Wednesday, November 26, 1997

Modem speed not always what user expects

By BRIAN BETHEL / Abilene Reporter-News

Speed. You want it. You crave it. You can get it. But will it help?

Buying a modem these days means plunking down your hard-earned cash for one of the brand new 56k modems. They're everywhere.

But how much will that shiny new piece of plastic and silicon improve your Internet experience?

Maybe not as much as you would first think.

Several things are holding you back from that honest-to-goodness, lightning-fast speed you so crave.

And sometimes you really cannot do anything about it.

HOW IT WORKS

The speed of all modems is measured in the number of bits per second it can practically transfer.

In the olden days (about 1995), a 33.6 baud connection was considered the limit a normal phone line could hope to handle.

But, some bright engineer figured out that by skipping a step traditional modems use to receive data, speeds of 56,000 bits per second were possible.

The trick is that the computer you are communicating with has to be capable of understanding that your modem wants to take the necessary shortcut.

That means your Internet Service Provider, or whomever you are communicating with, has to upgrade their equipment to use your new modem.

And that is the first real barrier on the road to speed.

TWO STANDARDS

It would not be so bad for ISPs if one type of 56k modem was out there. Everyone would upgrade to the same standard, and that would be that.

The problem is that two completely different and competing communications standards are used in the new high-speed modems.

On one side is U.S. Robotics' x2 technology. A giant in the modem industry, USR was the first to come out with a 56k modem. Since then, many manufacturers have made their modems x2 compatible.

On the flip side is the K56Flex standard, created by Lucent Technologies and chipmaker Rockwell.

Rockwell is responsible for the chips used in many brands of popular modems.

The two standards cannot talk to one another. That means ISPs who want to offer 56k service have to either pick one, potentially alienating some customers, or bite the bullet and offer both.

If your ISP or data network doesn't support your particular standard, you can still connect at the standard 33.6 rate. But that means you will not be using the potential your modem has to offer.

Attempts are being made to create one standard that can be supported by both types of modems, but don't expect the protocol to be finalized until sometime next year.

Then, modem manufacturers will have to either offer hardware upgrades for existing users or figure out how to make their hardware conform via software updates.

DRAGGIN' ME DOWN

Beyond the obvious ISP issue, other things conspire to give you less-than-ideal performance with the new modems.

The phone lines themselves provide a problem. Poor lines, especially in rural areas, can drag down performance.

If your current modem struggles to connect at the speed it is supposed to attain, chances are you won't get optimal performance from a new one, either.

Another barrier is one imposed by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is currently limiting the connection speed of all modems to 53k. While that missing 3k of transmission speed is not huge, it does make a difference.

Naturally, manufacturers are looking for legal ways to circumvent that barrier and are also lobbying to have it removed.

And finally, even though you can connect at 56k speeds, you can only download information at that rate. You still upload information -- send it to your Internet provider -- at 33.6.

While that limit doesn't affect everyone, it does affect those who need high-speed uploading capabilities, such as webmasters who might be updating their sites remotely.

Fans of on-line games will see little difference as well, since their movements can only uploaded at the traditional rate they've become used to.

Results of those moves can be received more quickly, but the lag in uploading and downloading will mean little overall performance gain.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Despite these problems, a new modem can mean a more pleasant online experience. But there are a few things you need to do before you buy.

Check with your ISP to make sure the brand of modem you want to use is supported.

If you use America Online, for example, you are pretty much out of luck right now with either standard. Save your cash.

Decide from past experience whether your phone lines can handle the speed increase efficiently. If they are traditionally sluggish, you may not see any real gains in speed.

And perhaps the most important thing to do is to check with individual modem manufacturers to see what they plan to do when and if a new standard is finalized.

Spending the extra cash on a modem that can handle updates easily can save you a lot of time and trouble in the future.