It is utterly ridiculous that this arguement even exists. Why should
Livingston spend time making their product downward compatible with a
standard developed 10 years ago? I would rather that they spend time
developing new products and supporting products which work with today's
technology.
I am trying to put myself in the shoes of a proponent of 2400 baud
support. The cost of a 14,400 modem (which WILL operate at 2400 baud if
necessary) is $50 USD and Ive seen used ones for $30. So price should not
be an issue. I just threw away about 20 external and internal 2400 baud
modems because I had no use for them.
Then could it be a technical issue? One person mentioned something about
cellular calls and that their average successful connection is 2400 baud.
I don't think this accounts for much of the market. And for that small
part of the market that needs cellular internet connection, they most
probably could afford better equipment or better service in order to
achieve 9600 baud or better. I certainly would NOT put up with cellular
internet connection at anything less.
Okay now I will put myself in Livingston's shoes. They are market driven.
They sell what the majority of the market wants. I dont think the majority
of their market wants or needs 2400 baud support. I just dont see how that
could be possible.
On the other hand, if 2400 baud support is something that could easily be
added, then they might as well do it. They must consider the costs of any
software redesign and its implications. Sometimes fixing one problem
causes another. I am sure they have considered this.
My personal feeling is as long as there are people that say that they must
have 2400 baud support, the market is holding itself back! I say we should
forget anything below 14400 and look to the future, which by the way,
should logically move away from using analog technology to digital. Modems
have always been a backwards way to connect networks together. They
take digital signals, modulate them to analog sounds in the range of 3 to
3.3khz so that the phone co equipment can carry it on equipment intended
for voice, then demodulate it on the other end back into digital data.
This is silly to do when one considers that the phone co CO's connect via
digital lines.
Which brings me to another arguement, and that is, why why WHY does the
phone co charge MORE for digital lines? There is less for them to do, less
equipment, less problems, more control. And why do term adapters still
cost so much more than modems? Arent they basically just a protocol
converter? I guess I'll have to ask that on the comp.modems llist.
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Jake Messinger 713-772-6690 jake@ams.com
Advanced Medical Systems, Inc. 800-324-8594 jake@uh.edu
Houston, Texas http://www.ams.com/~jake
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(Don't steal my squigglies)