Yes...its called a PIC restriction. It doesn't make slamming impossible, but it does make the l/d companies jump through more hoops to do it. Though it will likely make you jump through more hoops if you want to change your l/d service legitimately as well.
Call your local telco and tell them that you want to put a PIC restriction on your line (after you get it changed back to MCI Worldcom), and they should do that, it shouldn't cost you anything, and it *should* make it harder to get slammed again, even for AT&T which now owns your local telco.
I mentioned this in another post, but definitely call the state utilities commission (PUC), they *will* take action on this...even with the big guys like AT&T.
If AT&T slams you again, you probably have an even *better* case against them in the PUC since it indicates that its likely that the local telco is treating AT&T more favourably than other l/d companies which is a *BIG* no-no.
The FCC would be *very* interested in hearing about this incident.
Also, don't bother with the state AG, go for the state Utilities Commision. They are the state regulatory body over telco's and they generally take a *VERY* dim view of slamming. Here in Kentucky, slamming reports get looked into *very* aggresively.
I've looked into autorpm (cow-orker is a RH user...was checking into it for him) and autorpm does *not* (at least from the documentation I've looked at) provide the same functionality as apt-get.
I could be wrong, but the documentation indicates that autorpm is considerably more limited.
The regulation was originally put into place because of the strain that airborne cell phones put on the cell phone infrastructure.
When you're on the ground, your cell phone transmissions are being received most likely by anywhere from 1 to 6 cells or so. When you're airborne, that number jumps dramatically...into the thousands maybe?
The original regulation was put into place because, at least at the time, it was quite a strain on the cell phone infrastructure to sort out which cell would handle that call. Arbitrating this access between 5 or 6 cells isn't too terribly difficult...arbitrating it between thousands, well, that gets computationally expensive.:)
I don't know what the current state of cell infrastructure is, perhaps the systems could more easily sort this out now, I'm not savvy in that area, but anyway, that's the original idea.
Or, better yet...get "good" and "bad" students together and in concert, have the "bad" student report the "good" student. Should be a wonderful PR move to point out the results. The crux of this being that the this would be done with the "good" student's blessing as an effort to show the idiocy of this project.
Let me see if I can clarify a few misconceptions here...
Extreme is getting 3Com's CoreBuilder line...this is very high end routers and switches.
Motorola is get most of the PathBuilder and most of the NetBuilder lines (3Com will retain a few of the products in each of these lines). NetBuilders are the more traditional routers, PathBuilders are workgroup and specialty switches.
NatSteel and Accton (sp?) get the modems, NetSteel also gets the manufacturing facility in the Chicago suburbs (nice facility...toured it in October) and will manufacture 3Com equipment under contract there. This facility manufactures all of the Total Control line of equipment I believe, as well as cable modems, and DSL modems (3Com only does CPE DSL modems at this point). I believe they also do whatever the Sportster line is called now at that facility, and probably a couple of other things I'm forgetting.:)
The modems will be spun off into their own company called "USRobotics" (what goes around comes around) in conjunction with NatSteel and Accton. Its important to note that the purchase of USRobotics approximately 3 years ago included Palm, and the Total Control line...Palm, of course, is already spun off, and Total Control is being retained by 3Com, so this really isn't the same USRobotics from days or yore. Personally, I tend to think its better...more focused...USRobotics had trouble executing on the Total Control back then (we used the line back then even), focusing on only consumer analog modems may allow them to return to the quality of USRobotics modems that many of us remember from years gone by. I hope.
So...now the question that a lot of people ask when they hear all this..."What does that leave?"
Well...as I mentioned...Total Control, which is really a whole line of products and is aimed at Carriers and ISPs, is still gonna be there. I suspect the part of the PathBuilder line that they are keeping as well is being held on to in order to complement the Total Control.
This also leaves home networking and small business networking (nics, ISDN routers, small hubs, etc.), I also suspect the part of the NetBuilder line that they are retaining will be there to complement this part of the business...the low end of the NetBuilders.
