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TechWeb's Breaking the Speed Limit has published an article I wrote about optimizing hard drive performance.
Carmen Noble of PC Week reports that Rockwell is suing Bay Networks over alleged violations of K56flex licensing agreements. Bay sells server equipment that supports Rockwell and Lucent's K56flex and 3Com's x2 in the same chassis. Bay plans to countersue, according to a company official quoted in the article.
Ariel is looking for a buyer for its ADSL product line.
There is reportedly new Hayes UK beta firmware, but it isn't available for public beta testing.
A Cirrus Logic press release announces a new four channel 56K controller.
SmartLink announced a dual-line 112K fax modem. What makes this bonding modem different is that is as an HSP, or controllerless, modem, which is not exactly a good thing.
Question for Erol's customers: did Erol's link to 56K.COM recently? I seem to be getting a ton of email from erols.com addresses this week.
ISP news
EarthLink has announced that K56flex is available at 390 of its points of presence (POPs).
BellSouth.net is offering K56flex access in selected markets, and expects to make 56K access available to all customers by the end of first quarter, 1998, according to a press release.
America Online recently reported that 410 of its POPs support x2.
U.S. Robotics is working on version 2.0 of x2, and beta firmware is being emailed to testers. The new version apparently fixes some performance problems, but that's about all of the information I have for now.
There's new Shotgun information, courtesy of Jeff Orr, product marketing manager for Diamond Multimedia:
Update: On Monday, we announced a dual-line modem called SupraSonic II, which we intend to release in Q1'1998. Best link for both Shotgun and SupraSonic II info is: http://www.diamondmm.com/shotgun/
Regarding the latest Supra Macintosh K56flex firmware, Phil Noguchi writes:
For mac users trying the Beta Supra 56K modems, you need to download the new CCL file. The major change is that with the 1.120 code, both PC and MAC now use AT&F for initialization. Previously, the mac used AT&F1. I can verify that this is needed; on my ISP two of three 56k lines would reject the 1.120 code; now they all work.
New @ 56K.COM
I get a lot of email from readers who can't find init strings for their modems on the inits and drivers page. It turns out that many modem companies don't publish recommended init strings on their web sites, probably because the Mac and Windows 95 are moving towards settings files ("drivers"). However, you can get the init string from the Mac or Windows 95 drivers, even if you're using a completely different operating system. Two new pages should help:
If that doesn't help, or if you're looking for a driver rather than an init string, try "Help! My modem isn't listed here!"
Last but not least, I've added information about disconnect problems to the 56K Troubleshooting Guide.
America Online's financial report for the past quarter reveals information about their modem upgrades:
At the same time, the Company has continued its aggressive expansion of AOLnet, the world's largest dial-in network, and from all sources, currently has more than 600,000 modems available for use by AOL members. In addition, AOL has upgraded over 75% of AOLnet access numbers to support the new 56K modem technology speeds.
Just last week, AOL's network reached a new milestone of more than 500,000 simultaneous users, tripling peak usage over the past year. Members currently are averaging over 6.5 million hours online daily or 40 minutes per member per day.
Even more bondage
Bonding modems continue to make the news.
XLR8's Web OverDrive software bonds two 56K modems and two analog phone lines to achieve download speeds up to 112K. Newsbytes has a story (requires membership). Information from XLR8 is at http://www.xlr8.com/WebOverDrive.html. According to the company's web site, the software works with any ISP that supports Windows 95 Dial-Up Networking. Support for AOL and CompuServe will be added in a later release.
Brian McWilliams of PC World reports on Boca's bonding modem, the 112K DynamicDuo.
News.com, PC World, and Wired have more information about Diamond Multimedia's Shotgun (see November 5 news). Jeff Orr of Diamond Multimedia asked me to make it clear that Shotgun is not a modem, but a software technology, and that no formal product announcements have been made.
These links have been added to the special report on bonding.
56K.COM is written and maintained by Les Jones. Artwork by Mark Maxwell. Copyright 1997 Softwords.
