56k vs. the Great Telephone Experiment

Jon Rust (jpr@vcnet.com)
Thu, 28 Aug 97 10:00:10 -0700

My excitement of receiving the new cards quickly disappeared the first
time I tried connecting a Zoom 56kx modem to my PM-3. On one of them,
nada. On the other, 38k, but a dropped connection shortly thereafter.

So I tried Hayes. Same thing. I've got customers trying Zoltrix, Smart
Rapid Transit (Apex is the parent company I believe -- they use Lucent
chips), Falcon, and Supra. Nothing works. :-((((

I'd always assumed everything was gonna be okay since our average connect
rate for our customers is 31.2. I *always* get a 31.2 connection from my
house, but can't do dick with any 56k modem I've tried.

The new cards do work though. One of our employees has an ISDN line. When
he connects with the Zoom thorugh the ISDN line, he gets transfer rates
of about 5.7kbytes/s (reported connect rate of 48k). Also, most of our
28.8/33.6 customers are seeing better connect times and latency is down.

Still a BIG bummer.

PM-3, new cards
3.7
PRI, NI-2

**big sigh**

Sad in SoCal,
Jon