The last part that is still there is the VOIP product lines and related products. The NBX 100 and 3Com's ethernet phones are supposed to be pretty nifty...though I haven't had a chance to try any out yet. A couple of the acquisitions that were announced were to beef up this area...unified messaging, etc.
As a 3Com customer...particularly of the Total Control line...I see all of this as a very good thing. I do find it interesting though. When I think of what 3Com is...I think of NetBuilder and CoreBuilder...its almost like 3Com is selling off their identity and becoming a totally new company in the process. The new logo almost confirms this idea (note I'm *definitely* in the realm of my own personal opinion here, take it for what you will).
I've always thought the Total Control line was the "ugly step-child" of 3Com...and now they seem like they want to make that the core of their business...I say more power to them!:)
Any way you look at it, there are interesting days ahead.
>For instance, if Amazon was really concerned with the competition from B&N they could have been honest and explained their situation to all of us. This would have generated far more support than obtaining patents.
Buried in your post is this point that I consider of utmost importance. I think this is something that many corporations need to learn. The single most important thing in business today (IMO) is COMMUNICATION! Most corporations *SUCK* at communicating with their customers. I work at an ISP and we use Cisco, 3Com, and Sun hardware for the bulk of our service. All three of those companies have *pathetic* communication with their customers. You can see the damage of that in 3Com and Sun...and I truly believe that Cisco may end up feeling some pain if they don't start figuring out ways to communicate with customers better. I don't know that I've *ever* seen a company that really communicates well with their customers.
According to the NPR interview of one of the people working on this project that I heard on the way home from work today, the wild cat will be taken from the mother cat and put with his (the wild cat is a male) own species as soon as he is old enough to be weened.
It was in Louisville Kentucky...quite a few years ago at the Louisville Zoo. They have, I believe, Grant's Zebras specifically...I live in Louisville, so I remember this being news quite well.:) The zebra was implanted into a quarter horse I believe and did quite well, and I believe is still at the zoo.
FWIW, according to NPR on my drive home, the actual first here is that this was done with an embryo that had been frozen. The zebra embryo was never frozen but was immediately implanted into the horse.
It seems that if you're going to use Solaris, give it the good hardware (Sparc) that its really designed to run on.
If you're going to use x86, I'd go (being a Linux user myself) with one of the Open Source BSD's...
I'm definitely not a fan of Solaris on x86.
Another thing I noticed is that they're using Apache's reverse proxy and rewriting modules to front end the actual web servers actually hosting the content...I don't have much experience with this, but wouldn't squid accomplish the same thing with less overhead and higher performance (and more clusterability)?
I know we've been fairly whelmed with Apache's reverse proxy'ing and rewriting...its not bad, but you're dealing with a lot of overhead (particularly memory consumption) by using Apache that could be avoided with squid.
*shrug* Just a couple of thoughts.
Jeff
Why I hate Mac keyboards
on
Interface Zen
·
· Score: 2
"Sure, you've probably got little nibs on your `F' and `J' keys"
Tom seems to diss those little nibs as largely insignificant...and in the realm of the types of movements he's talking about...they largely are...but I tell you...this is the single biggest thing that I hate about typical Mac's...they have the nibs on "d" and "k". I know it sounds insignificant, but I always end up typing like, "O;Qua wms i[ ru[omf;olw" (translation: "I always end up typing like")
I think this is an interesting point here...veiled, but its there nonetheless.
Basically, rather than needing to have an intimate knowledge of the operating system to write a virus, now that there are sufficient API's in higher level (middleware as Judge Jackson and others have called them) you can fully write viruses in these middleware "languages". This requires intimate knowledge of the middleware, but not of the underlying OS really. Its interesting as the heralded promise of cross-platform programs to increase productivity, is also potentially bringing about the spectre of cross-platform virii...a concept that was just mind-boggling less than 3 years ago.
