RS> There is no valid difference of opinion. V.Fast is the informal name
RS> for the new ITU-T standard which will become V.34 when its formally
RS> ratified.

JL> V.Fast is the "working name" for the proposed V.34 standard.

RS> Which is saying precisely what I said in different words.

JL> Sure Rod, anything you say Rod. Playing with semantics as usual.

You jump into a thread to 'correct' something, have it pointed out that
your wording means the same thing as mine, and thats me playing semantics.
You sure you know what the word semantics actually means ? |-)

RS> V.FC, V.Fast Class, is Rockwells own standard which attempts to get
RS> pretty close to what V.34 will be. As best as they can guess.

JL> It's not a guess on Rockwells part. The design of V.FC is closely
JL> modelled on early drafts of the V.34 feature set.

And the guess is concerning just how the V.34 will end up when its
formally ratified. No one knows with absolute certainty.

JL> Yeah, but the question still remains: - Will V.34 be backward
JL> compatible with V.FC or will V.FC become a redundant proprietary
JL> protocol?. I suspect the latter.

RS> Depends on what you mean. I think its unlikely that the full
RS> technical detail of V.FC will actually be included in the full
RS> formally ratified V.34. But thats not to say that a particular set of
RS> modems which claim to implement V.34 wont also operate with V.FC
RS> modems. If you mean the last one, yes, that is what I think is most
RS> likely.

JL> As I said to Geoff, I'm more inclined to think that the first batch
JL> of V.34 modems will provide limited V.FC compatability

Well Rockwell have said categorically that their chipset which will do
V.34 when its formally ratified will support the V.FC too. Corse, as I
said, there is a small possibility that the V.34 will end up different
enough when formally ratified that that might be hard to achieve. In
which case presumably we would hear excuses why they cant provide V.FC
backward compat or the backward compat is less satisfactory than it
aught to be, say not being all that successful in the negotiating
phase or not being all that tolerant of some line conditions.

JL> whilst later models will do-away with V.FC compliance altogether.

Remains to be seen. Its been quite remarkable how long the current
modems and the new V.FCs have maintained backward compat to some quite
remarkably geriatric and unused standards like V21 and even V23. It
wouldnt surprise me at all if Rockwell continued with V.FC backward
compat indefinitely as long as there wasnt any great technical
difficulty in doing that. Wouldnt surprise me to see continuing backward
compat support for V32terbo either.

JL> In that sense, buying a V.FC modem now is not a good investment if one
JL> considers the possible redundancy of such a protocol in light of V.34
JL> reaching critical mass early in its acceptance phase.

Only if your prediction on it disappearing fast comes about. Time will tell.
But particularly when Rockwell has gone to considerable lengths to say
they will maintain backward compat with V.FC for just that reason, I
have my doubts about your prediction myself.

--- PQWK202