Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!apple!voder!pyramid!csg
From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: London England and modem speeds
Keywords: How fast can they be? Problems?
Message-ID: <41536@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Date: 1 Oct 88 20:06:33 GMT
References: <311@hrc.UUCP>
Reply-To: csg@pyramid.UUCP (Carl S. Gutekunst)
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 24

In article <311@hrc.UUCP> dan@hrc.UUCP (Dan Troxel VP) writes:
>I have heard that the highest baud rate to communicate out of London
>is 1200 baud. 

And that only on *good* days. I dunno why, but dialup to London is awful. The
Bell 212A and V.22 modems we've tried were erratic, and V.22bis was out of the
question. Even the TrailBlazer has never worked right. (One of these days we
may goad Telebit into finding out why.) This is a sharp contrast to Australia,
for example, which works exceptionally well with just about anything; and
Chile and Argentina, where most modems won't work at all but the TrailBlazers
get over 500 cps. Then again, dialup to Germany is terrible, too. Maybe the
trans-Atlantic phone links are just outdated?

>o If so, is there a different way to send the data in a speedily fashion?

X.25 Public Data Network. We have a 9600bps Telenet line here, and most places
we call in the U.K. have 9600bps lines to British Telecomm Packet Switch
Service (PSS). We get a consistent data rate in excess of 500 characters per
second. Unfortunately, X.25 is hideously expensive; Telenet is charging us
$1400/month, plus $12 per 64K and $12 per hour of connect time. If you work it
out, all you need to maintain is a *reliable* 80 cps on a modem to break even.
If the TrailBlazer worked, we'd completely adandon X.25 to the U.K.

<csg>