John Aldrich wrote:
>
> On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, you wrote:
>
> > I am sure the modem will work, but Diamond modems are made with
> > Rockwell chip sets. This is not really a good choice; they
> > are the cheesiest of cheesy chip sets. Alas, they are used
> > in 90% of all modems. The US Robototics would be a better
> > solution.
> >
> I disagree... I've got a Diamond modem. Works great with
> INDUSTRY-STANDARD V.90 protocols. USR/3Com is NOT fully
> implementing the V.90 standard. They are keeping
> backwards-compatability with their X2 protocol.
> Basically, the best thing to do is find out which modems
> your ISP is using and buy one that's compatible with them.
> If they say they are v.90/X2-compatible, get a USR/3Com
> modem. If they say K56/v.90, get a Rockwell-chipset modem
> (Diamond, etc.) Lucent is a good choice as well. Most of
> the modems with the Lucent chipsets are K56-compatible
> V.90. Again, mostly go by what your ISP supports for the
> maximum compatibility.
Actually I have two pieces of equipment here. The Cisco
AS5200 (with Rockwell chipset Mica modems), and a Lucent
Livingston PM3A with the Lucent chip digital modems.
Both work much better with the USR consumer modems. Connect
speeds are adequate in both instances....the PM3 always seems
to have a slight edge in speed over the AS5200. However,
the flakyness of the connections is what counts. No problems
with USR consumer modems (even the winmodems) or the Lucent
LT Win modems. The troubles seem to be from the Rockwell
based modems. There are all sorts of workarounds to the problems,
but usually requires handholding on tech support for the customer
to resolve his problems.
The Rockwell modems have been pretty poor. Until the HCF
came out, they had numerous bugs. The HCF is the best, but
still has problems. In fact, the HCF has the feature that
while it can be less buggy...when it decides its not going to
connect its hard to tweak it to do so. Most pre-HCF modems
give trouble, but configure easily to connect. The HCF,
we have trouble one in ten times, but when there is trouble,
they sometimes resist all attempts to make them work properly.
Going to the customer premises with our laptop (Rockwell,
but tweaked) and with an external 56K data/fax USR, usually
results in a perfect connection.
My conclusion, after several months of this sort of thing is
that not all modems are created equal. And the Rockwell modems
are much less equal!
We are a small isp, and generally we visit over 99% of our
customer premises to make sure all works okay. Most ISP's
leave the customer to fend for himself and are not aware of
the problems and difficulties.
And....before you say so, my equipment here, both Cisco and
Lucent is all K56/V90. We have no X2 stuff in here and do
agree with you that X2 is not very good.
The USR customer modems are not the fastest with us, but they
are the most consistent best performer. It is my recommendation.
Iw ould rather connect at 48,000 day in and day out, than
be all over from 26,400 to 52,000 like the Rockwells. Also
the Rockwells have the aggravating habit of showing 52000
connect speed but their thruput (verified by ftp download
from my own site) is down to about 400 bytes per second. A
hangup and reconnect usually fixes this. The USR's NEVER EVER
have this problem.
I am glad you seem to have better luck than I do. Some of this
is Telco equipment sensitive, but I thought I would pass my
ISP experiences along. By the way...other Alaskan ISP's
report exactly my same results.
--
Ramon Gandia ================= Sysadmin ================ Nook Net
http://www.nook.net [EMAIL PROTECTED]
285 West First Avenue tel. 907-443-7575
P.O. Box 970 fax. 907-443-2487
Nome, Alaska 99762-0970 ========== Alaska Toll Free. 888-443-7525
