DP> Haven't you noticed that already?  Haven't you noticed that the
 DP> Courier quality (having own several Couriers including the 9600HST
 DP> and 14400 Dual Standard big foots), have fallen compared to the
 DP> older "BIG" models and the fact that the going price for the
 DP> Couriers have dropped too and the fact that they are now more
 DP> affordable explained that, price has everything to do with people
 DP> buying the product.
if you take a close look, i think you'll also see that the Courier I-Modem is 
what is USR's top of the line unit now... it is also the same price that the 
Couriers (plain jane) used to be...
 BJ>> any event, whatever is eventually decided on,
 BJ>> conformance will be only a flash ROM (or chipset
 BJ>> for Sportster owners) away for those using USR
 BJ>> products.  Rockwell has always been notoriously
 DP>
 DP> Well, since this is a Zyxel discussion forum, I assume we are a
 DP> little bit better off than USR because the Elite and Omni are
 DP> flashrom upgradable, unlike the USR Sportster which you require a
 DP> rom swap to get x2.
i don't believe that either one, the Elite or the Omni, are in the same 
"class" as the Sportster... the Sportster is ~$120US... the Elite and Omni 
aren't... they are more expensive, IIRC... apples and oranges...
 DP> Rockwell based chipset modems undoubtly have more market exposure
 DP> than USR or Zyxel eventhough I have to agree with you that
 DP> Rockwell's chipset sucks!
and so does the implementation of many of those modems that use them...
FWIW: i'm still running my $350US U-1496E and it's doing a fine job when it 
runs and i don't see one of the two following "bugs"... i've got the v6.15 
ROMs in it at the moment and am seriously considering upgrading to the 
v6.16's... does anyone have the list of bugs fixed from the v6.15's to the 
v6.16's?? i'm specifically looking for what would cause ALL the lights to 
lite and the modem to go completely braindead requiring a power off... and 
there's another situation but i'm not entirely sure that it is the modem... 
i'm looking more toward a software bug but that's another story altogether...
)\/(ark
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