BG> Insurance is where they pay you every time your house burns down, and you 
BG> pay them every time it doesn't.  I used to be uninsured once, until my 
BG> brother's best friend's house was destroyed by fire.  He was uninsured too, 
BG> and to fully replace his home cost him $120k, almost destroying him and his 
BG> family in the process.  Fuck that for a joke, never again.

I don't actually have my "house" uninsured, I don't get a choice on
that, living in units.  I would have to work it through myself if I
would be willing to take a $120k gamble, I probably would, but my
wife probably wouldn't.

PE> and not even half-an-answer on one of them.  I do not consider them to
PE> be any different to Borland.

BG> OK, so USR may not have immediately dropped everything and addressed your 
BG> purported problems straight away, but the very fact that there have been so 
BG> many SDLs over the past 18 months tells me that they are swatting bugs as 
BG> they find them.  

Define "find them".  I've already sent them 15, you don't have to be
Christopher Columbus to "find them".  As for the new SDLs, big whoop,
so did the Spirit II.  They still refused to fix the bugs that 
counted though.

PE> Although I find the V.FC polluting my modem mildly disconcerting, I
PE> probably wouldn't actually switch it off. 

BG> And why not?  How about putting your money where your mouth is.  :)

It's not actually disturbing me enough.  What I need is a user to
complain that the fucking V.FC tones are screwing up their V.34 
sessions, why not use this string, and whoosh.

BG> I can't answer that; only you can.  However, take the hypothetical 
BG> situation where Joe Blow buys a Courier while it's still a V.FC-only modem 
BG> (before V.34 has been ITU-ratified).  He pays his up-front once-only cost 
BG> for the modem, then everything else from that moment onwards is completely 
BG> free of charge, like the V.34 protocol (then V.34+), Distinctive Ring, CID, 
BG> Carrier Loss Redial, Class 2.0 adaptive answer fax, upgrade to 14400 bps 
BG> fax, 64 state trellis coding, LAPM Selective REJect, Security Dialback of 
BG> CID number, the best diagnostics display of any modem on the market (and 
BG> even that is being improved continually), to mention just a few things.  
BG> Surely you wouldn't try to suggest that Joe didn't get value for HIS extra 
BG> $200, would you?

I would pay $200 to go from V.32bis to V.34.  I wouldn't have bought
the modem without V.34 though.

BG> That's a totally unfair assumption, and one which has already been proved 
BG> wrong to a degree.  USR can and HAVE issued bugfix SDLs, while NetComm may 
BG> find it a bit more difficult with their hard-coded Rockwell chipset.

They release new flashrom code too.

PE> What concerns me is people like Dieter, who are using a standard modem, and 
PE> not connecting.

BG> Is he still having problems then?  

PE> Not right at the moment, but he may in the future, or maybe someone
PE> else with an SE will.

BG> Such pessimism!  If it works now, what makes you think it won't later?

Because I've NEVER had a Maestro SE 9600 connect to me!

BFN.  Paul.
@EOT:

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