-=> Quoting Rod Speed to John Tserkezis <=-

Hello Rod,

 JT> It seems very much that my modem gets "over zealos" and
 JT> tries to connect at a too higher speed in the first place.

 RS> Its worse than that coz that doesnt require a full retrain and
 RS> hence the possibility of a dropout if the retrain doesnt succeed.
 RS> If it was JUST doing what you say, it should just fall back properly.
 
 I wish.  With this courier, I found the connects are more reliable, and it
picks the fastest speed possible in the first place.  Not the top speed and
then barf after it finds the line can't handle it.

 JT> The down-shift bit works (some of the time), I just wish it would
 JT> connect at the lower speed in the first place, as it often drops
 JT> carrier before it has had a chance to shift to the slower speed.

 RS> That just shouldnt be possible on the drop carrier stuff. If the line
 RS> speed is too high, that should just result in an increased error rate.
 RS> It drops the call coz it trys a full retrain and that cant negotiate
 RS> a viable set of session params. The negotiation phase is a bit fucked.

 Seems to me a lot fucked.

 RS> Thats assuming that you dont have a line which is mostly not too bad
 RS> and it periodically goes completely pear shaped, badly enough that no
 RS> modem could negotiate a usable session in that condition. That sounds
 RS> rather unlikely tho, and the way to prove that is with say another
 RS> copy of the same modem the BBS uses on that line you have a problem
 RS> with. 

 I've just called my "trouble" bbs and it connected a bit slower than the
banksia ever would, but zero errors.  Seems the banksia couldn't pick the
maximum speed the line could support.
 I also called the states, it connected at 16.x, with zero blers.  Considering
the noisy lines here, it's fine by me.

 JT> On my end at home, it has no connect
 JT> message, just a NO CARRIER after it answers.

 RS> Coz your modem was aware that it was still trying to negotiate EC and
 RS> it never managed to see much sense on that from the other end and gave
 RS> up. 

 RS> Corse its quite possible your modem got seriously confused trying
 RS> to decide if it was a fax or data all as well as the EC negotiation.
 RS> There are some significant weirdnesses in that level of negotiation
 RS> of fax and data and you can get some significant warts in
 RS> implementations. 

 Quite possible, either way, I couldn't give a shit now, Paul doesn't like the
couriers, but considering it's only a billion times better than the banksia,
I don't care.

 JT> I tried changing a few options in the limited time
 JT> that I had it in, but didn't come up with anything.
 
 JT> Mind you, it had no trouble connecting to other BBS's

 RS> Yeah, that Banksias do have some blemishes when you have fax and data
 RS> enabled. 

 It seemed to work MOST of the time, and I used the fax bit a fair bit too.
So I sort didn't have a choice.  Again, either way, the courier seems to be
a bit better with the adaptive answering.  For one thing, it doesn't identify
a voice call as fax.

 JT> I've just come back and tested a new modem, a tossup between the hayes,
 JT> USR and the Netcom.  I have the USR first, so far, one failed call to
 JT> 3:632/348, and an aborted call (half way through the file) to 3:712/311.

 I've found the problem with 3:632/348, it was the v42 negotiation stage, or
rather lack thereof.  It disables the EC negotiation stage now, so I can't get
MNP EC links anymore- oh dear, how sad, never mind.
 I would never have worked out what the problem was with the banksia, it
didn't give me any useable diagnostics on the call.  It kept trying to tell me
the remote requested a normal disconnect.  Yeah right.

 RS> I'd be trying an external Dynalink myself. I've installed a few of the
 RS> 28.8s for various people and havent had any real problem at all with
 RS> them. They now have the 33K external but I havent tried any of those
 RS> myself. 

 I'm not interested in yumchas.  I've seen too many shit yumchas to believe
any good ones even exist.  No point in having perfect firmware if the hardware
is about as reliable as a pollie before election day.

 Initally, WRT the courier, the only things I found to be annoying, were:
Now I know what everyone else meant by "ugly",
and the default for "+++" was to hang up, a  flip of the dip switch soon
fixed that.

 At this stage, the only problems that would concern me, is the busy detect
don't work real well, and Paul calls the couriers shit boxes.  I call my
banksia a "suitable suppository", I suppose everyone has to give
their modem
a name.

John Tserkezis, Sydney, Oz. Fidonet: 3:712/610  Internet: jt{at}suburbia.com.au

... If pain persists, try vaginal sex.
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