May 29

Diamond Multimedia has told one customer that they are near completion of a beta for their V.90 firmware, and may post it this weekend. Check Diamond's V.90 page.

More telephone companies are getting into the DSL market. Pacific Bell will deploy DSL in 87 California cities this summer. BellSouth will offer ADSL in 30 Southern cities beginning in August.

---

May 27

ActionTec now has a line of V.90 modems, and we've added them to our list of shipping V.90 modems.

Popular Mechanics tests a dozen 56K modems in its May issue, reader Hoefer Gerald notes. For other magazine reviews, visit the Buyer's Guide and Reviews section of 56K.COM.

A reader named Corey noticed that Phoebe Micro has V.90 upgrades for some models.

Zoom has firmware updates for its V.90 modems. The upgrades are for new V.90 modems, and can't be used to upgrade a K56flex modem to V.90.

BestData has a new version of its V.90 firmware, dated May 22. BestData's firmware utility allows you to reload K56flex firmware if your ISP doesn't support V.90.

Byte reports on the Swissmod hybrid ISDN/fax modem.

Motorola has announced a new chip set dubbed CopperGold Lite that supports both ADSL and V.90. As noted in previous newsflashes, Lucent has a similar offering.

PC Week looks at personal routers, which combine an Ethernet hub with either ISDN or 56K modems to allow a network of computers to share a connection to the Internet.

In a related story, PC Week examines the business of providing Internet access to an office using cable modems, and finds that many cable companies aren't prepared for the needs of business users.

Previous week