There are many things that could make your modem seem slow or actually be
slow.
Most obvious: poor line quality. If you have poopy-doopy phone lines (or
more than one analog-digital-analog) you won't connect at 56k. Actually, I
have a 56k modem as well, just because the 33.6k pcmcias were at most 10
bucks cheaper, but the phone lines in my town don't do the digital thing
or have too many switches from digital to analog, and I have an upper
limit of 33.6k right off. Now, the lines here aren't very good either, so
if I get a 28.8k connection, I'm all happy. I've gotten a few 33.6k, but
they aren't that common.
Depending on what program you use to connect, you might get a message
telling what it connected at. If you don't see it, try a 'cat /dev/modem'
and then run the dial script. This won't write to the modem, so you don't
have to worry about messing it up, and just press ^c to quit.
Are you calling a BBS from 1980? Have they upgraded? It might be that
you are using the low baud modems or all they have is slow modems on the
other end.
If you are running more than one connection at a time (e.g. two copies of
netscape), you will notice a significant decrease in performance of both.
In fact, when you add the two bps, you will be lower than normal.
You might have a setting wrong in the modem's memory. Generally not the
right thing, but you could always check the init string you are using and
look in the manual to see if it's appropriate.
Lastly, are you using more than 6 ft of telephone cord? Last I heard,
that is the limit on efficient transfer over telephone cable (rj23 or
whatever). The closer you are to the wall, the better.
On Tue, 19 Jan 1999, Kevin Long wrote:
> Does anyone have any suggestions on how to increase the speed of my modem?
> I am runninf RedHat 5.2 on an Inspiron 3200 with a USRobotics (3com) XJ1560
> compatible modem.
>
> It's a 56k modem, so it should "fly", but it barely crawls...
>
> Thanks!
>
> Kevin
>
>
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