G'day,

For those of you following my "28.8k on Telstra line" saga, I
have some interesting news.

I'm currently borrowing a USR Sportster V34 so I did a quick
double blind test this morning from this problematic Tullamarine
line.

First, I turned off error correction on my SimpleModem, dialled
Melbpc BBS, got a 28,800 connect and immediately started getting
those short bursts of "line noise" that I've been experiencing
whenever I try to connect at anything above 24,000.

"Great" I thought, "this will be a good test". So I immediately
dropped the line, plugged in the USR Sportster also with error
correction disabled for the test, and redialled Melbpc BBS, all
within 30 seconds or so as to make sure I would get the same line
conditions, no other changes at all apart from the different
modem.

Well guess what?

Got a 28,800 connect, but this time, not a single trace of the
"line noise" at all. I did some message reading/writing online,
downloaded my Bluewave mail packet - not a single problem. And am
currently still online downloading >3Mb of files in the
background (under Win'95).

I'm extremely impressed. I did exactly the same test as this with
a Hayes Optima V34 as well as a Motorola V34 and both of these
modems experienced the same problem on this Tullamarine line at
V34. In fact, the cheaper SimpleModem has always been the best of
this bunch (damn good modem is the Simple).

However this USR Sportster V34 has blown me away in this test.
I'll be the first to admit I have no idea how it can manage to
stay online at 28,800 on this line where the others can't.

Oh well, I'll keep testing but at this stage I am leaning towards
keeping this USR and selling the still excellent SimpleModem. I
guess I'll just have to put up with the USR's two cons. 1. Price
(it's pretty expensive) and 2. Styling (it's a damn ugly modem).

:-)


Adios,

= Tony =

  ,-._|\   
 /  Oz  \  Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
 \_,--.x/  Internet: tonym{at}melbpc.org.au
       v


... Dj voodoo:  The feeling that we've killed this chicken before.
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