V.92 - Is it Worth the Upgrade?

Moo T Foo asks: "Has everyone heard of the new V.92 protocol? It looks that there is little to no support from the ISP's to even upgrade for this standard. What's the point? DSL is dominating the market place for consumers. What do you think about this new protocol? And is the V.92 worth the upgrade if no one will support it? Check out 808hi's site for more background on V.92." It sounds like a fairly useful upgrade. I'm surprised the ISPs aren't already jumping on it due to features like "quicker handshaking, and call-waiting/modem-on-hold capabilities" which can only benefit their existing customers.

Hmm..

[jclarke]

I wonder if my USR Sportster 28.8 will be able to be upgraded...

I agree

[FreeJack1]

I think I'd have to agree with MTF. The mainstream of digital communication is changing. Common modems that we used to use (28.8, 33.6, 56k, etc.) are not "lusted" after any more, thanks to the offering of DSL and Cable-modem services.

I made the switch from a USR 56k to a cable modem and I swear I will never go back! Once I experienced the speed difference I was hooked.

The best they can offer for v.92 is faster handshaking?

Big deal, with my Cable modem, I have no handshaking, I'm always connected.

It just seems a bit frivolous to try and "wow" us with this chocolate-chip muffin when we already have a triple layer double fudge swirl chocolate cake!!

Re:I agree

[Detritus]

V.92 is supposed to have better compression, a faster uplink and other features. Many people do not have access to cable modems or DSL. Dialup modems are going to be around for a long time.

remote places

[steff77]

It's probabaly not worth an upgrade, but worth looking for when you by a new modem. Here in Europe DSL an other quick connections are rare and expensive. Anything that makes my dial up quicker makes me feel more like being constantly connected

ISP's standpoint

[outZider]

I work for a local ISP. We plan on supporting the V.92 standard, but not for a good 2-6 months after the standard is final and firmware is released. Why, you ask? You see, the first set of firmware for our modem racks are just like first versions of drivers. They're usually buggy, and screw up the other half of the system. We're worried about the other 98% of our users getting slower or less stable connections than they are used to. We do plan on supporting the standard -- just not for a little while yet.

Re:I agree

[fat_mike]

Damn straight. I live in a large city and my apartment complex is an island in a sea of DSL and cable modems. It is not offered and not planned on being available for awhile still. So anything that makes my USR (sorry, 3com) modem quicker is fine by me. I just hope the ISPs' in this area support it eventually.

V.92 Hurts ISP Profits

[InitZero]

I'm surprised the ISPs aren't already jumping on it due to features like "quicker handshaking, and call-waiting/modem-on-hold capabilities" which can only benefit their existing customers.

V.92 is hated by ISPs. The main goal of a non-metered ISP is to get as many people dial-in and dial-out as quickly as possible. ISPs don't want their ports tied up while people are answering calls from Grandmother.

ISPs hate sending money on dial-up hardware that will be obsolete in a handful of years. While better than 85% of the United States still use analog modems, that percentage is fixing to drop quickly over the next five years. No ISP is going to want to spend capital facing that return on their investment.

Corporate customers, however, might benefit from the V.92 standard. Industry wants people to dial-in quickly, grab their email, upload a spreadshet and then hang up as quickly. Since many companies have toll-free dial-ups, the 10 to 20 seconds that can be saved on V.92 training is very worthwhile.

Customers and Corporations may want V.92 but you won't see a push from the ISPs. They want to focus their energy on DSL not analog modems.

InitZero

Re:Hmm..

[Nimey]

Very unlikely. When I upgraded my x2 modem to v.90 a couple years ago, I noticed that USR only had upgrades for the newest modems, with 33.6 being the slowest. ISTR it's officially because the DSPs on older modems (like your 28.8) can't keep up at higher bitrates.

As to whether mine can be upgraded, it's a moot point. The poor thing died on me last month. :(
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Re:remote places

[Junnonen]

DSL and other fast connections are NOT rare in Europe.

They are rare in UK, however. That's what I've heard.. UK is not "Europe", though. No need to generalize.

I live in a small Finnish city near the Russian border, and we have both DSL and cable available here (cable since 1995!). I'm currently using neither (I could use both), because I have a campus-area network connection.. So I actually have three broadband ways of connecting to the internet, and I could of course use a standard modem too, if I wanted to. I actually did that once, when the campus network had a short malfunction..

Flash Updatability

[grahamsz]

I'm pretty sure that most ISP modem banks will upgrade to v.92. Since I guess that most of the modems in use today were previously x2 and k56Flex and upgraded to v.90 already - I dont think another small upgrade would prove that challenging.

I cant really see them taking off that much. The speed difference is mediocre and considering I can only connect my v90 modem at 56,700 about 50% of the time, I wonder if anyone would actually notice the difference.

Also I can see why the ISPs wouldn't really like it. Shorter handshaking might take 20 seconds off each call but when u consider how much ISPs (in the UK) make from call revenue... that is a s**tlot of money.

But here in the UK consumers will want it because still fairly few of us have Cable Modems and ADSL isn't even commercially available yet.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:V.92 Hurts ISP Profits

[yack0]

Why would ISP's hate it? A simple modem flashing will fix all the modems up with no problem. Going from V.90 to the V.90 and Kflex and the combinations thereof were not a problem for any hardware I have used and am familiar with. When the V.92 standard is released by the hardware manufacturer we use, we'll simply let a script update all the modems and reboot. We'll be upgraded in about 10 minutes. (not bad for over 2000 lines).

