home computer again, I got tired of the 28.8k, and was prejudiced against ISDN as it is WAY too expesnive for a still puny connection. DSL not available here, but what is available is cable modems. Internet access at VERY high and reliable connection for 40 dollars a month.. I ended getting a 56k modem though and am fine with it. The cable mdoem cost too much for me (i.e. 500 dollars) and I don't have the extra money for the service either. I still can't understand why anyone would be on ISDN in this day an age when cheaper, faster alternatives are available..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
There's an awful lot of confusion and misunderstanding here, even among /.ers. Here's a quick precis of modern modem mayhem.
- 9600 *was* the max transfer rate a few years ago, until modem technology (and telco infrastructure) improved. It's no longer a limit.
- The 56k number is 56k, not 57.6k. It's not part of the same 9.6, 14.4, 28.8 33.6 series. It just doesn't work the same way. Its related to the 64k clear channel digital circuit that is the basic unit of currency within the phone system, rather than the old datacom standards which we're used to. So 57.6 is just plain wrong. So.. back to the topic in hand, it *is* impossible to get double the speed of 28.8 if you do the sums.
- It *is* possible to get a 56K connection, but it is extremely unusual and almost impossible in the real world. I work for a big network equipment manufacturer and one of our field engineers was so pleased when he got a real 56k connection, he emailed the whole company. I don't think it was in the US.
- The entire phone system is digital apart from the last bit which connects you to your CO. 56K technology uses this assumption to enable data transfer IN ONE DIRECTION ONLY, along a path which is digital all through the phone network apart from the 'last mile' (your copper connection to the local CO).
- Have you ever thought about what is at the other end of the phone line in your ISP? Your ISP typically doesn't have a whole bunch of analog phone lines connected to modems - they use multiple T1/E1s (24 or 30 digital 64k channels) depending on location connected to a big expensive box which has racks of boards with 16, 24 or more modem chips on them. Depending on how recently your ISP bought its equipment these modems may not be capable of 56K. Even if they are capable, the performance of competing manufacturers chipsets varies considerably.
I'm losing track now, so I'll stop. I hope this clears up a little confusion.
>Hmm..when every call costs $.04 to make and then any call (supposedly local)
outside our exchange costs as much as long distance. Hmmmm...
Consider yourself lucky. BT charges minimum 4p+VAT per call (about $.08). Plus, US phone users don't know how lucky they are not to get charged per minute. BT makes about $1M profit every 7.3 nanoseconds at our expense.
A common solution is (as EvilGoat noted in a response to a prior comment in this thread) putting in Digital Line Concentrators (aka PairGain and other trademarks). Unfortunately, modems don't work well over a DLC... I usually get 26.4 over mine, and V.90 is out of the question.
Ironically, those extra phone lines usually were ordered specifically to be used with a modem.
DSL also doesn't work well over DLC (more irony: one of the big DSL equipment manufacturers is PairGain, which also is a big name in DLC).
The problem with DSL over DLC, as I understand it, is not technical... it's that there's no room inside the DLC huts to stick the DSL electronics.
For one, the modems are perfectly capable of reaching 56k speed. It's the phone lines that aren't doing the job. They shouldn't be suing 3com, if anyone..
2, if I remember right, 9600 actually is the maximum physical transfer rate for modems. Everything else is just compression. Someone correct me if I'm wrong?
"Please don't sigh like that, maam"
They lost this suit a while back. This is a requirement of the court for them to notify all their customers about the refund. I notice they haven't take out any full page ads in the magazines where they normally advertise.
:-)
Just go back and RTFLD, its in legal-speak so you have to read it sideways, preferably after taking some mind-altering substances
IANAL, and I Hate Lawyers
the AntiCypher
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I have my own phone switch, and a pile of different modems for testing, and various access servers for terminating the 56k end.
:-) (actually, we use our poor little switch for purposes that would be illegal and dangerous on any publicly connected switch, but thats another post)
We use it to prove that different modems only connect at far less than the 53.3k even under the most ideal conditions. We measure the length of the local loop in inches
But USR modems are no worse than any of the others, even at ideal conditions. Sometimes they hit the theoretical 53.3 max, sometimes they don't.
Me thinks this to be a lawsuit against all the advertising and slimy sales promotions USR is known for. Certainly their technology is about the same as all their competition.
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
1: Sure, that part is real easy. There are probably a thousand different files you could read and learn to program device drivers.
2: Here's the problem. There really IS no winmodem. The winmodem is little more than a dongle (except maybe Lucent's, there's seems to actually be pretty cool) that allows a hardware connect. The real modem is the software, so you would have to write code that emulates a modem. I'm sure you could find info on how to interface the modem, but the harder part would be the modem "driver."
No offense, but I SERIOUSLY doubt you would ever come up with anything useful. It may be worth trying just because it will allow your budding skills to advance, but you shouldn't be too worried when you don't come up with something that works.
The good news is that the core of a driver like this should be portable between winmodems, with only the hardware interface portion needing to be re-written...