Re: Terrible USR Problems

Larry Vaden (vaden@texoma.net)
Tue, 17 Dec 1996 02:09:34 -0600

At 01:57 AM 12/17/96 +0000, you wrote:
>We are running Portmaster 2e's with USR Sporster 28.8 and 33.6k modems and
are
>having terrible reliability problems. Occasionally a modem will
>connect and just send garbage, sometimes it just disconnects
>them immediatly and a very very small percentage of them time it just
>rings through (probably the teleco's fault on this one though).
>
>We have the following types of modems and use the same init string
>on all of them...
>
>AT&F1&C1&D2S0=1S13=1&W
>
>Sportster 33600/Fax V3.10
>Sportster 33600/Fax V1.1
>Sportster 33600/Fax V2.31
>Sportster 28800/Fax V6.0
>
>I do plan to upgrade all the modems to 33.6's soon and I have the
>28.8's last in the pool so they are rarely used.
>
>Does anybody have alot of experience with this kind of setup? I am
>getting really tired of hearing from users displeased with our
>service when they have to dialin 3-4 times to get a stable
>connection. I am considering dumping USR's altogether. Any advice
>would be appreciated. Thanks. -HL
>-- Hal A. Lightwood <hal@air.on.ca>
>-- Air Communications International Ltd.
>-- (807) 623-7120 Fax: (807) 625-5414

Hal,

You could replace all your USR Sportsters with the USR Total Control
(Courier) MP/16s.

You could replace all your USR Sportsters with the USR NetServer.

Then, ring-no-answers wouldn't all be caused by your phone co. Nor modem
firmware hangs. Plus, you could then add some significant budget dollars
for a dentist of the equine variety to pull firmware upgrades out of USR;
or better yet, a proctologist who specializes in bovines of the male gender :)

You could go with the Ascend 4004 and freely download alpha and beta
firmware du jour from an ftp server named "drawbridge" (is that ominous or
what?) and about 13.5% of your connections would be at 28.8 or better (see
details published in yesterday's thread). The gamma code isn't scheduled
yet, but will proably be found between the hen's teeth, if at all.

If you look around inet-access, ascend-users and portmaster-users mailing
lists for 12/16, you might not see any disagreement regarding the PM3.
ascend-users was especially quiet today.

Sometimes 70% or more :) of the pooches get screwed in the short run. Just
make sure one of your litter mates (or shareholders) is a lawyer. Bump his
sweat equity :) and he'll be all smiles at Hannukah every year :-))

Psst -- MZ told me marty@livingston.com might be your best friend.

Dance with who brung ya unless the wrong one(s) brung ya to the dance.
Livingston is a great dance partner.

And keep a close eye out for those manfucaturers who require a distribution
channel between you and them.

Sincerely,

Larry Vaden, founder and CEO
Internet Texoma, Inc.
bringing the real Internet to rural Texomaland
news.texoma.com supports NCMSPOOL and WINTERIZER