Hi Loren! You might check out the January 97 issue of Computer Shopper
(the big 800 page one) which talks about modems and ISDN and a new
standard comming out called ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line).
Currently, IDSN gives you 128k/sec downloading & 64k uploading; I know o
school library computers go around 115k a second in practice (or
download a 22 meg file in 5 minutes instead of over 2 hours at 3k).
ADSL should give uploads at 64k/sec and downloading at 1.5Mbps-6Mbps
(megabytes per second).
ADSL is still in the testing phase, but modems are expected to be
released sometime this year. Check for Cardinal's IDC 100i at under
$199 for this ISDN modem.
Good luck with the ISDN, if you do alot of downloading of large files
(over 10 megabytes) ISDN will really improve your performance. I don't
think just for web browsing it would be worthwhile, as most delays are
internet delays and the 33.6 modems work just fine for that. ISDN
would also give video phone and conference performance boosts, but if
the other person your calling does not have ISDN the advantage is
marginal. Have you tried putting the cursor over the sweet spot while
downloading? I find if I put my cursor on the bottom edge of Top of
the S in Start button of Windows 95, I get a consistant upgrade of
speed with the connection (as speed drops, you can see it struggle back
up again). Since the cursor goes up at an angle, you are pointing at
the first bend at the top of the S, right were it makes the bend. If
you are in the right spot, you will see "click here to begin", although
you must be touching the S but not above it. What really slows things
down on the internet is using the right hand scroll bar while page
loading or downloading.
I find if I get it on the sweet spot, the current page will load 2-3
times faster. Try it and see.
John :) Still waiting for my USR upgrade, the UPS strike has
delayed my 56k upgrade (which I can't use as my school only has 28.8
anyways ;-)
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