Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!oberon!skat.usc.edu!chris
From: chris@skat.usc.edu (Christopher Ho)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: HST Package for USENET
Keywords: HST USENET
Message-ID: <15994@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 20 Mar 89 21:53:05 GMT
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: chris@skat.usc.edu (Christopher Ho)
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 37

In article <142@sopwith.UUCP> snoopy@sopwith.UUCP (Snoopy) writes:
>In article <18612@mcdchg.chi.il.us> kowals@studsys.mu.edu (kowalski) writes:
>|                         GET UNIVERSAL HIGH SPEED
>|                       MODEM COMPATIBILITY AND SAVE
  [...]
>A "universal" high speed modem that doesn't speak the most common
>high speed modem protocol on usenet.  Doesn't sound very universal
  [...]
>Second, what counts in a USENET modem are: (1) throughput sending compressed
>news batches via UUCP 'g' protocol, (2) ability to maintain a connection and
>reasonable throughput when the phone line quality is poor, (3) reliability
  [...]
>Items 1 and 2 are currently best achieved via the PEP(tm) protocol.  There
>is therefore a large installed base of PEP modems, and any high-speed modem
>wishing to penetrate the usenet market had better talk PEP.  V.32 would
>be nice, but probably not essential to most sites at this time.  Sites
  [...]
>A modem that talks PEP and V.32 and HST and 2400/1200/300 might be
>very popular.  Anything less is NOT universal.  Naturally, the price

Despite the marginal advantages of Telebit's PEP, it is a proprietary
protocol.  As such, it is unfortunately doomed in the long run to only
a passing mention in a history chapter.  How many of you remember (or
more importantly, use) Racal-Vadic's 1200 bps protocol?  'Nuff said.

The reason protocol spoofing was added on Telebits was because of the
relatively high overhead of turning the PEP channel around.  V.32
doesn't suffer from this problem.

Our organization waited a long time for V.32 modems to come down to
reasonable prices.  Although I chafed impatiently and suggested
Telebits several times, I'm now convinced we did The Right Thing.

It's not clear what useful purpose Snoopy's scathing article serves.
A $699 price is very competitive for a V.32 modem.

Chris