Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!decwrl!netcomsv!png
From: png@netcom.COM (Peter Glaskowsky)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: Telebit Announcement of V.32 bis for T-1600
Message-ID: <1991Jun29.024632.26791@netcom.COM>
Date: 29 Jun 91 02:46:32 GMT
References: <286B5AD0.1C4B@tct.com>
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  UNIX System {408 241-9760 guest}
Lines: 43

From article <286B5AD0.1C4B@tct.com>, by chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg):
>
> If memory serves, the V.32bis standard was close to completion before
> the T1600 even existed.  How smart was it for Telebit to go ahead with
> a modem that would need a hardware change for V.32bis?  Answer: not at
> all.

I may just finish writing this message, and then delete it, but we'll
see...

...See, I was a modem design engineer at Telebit from May through
September of last year. You'll find my initials on the bottom of your
T1600 PCB, underneath the line interface transformer. So much for my
credentials. I was the lead engineer on a different modem design project,
but when the Board of Directors decided to lay off 10% of the company,
I was one of the unlucky ones. Perhaps the fact that I'd completed my
part of the work on the new design just the day before had something
to do it.

V.32bis wasn't complete when the T1600 design was finalized, but you're
right; basically we knew what would be required, and the T1600 wasn't
fast enough to handle it. It was never meant to be!

This was a deliberate and _correct_ plan. There's such a thing as
cost-effectiveness, you know. That, and a desire to provide a widely
diversified product line, made it inevitable that Telebit should have
a less-expensive model with V.32 but not V.32bis. A V.32bis modem will
necessarily be significantly more expensive than a V.32-only modem;
it would be silly for Telebit to design a V.32-only modem which was
burdened with all the extra costs required for V.32bis.

Ford doesn't put the a V-8 engine in every car, just so it can offer
cheap firmware upgrades. It wouldn't be sensible. Why expect modem
vendors to do this?

I'm not going to go into the details of how much more expensive a
V.32bis modem needs to be, and I'm not going to tell anyone what I
know about Telebit's future modem plans, so don't bug me for that kind
of stuff. I really don't have much respect for Telebit's BOD, but I
think they have a heck of a good engineering team, and I'm not going
to second-guess them. 

.                           png