On May 23, 1996 at 08:31, Bill Grimsley of 3:640/305.9 wrote:

 db>> Think about it for a second - say NetComm's tech staff *do* know what
 db>> they're doing, and start implementing the company's first
 db>> V.32bis/V.42bis modems, but for whatever reason leave before the job's
 db>> done.
 BG>
 BG> Sacked for incompetence, more likely.  :)

Judging from the programming style of the guy I know who used to work at
NetComm, I have no doubt some probably *were* sacked for incompetence - I
also have no doubt that *somewhere* in NetComm, there's something who both
knows what they're doing and is trying really hard to fix all the problems
introduced by the previous programmers.

What if all the top programmers left USR, and management hired drop-kicks
from, oh, I dunno .. MBE, say.  Would you *still* want a USR modem?

 BG> That's why we had the old CCITT recommendations, although I must admit
 BG> that the use of BTLZ over MNP4 (instead of MNP5) was indeed stated as
 BG> being optional, although the fact that EVERY other modem in the WORLD
 BG> just happened to do it the right way seemed to be irrelevant as far as
 BG> NetComm was concerned.

Of course - there was a period of time there that NetComm was *very* bloody
arrogant (I complained over the 'phone to the MD at one stage, about the
Series 3 fiasco).  They're nowhere near "perfect" (as much as an
Australian commercial entity could be) at the moment, but in my dealings
with them they're certainly better than they used to be.

[...later...]

Yikes!  Going through some old archives I found the letter (dated August
31, 1992) that I sent to NetComm that started the above conversation with
NetComm's MD (Chris Howells) - here's a quote from said letter:

    "I hope that you're not implying that NetComm modems do not correctly
    implement V42bis.  The current implementation is 100 percent compliant
    with the specs.  It's just not compatible with anything else."

Boy I had fun back then!  :-)

 BG> but it's just a pity that you could only do this between two identical
 BG> series 3 NetComms.

Actually, if the CCITT specs said that MNP4 over BTLZ was an option and all
the other modems *didn't* support it, you *could* argue that *they* were
"broken" for not negotiating the appropriate session when LAP-M
wasn't available.

In any case, yes NetComm were very bloody arrogant at that time.

 db>> Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest since he was still working there
 db>> at the time - that's just the sort of joke he'd try to pull, too.  :-)
 BG>
 BG> And Paul saw fit to buy a modem from these morons?  Bloody hell.

Hey, there are at least three others out here using NetComm modems, and
we're not experiencing anywhere near as many problems!  :-)

Cheers..


    - dave
    d.begley{at}ieee.org

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