Paul, at 08:29 on Feb 23 1996, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

BG> Oh good.  In that case, ask them why my first call to you this morning 
BG> failed to connect (and yes, without even reading any announcements from you 

PE> Great, that's the confirmation I was after.

What's so great about that?  Personally, I'd be pretty annoyed...

BG> that you've changed modems, I know full well that you're not using the USR 
BG> any more).  Check your logs, and tell me why the second call a few seconds 
BG> later worked fine, apart from a much slower negotiation phase than normal 

PE> I will be asking them,

No doubt.  :)

PE> but first of all tell me how you went with the calls to the Netcomm BBS I 
PE> asked everyone to make before I bought a Netcomm. 

Sorry, I'm not making any more STD calls to verify something that I already
know.  I told you that NetComm was possibly the worst choice you could have
made, and Rod even agreed up to a point.

PE> If you can reproduce the problem by calling their BBS, I have more hope of 
PE> getting a fix. 

A fix?  From NetComm?  ROFL!

PE> Probably best if you wait a week or so to get some stats about the 
PE> frequency here, so that you know how often to call them.

No need.  3 attempts today, and the first 2 failed outright.  Multiple
attempts to negotiate, then dropped DTR.  Same as everybody else is
reporting, BTW.

PE> Oh, and at the same time, you send a message to USR asking them
PE> to see if the problem is with the USR not the Netcomm.

It ain't my USR at fault here.  I quite often connect with Dane Trethowan
in Melburg to exchange MIDI files, and we always get 26400 or better, first
time.  From memory, his is one of the earlier M34Fs, possibly even with the
known buggy 04BC Rockwell datapump, yet it still works fine with my modem.

BG> (between USRs, I mean).  You're back to 16 State trellis coding now too, 
BG> which is not exactly what I'd call a step in the right direction.

PE> How much would you save on your phone bill if I had something other
PE> than 16 State trellis coding? 

Given that 64 States allow better line probing and higher speeds, there
would be a tiny saving, but hardly enough to worry about.  I'm more
concerned that so far, your NetComm has now failed to connect 4 times out
of 7 - less than a 50% success rate (which brings back awful memories of
what NetComm used to be like in the bad old days).  Seems that some things
just never change.

Regards, Bill

--- Msgedsq/2 3.20