On Feb 04, 1996 at 10:48, Jeff Green of 3:711/934.20 wrote:

 JG> Fill me in on this trade-in thing please? A BBS phone number or WWW url
 JG> would be enough if you could supply it please.

I've only noticed the trade-in details on their bboard, not on their Web
site;  forget exactly where it was, but I just followed bulletins and/or
menus or something and ran across it.

BBS:    +61-2-878-3755
URL:    http://www.netcomm.com.au/

For those interested, U.S. Robotics also has a Web site (as does ZyXEL, and
others), at "http://www.usr.com/".

 JG> If I can get a reasonable deal I might consider another Netcomm
 JG> considering I have you to hassle if I've got any problems :-)

FWIW, I had a look in comp.dcom.modems and found American users complaining
about USR modems and USR tech support - as said previously, any modem you
buy will give you problems, all you can do is minimise 'em.  While NetComms
are not perfect (they no longer come with a complete command refernce
manual - you can download it electronically if you want it, but otherwise
the quick reference card and the on-line help are all the command reference
texts you really get), they beat a lot of the crap out there.

Unfortunately my "contact" who used to write the EPROMs in
NetComm modems doesn't work there anymore - as an outsider, I asked for his
professional opinion of the quality of NetComm's modems:  he said the
SmartModem series was world-class, the AutoModem series was shit.  Period. 
Oh well...

There was also an interesting note in NETCOMM_SUPPORT about Rockwell modems
and USRs that I'll be following up - looks like it's not just NetComms that
cannot connect to USRs properly at full-speed (but the other direction is
apparently fine).

I'm glad they finally went with Flash ROMs - just download the latest
(free, as with USR) and run the (DOS) utility to update the modem.  Voila.

I've asked what Zeta (ISP) is running - apparently the vast majority of
their modems are NetComm ProRack SmartModem M34F beasties with the 2.61L
EPROMs, and they don't have problems with 'em (incoming calls, being an
ISP).  The University is going ProRack M34Fs as well (to replace M7Fs and
Maestros, depending on the Annex terminal server), and everything tested so
far works perfectly.

For inbound calls.  For outbounds I've been quite happy with the M34F, but
as you've no doubt seen, calling USRs seems to be a gamble of sorts. 
Still, at 26.4Kbps who's complaining?  ISDN is the future (even modem
companies are seeing that, since both ZyXEL and USR have modems with ISDN
options now), and that'll totally relieve us of the need for modems of this
sort anyway.  Most of our new RISC workstations have ISDN ports built-in,
and it won't be *too* much longer and the same will probably happen to PCs
(as it did with sound cards).

 JG> It better be a damn good deal though as I still don't trust the lying,
 JG> thieving pricks!!

I just don't deal with 'em - saves the headache.  ;-)

    - dave
    d.begley{at}ieee.org

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