General advice on 56K modems please

roycymru

September 14, 2002 4:23:25 PM

I would be very grateful if you use your collective experience to answer some questions I have.

I don't want to go to the expense of using broadband Internet access, but would like to try and get some increase in connection and download speeds. Currently I have a PC Tel HSP software modem on a PIII 800 system, and get connection speeds of around 44000bps and download speeds of around 4.2Kbit.

Reading through stuff on the Internet sotware modems are generally regarded as "pants" and I should be looking to replace my current one with a Hardware modem. Therefore my questions are:

When looking for a hardware modem as opposed to a software one how do I know if it is hardware or software? Modems listed for sale are not split into Hardware or sofware types

As there seem to be a lot of PCI modems out there, which ones can you recommend that will give me good connection and download speeds?

What is the level of improvement I can expect?

Should removing the old and installing the new modem be relatively straight forward?

Any help and/or advice you can give will be much appreciated

Thanks

Roy

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jihiggs

September 14, 2002 6:23:38 PM

software modems are generaly refered to as winmodems. an upgrade may not help you though, about 5 download is almost the best you can really hope for. but if you must, get a a new modem, uninstall the old one, install the new one. you will probly have to reconfigure your dun profile to use the new modem.

how do you shoot the devil in the back? what happens if you miss? -verbal

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dstell

September 14, 2002 11:38:59 PM

I hate all types of software modems because the performance from my experience isn't that good. Personally, I like and use external modems.

I think that the best modem money can buy by far is the US Robotics Courier V.Exerything. In all of the testing I have done over the years it continues (with all of the ROM updates) to beat all other commers on the planet.

I only reccomend US Robotics hardware modems no matter if they are internal or external. I think they offer the best performance, but of course they are more expensive.

I have used other brands and have found some of the other external modems to be good as well. The 3Com Business Modem was a good example of one that seems to be pretty good as well. The Sportster also seems to be good as well.

Bottom line, a WinModem can get you by, but if you are looking for the best performance, a hardware modem will always be better.

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Rick_Criswell

September 15, 2002 2:03:40 PM

I too would suggest a hardware modem. But make sure that you can return the US Roboticss modem . In some instances ,depending on your local phone company line configuration a US R modem can be limited to a 33,600 connection.

I aint signing nothing!!!

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