Past News Home Search Email Glossary
Alex Suit notes that Acer Open has released a K56flex to V.90 upgrade on their Web site. As far as I can tell, Acer is the first company to ship V.90 upgrades for their existing K56flex modems.
Some of the Courier and Sportster init strings listed in the March 25th news were transposed. The table now shows the correct commands.
Diamond Multimedia has pushed their V.90 upgrades back to April.
News.com is reporting that Motorola has dropped it lawsuit against 3Com concerning PCM modem patents, and the two companies will be licensing each other's technology.
Motorola is demonstrating V.90 HSP modems at WinHEC '98. I recently spoke to Mike Tramontano, Manager of Product Marketing for Motorola Information Systems Group about HSP modems. As a result, I've softened up my stance on software-based modems somewhat. More about that next week.
Customers of DirecPC satellite service have issues with the service's performance and policies, according to a story by Margie Semilof in Computer Reseller News.
ISP support for V.90
3Com's announced plans call for the release of V.90 code for their Total Control server equipment at the end of the month. Though they may be slightly off schedule, conversations with 3Com indicate that the code will be in ISPs' hands in a few weeks.
Livingston will support V.90 in the next public beta of Livingston's ComOS for their PortMaster racks. The beta is expected to be released March 31st.
Ascend has been pretty quiet about thier V.90 upgrade schedule, but I did find this nifty beta test agreement.
There's so much news relating to 3Com that I'm devoting a day's worth of news to the company.
Looking to test your V.90 modem? The USR BBS now supports V.90. V.90 modems of all brands should be able to connect to the BBS.
V.90 upgrade glitches
If the new V.90 code causes problems with your Courier, you can find an old version of the firmware on this TotalService page. (But try one of the V.90 disable codes below first.) Thanks to Norman Dlugatch for posting this to comp.sys.mac.comm.
Having trouble upgrading your Courier to V.90 using the Macintosh Modem Upgrade Wizard? Lots of people are. 3Com tech support is telling callers they expect to fix the software in the next few weeks. In the mean time, try downloading the upgrade from here, and sending it to your modem using any terminal program that supports Xmodem file transfers. Thanks to Frank Taylor, also on comp.sys.mac.comm.
A Newsbytes story by Craig Menefee covers 3Com topics, including V.90 upgrade problems, and the company's decision to drop the Sportster brand name on its V.90 products. Instead of the "U.S. Robotics Sportster," the equivalent modem will be the "3Com U.S. Robotics." I'm confused already.
Disabling x2 and V.90 on 3Com V.90 modems
As with x2 and K56flex, it is sometimes necessary to disable V.90 for compatibility with the modems you're dialing. One 56K.COM reader was unable to access his online banking service after upgrading his 3Com Sportster to V.90. Disabling V.90 allowed him to connect to his bank again.
Here are the appropriate commands for controlling the 56K protocol used on 3Com V.90 modems, as provided by John Powell, 3Com Field Engineering Manager. Add these commands to the end of your init string.
Note that these are different in some cases from the commands for x2 modems.
|
|
x2 on, V.90 off |
x2 off, V.90 on |
Both off |
Both on* |
|
Sportster |
S32=66 |
S32=34 |
S32=98 |
S32=2 |
|
Courier |
S58=32 |
S58=1 |
S58=33 |
S58=0 |
I expect to have the V.90 disable codes for Rockwell modems by Friday.
Init strings were just a small part of our conversation. John Powell has been in charge of testing x2 and V.90 for 3Com. We talked about the recent Boardwatch article, the 3Com line test BBS, and many other topics. Look for a transcript of the interview next week.
Carmen Nobel of PC Week reports that Hayes is now shipping V.90 modems. The modems support V.90 and K56flex simultaneously, and will automatically select the correct protocol to match the ISP when a call is made. I've added Hayes to the short list of shipping V.90 modems.
3Com has released the V.90 upgrade for U.S. Couriers.
Puretek expects to have V.90 upgrades in the second quarter.
H. Davis notes that Sony has 33.6 to 56K upgrades for some models.
Aztech expects to have V.90 USB modems in the second quarter.
Correction: the comp.dcom.modems post I attributed to Ed Fortmiller was actually from Alan Sterger. Thanks to Alan for describing how to get more information about your phone line. See the March 20th news for all the details.
56K.COM is written and maintained by Les Jones. Artwork by Mark Maxwell.