> I realize that the answer to this question must require reasonable
> speculation given that the Rockwell announcement is merely a press
> release and gives little in the way of facts, but my question is this:
>
> Do the new PM digital modems give us a reasonable expectation of being
> able to reprogram them as 56K-capable given that they are DSP driven?
>
> What I'm driving at is simply this: If this announcement leads to the
> widespread introduction of a new 56K standard, what's to protect our
> substantial $$$ investment in the new Livingston product ? Can
> livingston offer any kind of reassurances that this brand new offering
> isn't worthless in a year in terms of offering a premier capability
> connection ?
>
> This isn't flamebait; I'm interested in an intelligent discussion of
> what experts here believe is or isn't reasonable to expect.
Let me pose an alternative question.
Assume that you have just purchased a rack of Brand X modems and all your
customer complaints have gone away. Do you expect that these new modems
you just purchased can be upgraded to the as yet completely vapor Rockwell
announcement specification or do you think you will have to throw them
away when your customers start asking about 56k?
There is no way anyone at Livingston can answer your question because
there are no actual specs to look at or even any hardware that could be
analyzed.
It may be possible if the DSP's are powerful enough and the programmers
are clever enough that the existing modems could be upgraded to work with
this as yet only an announcement product. But it won't be the end of the
world if it won't. New modem cards could be designed with faster
processors to replace the old cards. I doubt that this will happen until
you have an actual standard.
Besides, if this turns out to be real then you are going to put all these
devices on their own hunt group and charge extra for them anyway. Your
users are not going to all wake up one day and go out and buy something
that is certainly going to make the 28.8 modems look inexpensive by
comparison all on the same day.
Doug Ingraham
Rapid City, South Dakota, USA