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From: bert@helix.nih.gov (Bert Tyler)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: High-speed modems for overseas file transfer
Message-ID: <997@nih-csl.nih.gov>
Date: 21 Feb 91 02:21:59 GMT
Sender: news@nih-csl.nih.gov
Organization: National Institutes of Health, Bethesda
Lines: 53

Guys, I just gave out some free advice and now I'd like to know if it
was worth every penny I was paid for it <sheepish grin>.

My wife is part of a brand-new (three-person office) US subsidiary of
a British economic forecasting firm.  This is the British firm's
first subsidiary, and they just realized that they now have to transfer
about 5MB's worth of information across the ocean each month (after
ZIPping it), and their usual method of file transfer, tossing a few
floppies across the room, isn't going to work.

I portray myself as a PC "expert", and do so with such confidence that
I sometimes even get people to believe me.  In this case, I was asked
about high-speed modems.  At the moment, their current modems are the
2400bps variety, and overseas calls are fairly expensive.  They plan
on setting up a PC in the home office with some sort of MS-DOS-based
BBS setup so that the US group will be able to dial in at will and
upload/download files.  We're talking about economists used to MS-DOS
here - Unix is not an option.  Their plan is to purchase two modems
here in the states next month when one of the home office staff drops
by for a visit and stuffing one into his luggage for the return trip
because "everything is cheaper in the States".

I recommended V.32 modems because I believe in standards, and suggested
that under the circumstances they think real hard about V.32bis modems.
In terms of price/performance, I told them I had heard good things about
the Intel V.32 modems (mail-order priced at $500-550) and Practical
Peripheral V.32 modems (mail-order priced at $450-500) at the low end
and the Hayes Ultra (mail-order priced at about $800) at the high end.
I gave them mail-order estimates for the USRobotics V.32bis modems
(not the Dual-standards) of about $700.

1) Are they going to have any problems (legal and/or practical) with
purchasing a modem in the States and plugging it into the phone lines
in England?  (That part was their idea, so I'm clean.)

2) Are the above modems fairly intelligent picks or dumb ones?  Bear
in mind that these folks are definitely interested in "plug and play"
solutions, they will undoubtedly end up using these same modems for
other purposes once they get them, and will have little interest in
flipping DIP switches or setting up custom command strings for
performance - they just want the silly things to work.  Also bear in
mind that these guys are not going to get any recommendations involving
proprietary protocols (HST, PEP, Hayes V-Series, etc) from me.

3) What didn't I think of that I should have thought of?

If you send me replies directly, I'll summarize to the net.  If you
work for a modem vendor, or sell a particular brand, I don't mind
plugs for your side at all if they are labelled as such.


Bert Tyler
bert@helix.nih.gov