Check the offer's exp. date

[__aahyzr9271]

Did the free upgrade offer have an expration date? These offers usialy expire after a few months.

It sounds like the upgrade offer had already expired by the time you bought the modem. It sucks, but there's really no way they could keep the free upgrade offer going indefinately, for obvious reasons.

There is a bright side to this; if your modem is flash upgradeable (newer modems are), you don't need to trade it in to upgrade it. Just download the firmware update and flash utility, and flash upgrade your modem's firmware.

Not interesting to me

[Alan Shutko]

Personally, I've never gotten any use out of 33.6 connections, let alone anything faster. One reason is the lack of modeming I've done for the last two years, but the other is that these connections seem to depend on absolutely ideal phone lines between you and your isp, and those are rare.

I think v.92 is just giving a bit more speed that few people will ever see, and I don't think it really matters.

Re: V.92 Hurts ISP Profits

[InitZero]

Why would ISP's hate it?

Pretend I'm an ISP with 100 ports. Right now, I turn over calls on an average of 27 minutes.

Why do people hang up? Among other reasons, they have only one phone line and are waiting for a call. They go offline so they don't tie up their only phone line.

Now let's pretend that I've gone V.92. Those people who are waiting for calls don't go offline to wait. They stay online. When the call comes in, instead of going offline, they flash over and take the call. In the meantime, the ISP's port isn't released to be made available for other users.

After the V.92 upgrade, ISPs will see their connection times go up. Instead of seeing average calls of 27 minutes, the ISP starts seeing call lengths of 42 minutes.

At 27 minutes a call, a port can serve 53 calls a day. At 42 minutes, you can only take 34 calls a day.

The longer the average connect time, the more port an ISP needs. Ports cost money. No one wants to invest money in analog modem ports when they could be investing in DSL or wireless infrastructure.

A simple modem flashing will fix all the modems up with no problem.

The .02 upgrade will be relatively simple and, hopefully, cheap for ISPs. I don't disagree with you on that. My point is that port usage will go up and ISPs will have to spend money on hardware to keep the current level of availability.

InitZero

Agreed

[erpbridge]

I just had to switch jobs, and moved out of an area where cable modems had just started being offered to an area where:

1) Cable modems are, at earliest, a year from now.
2) I'm about 2 miles too far for DSL.
3) The phone lines in this area are so pathetic, best I can get is a 19.2 or maybe a 21.6 connection on my V.90 USR 56k modem.

I'm almost about to get a friend of mine who lives about 8 miles away who has cable modem to set up a hacked up Apple Airport with the 9-10 mile hack and just wireless network to me, with his NAT box and everyhting. Even if I only get 1 MB, it's still more than enough to use a cable modems 650k speeds.

Re:V.92 Hurts ISP Profits

[Dot Com Drew]

With reguards to the corporate savings, why not go the route of virtual private network? That way the user has to provide his own inet connection and then just log onto the corp network from there.

It's probably a wash either way.

-drew

Re:remote places

[core10k]

It's interesting how when someone posts an article that makes another country look like it's less 'civilized' than the United States, it gets moderated up, but when someone posts an article that makes another country look more civilized, it doesn't get touched.

Re:ISP's standpoint

[Cylix]

He has a point. Lucent equipment (formerly ascend) is quite infamous for thier wicked contraptions. But do not rush into the v.92 standard. I would give it 4 months minimum and then check with the news groups to see what the suckers...er admins on the technological edge...have to say about the new code.

Re:Hmm..

[jclarke]

I don't know why this is considered funny. I'm serious.

Loop plant will still keep modems slow.

[satch89450]

Just a short note: the sad state of subscriber loops (the wires between your home and the central office) still are a problem. That's why you read about people not getting fast modem speeds with either V.34 or V.90 -- the loop quality just isn't up to it.

I myself see V.92 as having a diminishing benefit. Upload rate is capped at 48,000 bits/s. Download rate is identical to V.90.

Is this any reason to go through yet another round of incompatibilities between modem brands?

Wait...

[Yowzah]

This is simply breathtaking! All those users that have hit the ceiling on their current 56k modems will appreciate this...both of them... I have a 56k modem that doesn't see 33.6 speeds. I live in the high tech part of town. If I lived ~500 feet down the road I would have a choice between G.Lite or cable modem. I simply refuse to believe that they can't extend one of those 500 frickin feet. What we need isn't new modem standards - someone needs to kick the phone/cable companies in the arse!

nobody gives a crap about modem users.

[Wakko Warner]

Casual Internet users don't care how fast their connection is, as long as they can check their stock quotes once a day and get their email.

Heavy Internet users have or will (by any means necessary) be getting cable modems or DSL lines.

What use is there for modems? I pity the lowly modem user in this day and age. I live pretty much in the middle of nowhere and I've got both DSL *and* cable modem access, and most of the people I know have access to one or the other as well.

Supporting the latest analog technology nowadays is like supporting the latest steam engine technology when railroads were switching to deisel and electric locomotives.

- A.P.
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