>Strange....I have a 56K modem that I purchased for $60 at a shoiw and I >get on consistently at 42000-44000. Your findings certainly don't >encourage me to bother with V.90. I thought V.90 was supposed to get you >up a lot closer to 56K than you indicate. Thanks for the info, sounds >like I should just stick with what I have until new technology gets us >higher than 56.
The "56k" speed issue has been a major sore spot since the technology arrived on the scene. Marketing folks should have called them 46 or 48k boxes, but of course, marketing types don't work this way. It's no worse than disk drive vendors continuing to publish drive access speeed in milliseconds, which has very little to do with real drive performance. Nontheless, these V.90 modems are, in fact, delivering speed improvements on our system of over 50% compared to 33.6k modems and our clients do not ignore such an improvement and time saving upgrade.
I've worked with several dozen clients helping them improve connect rates, which are mostly due to their facility wiring, with very few problems actually due to telco services. A 45333 or 46666 connection with a 5000+ cps compressed file transfer rate, is something that our business users are very pleased with.
Personally, I think the major issue is with Internet bandwidth, which during business hours can sink so low a 14.4k modem can easily support it... let alone a 44-46k connection via a 56k modem. I don't see a lot of people talking about this significant performance problem.
The purpose of my report was to show that direct-dial V.90 into TF provides users with speeds they are not getting via their typical V.90 ISP connection, during business hours, or can obtain with their current 28.8 or 33.6k modems via direct-dial into TF. V.90 direct-dial into a TF system is a good performance combination, significantly superior to the ftp and web page file downloads thru-put we've tested, via a large number of V.90, X2 and K56Flex ISP connections, for the past six months.
The primary issue at our end, Jim, has always been to figure out how we minimize our client's time, getting support files for their Macs from the ASTEC BBS. V.90 is now a big contributor to this effort.