I think a lot of the posts casting aspersions on Microsoft, have some significant points (I don't *totally* agree, but I do think they bring about some good points). The "security" of these middleware applications have been largely overlooked (primarly by Microsoft...some of the other middleware APIs...java, javascript, etc...at least have given some thought to security). Personally, this is one of the main reasons at this point that I don't want to hassle with MicroSoft software. Originally I didn't want to support the company as an ethical stand, and I thought the software just sucked. Now, the potential hassle of running the software and dealing with the security whole of the day introduced by the latest 'feature' of the day is just more than I want to deal with.
That's the risk that AT&T takes as the implementor of a technology as opposed to a purchaser of the technology. Any new technology has that risk. Cable companies should charge for the cable modem access service in a way that's a good solid business plan...ie, in a way that will make them a profit in the future. I haven't heard anyone demand broadband access at a discounted rate even (certainly the ISP that I work for isn't asking for that) only for a level playing field, and no tieing of the broadband access infrastructure to a specific ISP. Nothing more.
>Did it ever occur to you that cable is so lame precisely because it is so heavily regulated by the gov't?
Too bad that cable modem internet access is *not* regulated by the gov. @Home can put pretty much whatever restrictions on your cable access they want...what's your choice? BellSouth DSL (not much better), or back to an ISDN line. Hrmm...
The falacy that I see a lot of people perpetrating is that cable modem access for some inherent reason should/has to be tied to a specific ISP (I see some of the same falacious arguments with regards to DSL...specifically with BellSouth). These are (at least) two different services. One service being the service of wiring your community for cable access, and the other service being an Internet access that is provided over whatever access method is available to the consumer. The ISP I work for doesn't want to be a cable company or a telephone company...but the current setup by the cable company and telco's where we are almost require that to be able to offer broadband service. We want to bring business to BellSouth and Insight...and they're not letting us! It truly boggles my mind.
I'm certainly no fan of AOL, and I will admit a background that would contribute to bias (I work for an ISP)
>-- The existing cable infrastructure is obsolete and needs serious upgrades to make it work with high speed data.
(rest deleted for brevity)
This argument would have some merit, *except*, I've never heard *anyone* express the idea that ISPs and others should be able to have access to the cable network (or DSL access) without compensation to the company that owns the infrastructure. I wholeheartedly support compensation for Insight (where I live) for the ISP that I work for providing cable modem service over their lines.
If they've computed in their excel spreadsheets to cover the costs of their infrastructure build-out by the revenues of their ISP's, then they're dumb.:) I have no problem with the concept that the cost of Insight (formerly Intermedia, formerly TKR, formerly...formerly...) to build out their cable plant should be covered by subscription fees. That concept does not imply that the customer has to be tied to an ISP though.
The ISP that I work for is providing DSL service in a city with GTE as the telco...its going quite well. The structure works that the end-customer calls GTE to get DSL service (comparable to calling Insight to get cable modem service), then they call us to get the Internet/ISP service. The customer is billed by GTE for the DSL service, and they're billed by us for the Internet/ISP service. Everyone is happy, DSL is going great guns in that city. There is no reason that the same couldn't work with cable modems. The customer calls Insight (or whoever) to get the cable modem access...chooses their ISP and calls that ISP to get the Internet/ISP access, the customer is then billed by the cable company for the cable modem access (to cover the cost of the infrastructure buildout), and then pays the ISP for the Internet/ISP access.
>the Internet has done just fine without any regulation.
That statement is patently false.
The Internet has benefited *greatly* from regulation. Read the whole filing, it actually details it quite well. If it hadn't been for the regulatory actions of breaking up AT&T/Ma Bell, the Internet likely would not have existed in anywhere near the form it does today. Why? Because AT&T would have restricted, and was restricting, use of *their* network for uses which they didn't like.
Open Access in telco's set up a very competitive environment where ISP's were able to vigorously compete. ISP's are not allowed to vigorously compete in broadband access at this point (primarily because most broadband access is on cable modems, secondarily because the telco's are fighting much the same way...just not as publicly, and with less regulatory justification, and with somewhat less success).
