Hamish, at 23:44 on Dec 26 1996, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

JP>> Is USRobotics trying to form a boys' club on this one,
JP>> because it certainly seems that way.

BG> I think it's more likely that USR are hoping to corner that particular
BG> market, as they stand to make a fortune if that happens.

HM> Really? My ISP is a good friend of mine. I think he dreads 
HM> the idea; more new modems, fancier links from Telstra, etc. 

Planned obsolescence is alive and well in the '90s, I can assure you.

HM> It isn't going to be cheap at the ISP's end. And even worse, 
HM> once you have more modem bandwidth available, you need more 
HM> outgoing bandwidth to keep the users' pipe full. I cannot 
HM> see ISPs jumping on such a modem anyway.

Neither can I, but that's probably because unlike the US, most of our ISPs
don't use USR modems, which means that to make use of the x2 protocol,
they'll need a complete hardware replacement, instead of a simple flash-ROM
upgrade.

Regards, Bill

--- MsgedSQ/2 3.50