Re: 56K

Gary N. McKinney (gmckinney@megabits.net)
Sat, 28 Sep 1996 07:57:04 -0700

MegaZone wrote:
>
> Once upon a time HDELABIE@aol.com shaped the electrons to say...
> >There's nice stuff on 56K modem technology at www.nb.rockwell.com and then
> >further mcd etc..
> >As the PM-3 has true digital modems (what DSP ?), will you be able to offer
> >56K modems in the PM-3 as well ? If so, will this be a software download ?
> >Also, when have you scheduled this to become available ?
>
> This was on our mailing list several times already.
>
> Rockwell hasn't even released hard technical data yet. They just have the
> overviews on their web. They intend to debut at Comdex.
>
> 1. We will not support any new modem technology until it is a standard.
> USR is developing a competing standard that may not even interoperate with
> the Rockwell system. Both are planning to submit them as standards. If
> and when a standard comes out of that process, then we will look at
> implementing it.
>

Since you mention "standards" and I have not seen any information (yet) about
the standards supported by the PM-3 I have one question which could easily affect
our choice of implementation to support a large number of people in our area
(East Coast of Florida).

Do the digital modems in the PM-3 support the V.FC and V.Fast protocols or others
which came out while awaiting the V.34 standard?

WE had originally purchased Multitech modems to use with our PM-2 but had to change
over to USRobotics modems as the Multitech modems did not support the V.FC or other
sudo-standards and about 60% of the user's in our area have the pre-V.34 modems. I
know - we should be prompting people to "upgrade" to a REAL V.34 modem but its very
hard to "push" the issue when other IPS's in the area "support" the "other" protocols
allowing the customer to "connect" at 28.8K and your customer can only connect at 14.4K
to your service (this is real world stuff here - Been there, Done that, Had the t-shirt
shredded!! ). Most customers don't (or won't) understand why they can connect at 28.8K
to one ISP but only 14.4K to another - and guess which ISP the customer is going to use
for their service provider.

Anyway, it would be nice to see a "list" of standards the PM-3 supports and what
standards are in the works. Thanks.

GM