Its not a matter of the driver in Windows, but of the.inf file. The problem being that Dial-Up-Networking doesn't have an up to date enough.inf file, so it can't interpret the latest "CONNECT" messages from the output (simple pattern matching...and I do mean simple) so, without the ability to parse/interpret the CONNECT message for the actual connect speed, Windows falls back to displaying DTE speed (ie, serial port speed). No magic here. Go grab the latest.inf file for your modem and you'll quit seeing 115,200 connections, almost assuredly.
Besides the other poster here pointing out that modems don't have MTU's per-se...
The MTU is extremely unlikely to affect games. Quake, et al. tend to use very small UDP packets...rarely (if ever?) the size of typical MTU settings (576, 1500), so, as long as the packets are smaller than MTU, the MTU setting really has no affect.
Perhaps you've seen this URL...if not, please do go read it...the paper is long, but extremely good. I found the last paragraph on page 21 (I believe) of the pdf version very interesting. Essentially saying that not forcing open access on cable modems will screw ISPs trying to get decent Open Access to DSL service because the telco's have no incentive to be cooperative. The paper states this as a hypothetical, but its happening today. Anyone who's tried to get access to DSL via BellSouth knows this!
Then I will berate them endlessly as a shareholder, as well as a customer (we've got a few sparcs around here). Pride goeth before the fall and all that...twould be a shame for the maker of all that nice hardware to fail.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes...its called a PIC restriction. It doesn't make slamming impossible, but it does make the l/d companies jump through more hoops to do it. Though it will likely make you jump through more hoops if you want to change your l/d service legitimately as well.
Call your local telco and tell them that you want to put a PIC restriction on your line (after you get it changed back to MCI Worldcom), and they should do that, it shouldn't cost you anything, and it *should* make it harder to get slammed again, even for AT&T which now owns your local telco.
I mentioned this in another post, but definitely call the state utilities commission (PUC), they *will* take action on this...even with the big guys like AT&T.
If AT&T slams you again, you probably have an even *better* case against them in the PUC since it indicates that its likely that the local telco is treating AT&T more favourably than other l/d companies which is a *BIG* no-no.
Jeff
The FCC would be *very* interested in hearing about this incident.
Also, don't bother with the state AG, go for the state Utilities Commision. They are the state regulatory body over telco's and they generally take a *VERY* dim view of slamming. Here in Kentucky, slamming reports get looked into *very* aggresively.
Jeff
I'm a Debian Woody user...
I've looked into autorpm (cow-orker is a RH user...was checking into it for him) and autorpm does *not* (at least from the documentation I've looked at) provide the same functionality as apt-get.
I could be wrong, but the documentation indicates that autorpm is considerably more limited.
Jeff
The regulation was originally put into place because of the strain that airborne cell phones put on the cell phone infrastructure.
:)
When you're on the ground, your cell phone transmissions are being received most likely by anywhere from 1 to 6 cells or so. When you're airborne, that number jumps dramatically...into the thousands maybe?
The original regulation was put into place because, at least at the time, it was quite a strain on the cell phone infrastructure to sort out which cell would handle that call. Arbitrating this access between 5 or 6 cells isn't too terribly difficult...arbitrating it between thousands, well, that gets computationally expensive.
I don't know what the current state of cell infrastructure is, perhaps the systems could more easily sort this out now, I'm not savvy in that area, but anyway, that's the original idea.
Jeff
Uhm...having two acks on the net and arriving out of order isn't "play[ing] games," its how the net sometimes works.
Jeff
Or, better yet...get "good" and "bad" students together and in concert, have the "bad" student report the "good" student. Should be a wonderful PR move to point out the results. The crux of this being that the this would be done with the "good" student's blessing as an effort to show the idiocy of this project.
Jeff
>Is this to say that you actually have OS and modem code that is acually stable for the TC?
Yes...
