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Networld+Interop Show Report
I got to spend Wednesday at the Atlanta Interop. It was a great way to see the latest in technology, and to meet some of the people I knew from email and Usenet.
56K sales
56K modems were prominently on display at the modem booths. Despite the hype over cable modems and ADSL, the modem vendors I spoke to told me that 33.6 modems were still the biggest competitors for 56K. All pinpointed the lack of a standard as the culprit, noting that some businesses and MIS/IT managers were reluctant to embrace a relatively young technology that lacked an interoperable standard.
A 3Com representative noted that despite such conservatism, 56K sales were strong, especially to ISPs and Internet users. Rebecca Madigan of Xircom said that her company's CreditCard Ethernet 10/100+Modem 56 was the company's best-selling PCMCIA card. No one was disappointed by their 56K sales, and everyone was optimistic about the future of 56K once a standard is approved by the ITU.
Motorola
I stopped by the Motorola booth to ask about the recent news that they were trying to sell their modem division. (See PC Week.) The representatives I spoke to wanted to make it clear that only the consumer modem division was on the block. Motorola intends to continue enterprise units, such as their rack mount modems and the Premiere series, which offers password authentication and callback security.
Network modems
One big trend at the show was low-cost devices for connecting a small network of computers to the Internet. Their price and ease of setup makes them ideal for the small office/home office customer who wants an affordable solution that won't require a consultant to set up or maintain.
These net modems aren't just networkable: they're 10BaseT Ethernet hubs in their own right. If you're just starting a network, you can connect your computers directly to the modem and eliminate the cost of a hub. If you already have a network, just plug the net modem into your existing hub.
Interestingly, all of the units I saw skipped conventional Mac or Windows configuration software. Instead, you set up the modem through your web browser. This means you can configure your hardware from practically any platform, including Windows, Macintosh, OS/2 and various flavors of UNIX. The web interfaces were simple and uncluttered.
The Ascend Pipeline 85 and 3Com ISDN LAN Modem use ISDN for high-speed connectivity. Though "ISDN modem" is technically an oxymoron, it's a convenient way to describe them to the guys in accounting.
The Ascend Pipeline 85 ($750 street) is actually an ISDN bridge and router, meaning it can route traffic to and from different remote networks, and can transmit multiple network protocols (TCP/IP, IPX, etc.) Firewall security is available as an extra-cost software package.
The 3Com ISDN LAN Modem ($499) uses a round-robin approach to transmitting data. When one computer's request is complete, the channel opens for the next computer's request. Internet traffic tends to be bursty and intermittent, so this approach works well in small offices accessing the Internet.
The Ramp Networks NetRamp M3 ($439 estimated retail) lets you mix and match as many as three analog modems or ISDN terminal adapters of any speed or any brand. It's an excellent choice if you currently give several employees their own modems and data lines: reclaim the lines and equipment in one room, plug them into the NetRamp, and you have an Internet connection that everyone on the network can share. Each user or process gets one port's worth of bandwidth. Even a single user can benefit, downloading files on one modem and browsing web pages on another.
When your office grows, or when your family acquires its second or third home computer, these devices will become increasingly useful in the quest to put all of your computers on the Internet.
Welcome Interop fans! I'll be in Atlanta on Wednesday to attend Interop, the premier Internet and networking exposition. Look for coverage on Thursday or Friday, depending on when I get back from the show.
Speaking of Interop, be sure to visit Multi-Tech's booth for a demonstration of their CommPlete Communications Server, which can bond two K56flex modems to achieve speeds up to 92K.
Cynthia Morgan of Windows Magazine looks at the state of 56K and the battle between x2 and K56flex.
Hayes is offering $40 rebates on its 56K modems, and a vacation contest.
Zoltrix is offering upgrades to the final ITU 56K standard for their 56K modems.
MacWEEK's Clifford Colby reports that Ramp Networks is preparing an update to their WebRamp M3 bonding router that will allow dial-in access.
CNET has a cable modem feature story.
Hughes Network Systems DirecDuo is a single satellite dish that combines the 400K Internet access of DirecPC with the hundreds of TV channels of DirecTV and USSB.
56K.COM is written and maintained by Les Jones. Artwork by Mark Maxwell. Copyright 1997 Softwords.
