Paul, at 16:45 on May 17 1996, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

PE> The latter hasn't been proven by a long shot. 

BG> That's your opinion Paul, but I know several BBS operators (running 
BG> Couriers) who would disagree with you.

PE> The ones that haven't done adequate testing.

More complete and utter crap.  Dave was so happy with the way his Courier
performs on his board that he bought another four for use at his work as
internet modems, and they've been extremely reliable.  You may have noticed
that most who buy Couriers turn into raving zealots too.  I wonder why?

PE> Actually, neither has the first, Matthew has one, and gets problems 
PE> connecting to my M34F that no-one else gets. 

BG> Of course, it couldn't possibly be the NetComm at fault, could it?  :)

PE> It could well be.  The M34F is a real-world modem. 

So?  Every modem available for public sale is a "real world" modem.

PE> Inability to connect to it is a worry for the owner of both modems.

Sure, but it doesn't mean that they're BOTH fucked, does it?

BG> It's true though that the days of everybody's 2400bps modems connecting 
BG> reliably appear to have gone.

PE> I couldn't connect to Paragon's 2400 bps modems reliably, or at
PE> least I didn't get an MNP connection.  Not just from my home line
PE> either.  AND I reported the problem to the sysop, and they said
PE> that others had reported it too.

One bad example says nothing useful about the reliability of V.22bis though.

BG> However, given that the various protocol specs are set in stone by the 
BG> ITU-T, one would reasonably expect that all modems should be able to 
BG> connect with each other without problems, but this is just not the case.  
BG> Unfortunately, no modem is 100% perfect these days.

PE> ANY of the modems we have available, MAY be 100% conformant to the
PE> spec though.  We have no way of knowing whether all the problems
PE> for (e.g.) the USR are actually the other modem's fault. 

True, but we already know that the first 19 revisions of the Rockwell V.FC
and V.34 chipsets were buggy as hell, so the odds are that the current one
isn't perfect either.  What's more, no amount of new controller code will
fix a hard-coded chipset bug, so if it's dodgy, you're stuck with it.

At least with generic DSP technology, it is possible to fix ANY buggy
controller or datapump code with a user-downloadable replacement.

PE> However, we can say that all of the modems have deficient code, as, even
PE> if they are 100% conformant, they need to be more than that to make
PE> up for other modem's inadequacies.

Nope, that's a silly comment.  It's not reasonable to suggest that if modem
A follows the ITU specs to the letter, yet can't reliably connect with
modem B because it doesn't, that modem A is in some way deficient.  The
whole point of the ITU recommendations is connectivity between different
brands.  

Regards, Bill

--- Msgedsq/2 3.20