Arc - 4.2.32
DSP - 1.2.37 or 2.0.51
quad - 5.9.9 or 5.10.9
dual-pri - 3.0.2
nmc - 6.1.81
Working wonderfully here.
Jeff
Let me see if I can clarify a few misconceptions here...
:)
:)
Extreme is getting 3Com's CoreBuilder line...this is very high end routers and switches.
Motorola is get most of the PathBuilder and most of the NetBuilder lines (3Com will retain a few of the products in each of these lines). NetBuilders are the more traditional routers, PathBuilders are workgroup and specialty switches.
NatSteel and Accton (sp?) get the modems, NetSteel also gets the manufacturing facility in the Chicago suburbs (nice facility...toured it in October) and will manufacture 3Com equipment under contract there. This facility manufactures all of the Total Control line of equipment I believe, as well as cable modems, and DSL modems (3Com only does CPE DSL modems at this point). I believe they also do whatever the Sportster line is called now at that facility, and probably a couple of other things I'm forgetting.
The modems will be spun off into their own company called "USRobotics" (what goes around comes around) in conjunction with NatSteel and Accton. Its important to note that the purchase of USRobotics approximately 3 years ago included Palm, and the Total Control line...Palm, of course, is already spun off, and Total Control is being retained by 3Com, so this really isn't the same USRobotics from days or yore. Personally, I tend to think its better...more focused...USRobotics had trouble executing on the Total Control back then (we used the line back then even), focusing on only consumer analog modems may allow them to return to the quality of USRobotics modems that many of us remember from years gone by. I hope.
So...now the question that a lot of people ask when they hear all this..."What does that leave?"
Well...as I mentioned...Total Control, which is really a whole line of products and is aimed at Carriers and ISPs, is still gonna be there. I suspect the part of the PathBuilder line that they are keeping as well is being held on to in order to complement the Total Control.
This also leaves home networking and small business networking (nics, ISDN routers, small hubs, etc.), I also suspect the part of the NetBuilder line that they are retaining will be there to complement this part of the business...the low end of the NetBuilders.
The last part that is still there is the VOIP product lines and related products. The NBX 100 and 3Com's ethernet phones are supposed to be pretty nifty...though I haven't had a chance to try any out yet. A couple of the acquisitions that were announced were to beef up this area...unified messaging, etc.
As a 3Com customer...particularly of the Total Control line...I see all of this as a very good thing. I do find it interesting though. When I think of what 3Com is...I think of NetBuilder and CoreBuilder...its almost like 3Com is selling off their identity and becoming a totally new company in the process. The new logo almost confirms this idea (note I'm *definitely* in the realm of my own personal opinion here, take it for what you will).
I've always thought the Total Control line was the "ugly step-child" of 3Com...and now they seem like they want to make that the core of their business...I say more power to them!
Any way you look at it, there are interesting days ahead.
Jeff
>For instance, if Amazon was really concerned with the competition from B&N they could have been honest and explained their situation to all of us. This would have generated far more support than obtaining patents.
Buried in your post is this point that I consider of utmost importance. I think this is something that many corporations need to learn. The single most important thing in business today (IMO) is COMMUNICATION! Most corporations *SUCK* at communicating with their customers. I work at an ISP and we use Cisco, 3Com, and Sun hardware for the bulk of our service. All three of those companies have *pathetic* communication with their customers. You can see the damage of that in 3Com and Sun...and I truly believe that Cisco may end up feeling some pain if they don't start figuring out ways to communicate with customers better. I don't know that I've *ever* seen a company that really communicates well with their customers.
Jeff
According to the NPR interview of one of the people working on this project that I heard on the way home from work today, the wild cat will be taken from the mother cat and put with his (the wild cat is a male) own species as soon as he is old enough to be weened.
Jeff
You are correct sir.
:) The zebra was implanted into a quarter horse I believe and did quite well, and I believe is still at the zoo.
It was in Louisville Kentucky...quite a few years ago at the Louisville Zoo. They have, I believe, Grant's Zebras specifically...I live in Louisville, so I remember this being news quite well.
