Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!cmcl2!arizona!joel
From: joel@arizona.edu (Joel Snyder)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: V.32 will dominate the marketplace (Was: Re: Which is best?)
Message-ID: <7846@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 15 Nov 88 05:10:03 GMT
References: <2261@looking.UUCP> <1248@nusdhub.UUCP> <14515@mimsy.UUCP> <14533@mimsy.UUCP> <721@lts.UUCP>
Reply-To: jms@mis.arizona.edu (Joel Snyder)
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Arizona MIS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 21

Amanda's comments on the two philosophies of modems are particularly
well put.  As a user support person, I prefer the "it's really a long
wire" idea, since I don't get random users complaining that their
mmmm bps modem actually delivers mmmm/2 bps performance when they're
using xyz protocol.  However, in my previous life working for a large
network, the exact opposite was our preference---bandwidth was the
most precious thing on earth (except maybe for memory), and if we
could get smart modems that made the bandwidth better, we sure as
hell were going to do it.  In fact, there was a company I don't remember
that had a product that predated the "protocol spoofing" which 
Telebit does by several years.  They came to our site, put a datascope
on several transmission lines for a couple of hours, got a lecture
on the underlying protocol from some of our engineers, and promised
that they'd build "custom" modems (V.29 flavored) which scratched out
20Kbps on channels we'd only ever been able to get 9.6Kbps out of
before (remember, this was before the new class of modems came out---
this seemed incredible at the time!).  

There is room for both in this world.  It all depends on your application.

jms