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Viking Components V.90 modems are actually V.90 upgradeable
On March 11th I noted that several people had reported seeing a Viking Components V.90 modem, and one person had purchased one at CompUSA. A reader who wished to remain anonymous reports that the Viking Components V.90 modem does not in fact support V.90, but is instead V.90 upgradeable.
A Viking technical support person confirmed this after I re-phrased the question several times:
Is this modem V.90?The modem is V.90, but you will need to download a software upgrade.
But is it V.90 out of the box?
Yes, but it requires an upgrade. The modem is ready, but the software isn't ready.
If I buy this modem and try to call an ISP that supports V.90, will it make a V.90 connection?
There aren't any ISPs with V.90 yet.
Let's say that hypothetically there was an ISP that had V.90. I couldn't make a V.90 connection to them with this modem out of the box, could I?
That's correct.
Other news
Boca Research expects to ship V.90 modems the week of March 23.
O'Grady's PowerPage has info about Global Village V.90 upgrades and V.90 products.
Wired News reports that Internet backbone performance, as measured by Keynote Systems, has increased 60% since last year.
Another Wired News piece covers controversy surrounding Internet Traffic Report and Internet Weather Report, two sites that provide snapshots of overall Internet speed. Critics claim that the sites' simplistic sampling methods can't hope to give an accurate picture of Internet congestion.
Reader Stephen Stewart writes:
Just to let your United Kingdom readers know that the V.90 upgrade for UK Sportster Message Plus Modems is now available, with the Sportster Flash version due in May.
Boardwatch article
Boardwatch magazine's March cover story reports the magazine's tests of 56K modem performance. In their tests, a U.S. Robotics Sportster x2 massively outperformed a Hayes Accura K56flex.
The article is already generating controversy on comp.dcom.modems, and on a number of mailing lists.
I personally find the numbers a little hard to believe. In the 56K.COM reader speed survey, x2 had an advantage over K56flex modems, but not by the margins reported by Boardwatch. In Boardwatch's test, the Hayes Accura only once achieved a 40K initial connect speed, and most of the connects were at 36K or less. In contrast, the Hayes survey results for units with recent firmware showed many connects in the high 40s, with correspondingly high FTP transfer rates for compressed files.
The Boardwatch tests don't seem to jibe with other published test results. The Macworld modem review noted here last week includes a performance chart that shows little difference between x2 and K56flex units.
News.com is also covering the Boardwatch story.
V.90 modems and upgrades
Several readers wrote to say that Viking Components is now shipping V.90 modems. Though I couldn't find any mention of it on the company's Web site, Anthony Markley says that he bought a Viking Components V.90 modem at CompUSA last week. I've added Viking to the list of companies shipping V.90 modems.
March 12th update: Viking's V.90 modems are apparently not V.90, but rather V.90 upgradeable. More news on the 13th.
Modular Technology expects to ship V.90 modems April 1st.
PC-TEL plans to begin shipping V.90 HSP modems in April, with mass production beginning in June.
Psion Dacom, a European maker of PCMCIA modems, announced that it will provide free V.90 upgrades.
Simple Computing expects to have V.90 upgrades in April.
56K.COM is written and maintained by Les Jones. Artwork by Mark Maxwell.
