"Don't get me wrong. Many modem users will upgrade to, and enjoy, 56k modem usage. I just think there will be significant numbers of users in country areas, or on cable exchanges, who won't be able to whizz their data along at 56,000 bps. And those users are the ones that modem vendors are going to have to answer to."
I believe I must agree with your position about 56K in general, Glenn. Right now, it is being embraced by a segment of the market which is commonly referred to as "early adopters". These are users who have an above average need and/or interest in the higher access speed, and will tolerate an above average amount of difficulty and perhaps cost to acquire, install and operate the new modems. They are the "pioneers" who actually serve as later-stage beta testers, when new technologies are so important that they must be released into the market absolutely as quickly as possible; you can tell if a technology fits this classification if a one week delay in delivery of first units to dealer's shelves results in numeruous complaints and an increase in emotion in the messages on bulletin boards and the internet. Let's see, late beta testers; what would they be called? Gamma testers? That is the term I've used in the past, in jest, but perhaps we ought to acknowledge at last that new technologies are often not fully developed and debugged when first released to the market, and give the "gamma testers" credit for their contributions! They ought to be able to place a title after their names when they post, for example, "John Doe <G>". oops, that is already being used; ah well, probably the same meaning.....
As sales to the early adopter/pioneer customers level off, the company hopes to have the product more fully developed, more user friendly, etc., so the less adventurous but more numerous next level of customers, who only want to purchase a modem, not bond with it, will be able to use the modem more or less as an appliance.
(I know I am "preaching to the choir" so far but I thought I ought to explain myself anyway).
This will happen when the 56K protocol is standardized by the ITU-T; and R&D energies will be redirected from creating entirely new designs to capture the short term markets and market share, to serving the various market "niches" such as you have described in the quest to add to market share captured in the present phase(s). In fact, I believe the ITU-T will take more time than most would like to develop the standard; they will not simply adopt one design which has been optimized (or perhaps minimized, for cost or easy upgradibility) to match the US systems, but will write a standard which will serve the needs of all customers, all over the world, as much as possible, given the amount of compromise necessary to establish a world standard which encompasses many diverse and dissimilar systems. Until then, companies will continue to build products like the current x2 and Flex designs, to capture short term sales in markets which can tolerate the early designs, and x2 is clearly the leader.
It is unfortunate that the sales hype used to promote these early products is not more conservative, but that is so common in our industry, that I wonder at times if customers perhaps have their own systems for reducing anticipation from the level promised by the hype, to levels more in keeping with past experiences. I know I do. I call it my "BS filter". And that does not refer to my engineering degree!
Large companies need large markets to survive, and they often cannot serve the "smaller" markets which cannot use the same technologies and/or products which fit the larger markets; even though it may seem as though these companies are "ignoring" the "smaller" markets, that is usually not the case, (it doesn't matter what attitudes are to those who can't get the products they need, but it does help to consider what the causes are).
Don't give up hope, though; there are companies now addressing the problem of older phone lines and phone systems, less-than-ideal phone lines and switches, as well as non-Internet connections, which require full duplex operation at high speeds, and so forth. Products and new modems will be available which will aid users who do not live in "prime market" areas reach the same levels of performance as are now available only to customers connected to major Internet ISP's and new phone systems. The worldwide modem markets are now so large that small companies, which previusly could not address the main markets because of their size, can justify developing products to deal with the smaller, more specialized portions of the market, which have traditionally been where these types of companies excel. I wouldn't be surprised to see "modem peripherals" sometime soon, that is, products which are used with or added to modems to improve performance and/or reduce errors; I also expect to see specialized versions of 56K products which operate under more difficult conditions. (One of the most important "features" of x2 is that it is such an easy and inexpensive upgrade to V.34 modems which were built before x2 was available, but used the upgradeable architecture; it has not been promoted as the very best technical solution to the 56K hybrid design, but as the best market solution to it, as far as I know). These would include products which would enable modems such as the current 56K modems to operate under less ideal conditions than they now require, enhance speed and performance, and so forth. This will enable many more people to use the new higher speed modems than may now be possible, provided they use the higher performance models. While the markets for these enhancements and/or enhanced modems are smaller than those for the standard products, they are still large enough to attract the talent and resources necessary to solve the problems you've mentioned, and I know of companies who are pursuing them.
I'd be interested in finding more information about specific technical problems encountered in the UK and other areas. Any ideas?
Larry Holmes |