FWIW, according to NPR on my drive home, the actual first here is that this was done with an embryo that had been frozen. The zebra embryo was never frozen but was immediately implanted into the horse.
Jeff
Yeah...I noticed the OS being used...
It seems that if you're going to use Solaris, give it the good hardware (Sparc) that its really designed to run on.
If you're going to use x86, I'd go (being a Linux user myself) with one of the Open Source BSD's...
I'm definitely not a fan of Solaris on x86.
Another thing I noticed is that they're using Apache's reverse proxy and rewriting modules to front end the actual web servers actually hosting the content...I don't have much experience with this, but wouldn't squid accomplish the same thing with less overhead and higher performance (and more clusterability)?
I know we've been fairly whelmed with Apache's reverse proxy'ing and rewriting...its not bad, but you're dealing with a lot of overhead (particularly memory consumption) by using Apache that could be avoided with squid.
*shrug* Just a couple of thoughts.
Jeff
"Sure, you've probably got little nibs on your `F' and `J' keys"
;Qua wms i[ ru[omf ;olw" (translation: "I always end up typing like")
Tom seems to diss those little nibs as largely insignificant...and in the realm of the types of movements he's talking about...they largely are...but I tell you...this is the single biggest thing that I hate about typical Mac's...they have the nibs on "d" and "k". I know it sounds insignificant, but I always end up typing like, "O
Jeff
ObBeowulfComment:
;)
Think of the Beowulf cluster you could run on that!
All on one physical machine!
*duck and cover*
Jeff
I think this is an interesting point here...veiled, but its there nonetheless.
Basically, rather than needing to have an intimate knowledge of the operating system to write a virus, now that there are sufficient API's in higher level (middleware as Judge Jackson and others have called them) you can fully write viruses in these middleware "languages". This requires intimate knowledge of the middleware, but not of the underlying OS really. Its interesting as the heralded promise of cross-platform programs to increase productivity, is also potentially bringing about the spectre of cross-platform virii...a concept that was just mind-boggling less than 3 years ago.
I think a lot of the posts casting aspersions on Microsoft, have some significant points (I don't *totally* agree, but I do think they bring about some good points). The "security" of these middleware applications have been largely overlooked (primarly by Microsoft...some of the other middleware APIs...java, javascript, etc...at least have given some thought to security). Personally, this is one of the main reasons at this point that I don't want to hassle with MicroSoft software. Originally I didn't want to support the company as an ethical stand, and I thought the software just sucked. Now, the potential hassle of running the software and dealing with the security whole of the day introduced by the latest 'feature' of the day is just more than I want to deal with.
Jeff
OK...and what's your point?
That's the risk that AT&T takes as the implementor of a technology as opposed to a purchaser of the technology. Any new technology has that risk. Cable companies should charge for the cable modem access service in a way that's a good solid business plan...ie, in a way that will make them a profit in the future. I haven't heard anyone demand broadband access at a discounted rate even (certainly the ISP that I work for isn't asking for that) only for a level playing field, and no tieing of the broadband access infrastructure to a specific ISP. Nothing more.
Jeff
>Did it ever occur to you that cable is so lame precisely because it is so heavily regulated by the gov't?
Too bad that cable modem internet access is *not* regulated by the gov. @Home can put pretty much whatever restrictions on your cable access they want...what's your choice? BellSouth DSL (not much better), or back to an ISDN line. Hrmm...
The falacy that I see a lot of people perpetrating is that cable modem access for some inherent reason should/has to be tied to a specific ISP (I see some of the same falacious arguments with regards to DSL...specifically with BellSouth). These are (at least) two different services. One service being the service of wiring your community for cable access, and the other service being an Internet access that is provided over whatever access method is available to the consumer. The ISP I work for doesn't want to be a cable company or a telephone company...but the current setup by the cable company and telco's where we are almost require that to be able to offer broadband service. We want to bring business to BellSouth and Insight...and they're not letting us! It truly boggles my mind.
