Answers from a Hardware Guru...
I'm not the only techie type around here by any means, and we all have our little specialities, so I think it's exaggeration when Joe says "A lot of the previous posts refer to technical details of x2 modems. Look for the ones by Dick Smith in this thread and the 'ghost' thread." But thanks. I try to answer the techie questions, at least, because I understand that stuff. I'm less sure I understand the Street, as I've said.
But let's get Let some answers when he asks "I don't understand this v.90 language on the modems tho..could someone e-mail me about this (or post it here) because I have a USRobotics Sportster Modem (33.6k) that I would like to upgrade to 56k, but my ISP only handles the K56 Flex for the 56k connection. Will the v.90 work?"
First of all, there's the question of whether your modem can be upgraded... this depends on how old a Sportster it is. Before the 56K battle, USR saved some cost on Sportsters by not making them very upgradable... if yours is old enough, the internal software may not be in rewritable ("Flash") but in permanent ROM chips. If this is the case, you might need to trade in your modem to upgrade.... Try this web site for more information... specific to your model number.
3com.com
The other question is whether your ISP has V.90, yet. Many have not yet upgraded. If your ISP has K56 and not V.90, a modem which has X2 and V.90 will only connect at 33,600 baud max until the ISP upgrades. I've seen announcement of the upgrades for the ISP equipment for some Ascend units, but I'm not sure about other stuff (there are a number of different flavors of equipment, and some may not be ready) and I've noticed that ISPs are being careful not to rush out untried software... so your ISP may only be testing internally until they are happy. It wouldn't hurt to email them and ask about their plans... or check your ISPs internal announcement boards to see if they've said anything... my ISP puts out regular notice of such things, but only if you go onto their site and look at it!
Mind you, it won't hurt to upgrade if you can (except for the $60), and there seem to be bug-fixes in the upgrade code as well, so it's worth doing.
In fact, the upgrade is worth doing for the bug-fix improvements alone. My ISP has both X2 and K56 equipment, and hasn't upgraded to V.90 yet. But I recently upgraded my X2 Sportster to V.90, and noticed a substantial improvement. My local telephone lines are poor, and I wasn't sure of getting X2 speeds at all... I often connected at 28,800 baud before the upgrade. Now, post-upgrade, I'm getting connections at 40,000 baud regularly. Same ISP equipment, as far as I can tell.
Hope this helps... others may have other experiences.
Dick |
