Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!nuchat!texbell!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: Which is best?
Message-ID: <10213@bigtex.cactus.org>
Date: 4 Nov 88 04:27:47 GMT
References: <9515@conexch.UUCP> <1125@vsi1.UUCP> <299@telebit.UUCP> <10711@ <10805@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen)
Distribution: na
Organization: Institute of Applied Cosmology, Austin TX
Lines: 34

In <10805@cup.portal.com>, David@cup.portal.com (David Michael McCord) wrote:

> I was gratified to see this confirmation of my statement that V.32
> was going to smash the telebit/hst/etceteras "within a year".

There are two fundemental problems you simply haven't addressed.

1. V.32 modems are substantially slower than the Trailblazer over
   clean lines.  I regularly see 1400cps over local connections, and
   no local connections do worse than 1000cps except on rare
   occassions.  My Tokyo link also stays up over 1000cps.  The V.32
   modems are limited to 878cps using uucp, and no more than 960cps
   using something like Zmodem.

2. V.32 appears to have no error handling.  Some people may implement
   MNP or something like it, but the fact is that two V.32 modems may
   or may not talk well with each other.  There's also a question of
   how gracefully mildly impaired lines are handled: how does V.32
   back off?

I may well buy a couple of V.32s in the next year or so for SLIP
applications.  But I'll always have a TB+ for bulk news & mail
traffic, because I just can't afford to increase my line usage and
costs by 30% or more.

> And I thought I was going out on a limb!

Well, basically, you are.  Think more like a buyer and less like a
member of a standards committee.  The TB+ certainly has its quirks,
but the fact is that it is cheaper than V.32 to buy *and operate*
and will remain so indefinitely because of the high speed of the TB+.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen      james@bigtex.cactus.org      "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 338-8789       9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759