Jeff
I'm certainly no fan of AOL, and I will admit a background that would contribute to bias (I work for an ISP)
:) I have no problem with the concept that the cost of Insight (formerly Intermedia, formerly TKR, formerly...formerly...) to build out their cable plant should be covered by subscription fees. That concept does not imply that the customer has to be tied to an ISP though.
>-- The existing cable infrastructure is obsolete and needs serious upgrades to make it work with high speed data.
(rest deleted for brevity)
This argument would have some merit, *except*, I've never heard *anyone* express the idea that ISPs and others should be able to have access to the cable network (or DSL access) without compensation to the company that owns the infrastructure. I wholeheartedly support compensation for Insight (where I live) for the ISP that I work for providing cable modem service over their lines.
If they've computed in their excel spreadsheets to cover the costs of their infrastructure build-out by the revenues of their ISP's, then they're dumb.
The ISP that I work for is providing DSL service in a city with GTE as the telco...its going quite well. The structure works that the end-customer calls GTE to get DSL service (comparable to calling Insight to get cable modem service), then they call us to get the Internet/ISP service. The customer is billed by GTE for the DSL service, and they're billed by us for the Internet/ISP service. Everyone is happy, DSL is going great guns in that city. There is no reason that the same couldn't work with cable modems. The customer calls Insight (or whoever) to get the cable modem access...chooses their ISP and calls that ISP to get the Internet/ISP access, the customer is then billed by the cable company for the cable modem access (to cover the cost of the infrastructure buildout), and then pays the ISP for the Internet/ISP access.
Jeff
>the Internet has done just fine without any regulation.
That statement is patently false.
The Internet has benefited *greatly* from regulation. Read the whole filing, it actually details it quite well. If it hadn't been for the regulatory actions of breaking up AT&T/Ma Bell, the Internet likely would not have existed in anywhere near the form it does today. Why? Because AT&T would have restricted, and was restricting, use of *their* network for uses which they didn't like.
Open Access in telco's set up a very competitive environment where ISP's were able to vigorously compete. ISP's are not allowed to vigorously compete in broadband access at this point (primarily because most broadband access is on cable modems, secondarily because the telco's are fighting much the same way...just not as publicly, and with less regulatory justification, and with somewhat less success).
Jeff
Submitted mine in the same time frame, but I have to bow to a superior version.
:)
My hat's off to ya!
Jeff
One chip to bind them,
:)
One chip to rule them...
oh, wait...sorry.
Jeff
Its not a matter of the driver in Windows, but of the .inf file. The problem being that Dial-Up-Networking doesn't have an up to date enough .inf file, so it can't interpret the latest "CONNECT" messages from the output (simple pattern matching...and I do mean simple) so, without the ability to parse/interpret the CONNECT message for the actual connect speed, Windows falls back to displaying DTE speed (ie, serial port speed). No magic here. Go grab the latest .inf file for your modem and you'll quit seeing 115,200 connections, almost assuredly.
Jeff
Besides the other poster here pointing out that modems don't have MTU's per-se...
The MTU is extremely unlikely to affect games. Quake, et al. tend to use very small UDP packets...rarely (if ever?) the size of typical MTU settings (576, 1500), so, as long as the packets are smaller than MTU, the MTU setting really has no affect.
Jeff
Perhaps you've seen this URL...if not, please do go read it...the paper is long, but extremely good. I found the last paragraph on page 21 (I believe) of the pdf version very interesting. Essentially saying that not forcing open access on cable modems will screw ISPs trying to get decent Open Access to DSL service because the telco's have no incentive to be cooperative. The paper states this as a hypothetical, but its happening today. Anyone who's tried to get access to DSL via BellSouth knows this!
http://e-conomy.berkeley.edu/pubs/wp/ewp12.html
Jeff
Then I will berate them endlessly as a shareholder, as well as a customer (we've got a few sparcs around here). Pride goeth before the fall and all that...twould be a shame for the maker of all that nice hardware to fail.
Jeff