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Modem thoughts?

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Sleeper

Registered
Joined
Aug 16, 2002
Location
Toronto
I have dialup ( I know, I know...) and have been doing some reading about soft modems. It seems that there has been some progress in the technology behind them, (Agere/Lucent SV92P chipset) and some of them now perform pretty well in comparison to hard modems.
Does anybody know of any other "soft modems" that have a high rating?

Because there are few of us "stone age" dial up users left, the selection of modems is getting scarce. Who still manufactures good modems, hard or soft? (read a lot of bad press about USR)

Paul
 
It's been awhile since dial-up for me, late 99'
At the time USR I thought was really good...I guess thats not the case anymore lol.
Is there any reason for staying with dial-up other than it not being available in your area?
 
Nexus Realized said:
It's been awhile since dial-up for me, late 99'
At the time USR I thought was really good...I guess thats not the case anymore lol.
Is there any reason for staying with dial-up other than it not being available in your area?
It is cheaper in many areas as well. Some people may not have the extra money to pay for a high speed connection, when you can get dial-up for $10-20. I think lack of availability is a big reason. For example, dial-up is the only thing available where my dad lives (he can't even get satellite because his view of the south-facing sky is blocked). My mom can only get dial up as well (for her, satellite is not worth the money for the level of improvement it offers).
 
Gnufsh said:
It is cheaper in many areas as well. Some people may not have the extra money to pay for a high speed connection, when you can get dial-up for $10-20. I think lack of availability is a big reason. For example, dial-up is the only thing available where my dad lives (he can't even get satellite because his view of the south-facing sky is blocked). My mom can only get dial up as well (for her, satellite is not worth the money for the level of improvement it offers).
I would move or not have moved there if I couldnt get high speed! :bang head

Yeah, I understand though. My dad still uses dialup and wehre we live we have LOTS of choices and he can afford it, hes just a cheap old man. :cool:
 
I have a really cheap plan, and don't surf enough to warrant the extra cost for broadband.

http://modemsite.com/56k/sv92p.asp
Some interesting info on this chipset/modem.

From the people that are still using dial up, what modems are you runnng?

Paul
 
I actually have a cheap hardware modem (external serial) for when I'm on dial-up. It's based on a conexant chipset. I forget the origional manufacturer (I think itr may have been amiga), as I flashed the firmware to that of a zoom 56k. Since I mostly run linux, it's much easier to use a hardware modem rhan it is to try and track down good drivers for a winmodem.

AFAIK, US robotics hardware modems are still good.
 
I did a bunch of searching, and talked to a rep from Agere/ Luecent and found some modems that use their chipsets. I'm going to try one, and see how it compares to my Aopen. (can't lose for $13.00)

Paul
 
You know, most ofyour computers performance is lagged because the CPU has to keep going crazy to keep a connection. those winmodems that do it themselves are in improvement, however i saw newer modems (yes) that are external. not paralell like the first modems

http://www.netcomm.com.au/Modems/external.php

I only foudn out about these, because i helped our horse driver switch over to mac (he just wanted something he couldnt break) and he bought a mini just as they discontinued the dialup modems (gotta love how apple pushes things obsolete) he had to buy an external one, was only about 30$ for him. The nice thing is, the modem had a firewall, handled staying online or not, much like a DSL modem, which asa result allowed his computer to do ALOT MORE at once. he hooked it up to his old winPC once just to try and the whole experience was alot easier to deal with
 
Some area don't even have local number at all and internet connection could get expensive. The area I live in has only one local ISP service and for the last 15 years they only offered 56k (used to be 33.6k only when I first started) and then 64k ISDN but $40/mo plus hardware wasn't worth the small bump in speed.

I'm also on 56k dialup. I could go with satellite but for the price (almost $1500 for first year) it's not really worth it since I do get storms here often and satellite frequently fails to work for several minutes to about an hour. That and if there's intense solar flare activity, satellite also fails. It would suck if my EQ guild was about to begin a raid on a major mob and I play an important toon when boom, I go LD and can't get back online for a while. :p

DSL just recently became available in my area and I could get 768k for $50/mo (382k up, 382kdown), 512k (256k/256k) for $40/mo, or 256k (128k/128k) for $30/mo plus hardware. Just need to get some moola first... Since they are from the same ISP, I could keep my existing accounts and just change the connection.
 
MadSkillzMan said:
You know, most ofyour computers performance is lagged because the CPU has to keep going crazy to keep a connection. those winmodems that do it themselves are in improvement, however i saw newer modems (yes) that are external. not paralell like the first modems

http://www.netcomm.com.au/Modems/external.php

I only foudn out about these, because i helped our horse driver switch over to mac (he just wanted something he couldnt break) and he bought a mini just as they discontinued the dialup modems (gotta love how apple pushes things obsolete) he had to buy an external one, was only about 30$ for him. The nice thing is, the modem had a firewall, handled staying online or not, much like a DSL modem, which asa result allowed his computer to do ALOT MORE at once. he hooked it up to his old winPC once just to try and the whole experience was alot easier to deal with

Interesting info.
A bit pricey, but if a deal could be found it would be a good solution. I never really thought to look at external modems.

Way back when I was going to buy my first computer, I contemplated going with a MAC, but my friends warned me that what I looking at, (and could afford at the time) was already obsolete. The guy at the store was telling me, it was the best thing since sliced bread.

Paul
 
hah..back in the day of external modems and all mac, id have to say he was full of it

my freind has a weird one for his 7100..it says 57K on it. Psh 1 extra k, whoopie
 
MadSkillzMan said:
hah..back in the day of external modems and all mac, id have to say he was full of it

my freind has a weird one for his 7100..it says 57K on it. Psh 1 extra k, whoopie

It rounded up. 56.6 and 28.8. SERIOUSLY!

:bang head
 
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