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News Archive for April, 1997

April 25

Attorney Donald Driscoll has filed a class action lawsuit against the makers of 56K modems, accusing them of false advertising. In a PC World story, Driscoll is quoted as saying, "When they say 56K or K56, I want them to make sure that there's an asterisk that explains the problems." Driscoll successfully filed suit against monitor makers, forcing them to be more honest in the description of their monitor sizes. Thanks to the John Navas 28800 Modem FAQ for linking to the story.

 

PC World also has a RealAudio interview with Navas about 56K modems.

Hayes has completed its acquisition of Cardinal Technologies. There was no disclosure of financial details. In a press release, Hayes stated that is was strongly committed to K56flex, but will "maintain Cardinal's installed-base commitment to deliver modems based on x2 technology."

 

 

April 15

Motorola has resumed shipment of its ModemSURFR and VoiceSURFR 56K modems after correcting an algorithm in one of the chips that affected performance. The modems are eligible for Motorola's TidalWave program, which provides an upgrade path to either the final ITU 56K standard or to ISDN.

 

Ascend has introduced 56K modem units for its MAX and TNT line of terminal servers. Ascend MAX units are used by more than a thousand Internet service providers, including America Online and Mindspring.

April 9

PC magazine has a review of U.S. Robotics x2 modems and an article about K56flex, the 56K technology from Rockwell, Lucent, and other members of the Open 56K Forum.

 

AOL Networks has announced field trials of Lucent and Rockwell's K56flex technology. Lucent has a press release. This is significant news, as AOL was already conducting field trials of U.S. Robotics' competing x2 technology in a handful of U.S. cities. Use AOL keyword "x2" for details. Like Global Village, AOL may be hedging its bets by supporting both technologies.

 

It's always been known that 56K modems would offers speeds of up to 56K for downloading only. Uploading would be at a maximum of 33.6K. However, a Lucent Technologies FAQ points to higher download speeds in the future:

Q9: Will the upstream speed be limited to V.34 rates?

A: Not necessarily. The initial version of K56flex will use V.34 rates for upstream (uploading), which has been selected by the TIA for the U.S. interim "56K" standard. Lucent is expecting to upgrade its future K56flex product software, via its RAM based solution, which will utilize additional techniques to enable rates higher than V.34 rates in the upstream direction. Again the key is having digital access at one end of the connection which is not available in a home-to-home connection. With only one analog loop in the path, there are less impairments than conventional V.34 connections (2 loops). Higher rates and better performance than V.34 are expected. In fact, preliminary findings show that this technology will yield upstream rates in excess of 40 kbits/s.

Though unconfirmed, this faster download speed may be based on Aetherwork's V.mach technology. LAN Times ran an article about V.mach, which Aetherworks claims can achieve speeds up to 43.2k over a fully analog connection.

 

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