I'm able to sustain a 28.8k line speed on an STD BBS call (Geelong to
Melbourne) but on a local call to my ISP, although I can connect
occasionally at 28.8k, the line speed **occasionally** falls very
quickly down to 12000! Hence, my default connection setup up to my ISP
is to force a connection at 19.2k v.34 to prevent the fallback. I get
dropped if I try to force a connection higher than 21.6K. At forced 24k
and above, there are just too many pauses in the transmission to be
useful.

Here is a capture of my call summary on the STD call.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
               Xircom CreditCard Modem 28.8 Call Summary

     Characters Sent:          308         Characters Received: 226,501
     Bytes Sent:            19,451         Bytes Received:      202,516
     Packets Sent:             222         Packets Received:      5,828
     Re-Transmits Requested:     0         Re-Transmits Granted:      0
     Local Retrains:             0         Remote Retrains:           0
     Local Rate Renegs:          0       * Remote Rate Renegs:        2


     Protocol:        LAP-M                Compression:  V.42bis
     Dictionary Size: 2048                 String Length:  32
     Line Speed:   28800 / V.34            Parity: None/Space
     Flow Control: RTS/CTS hardware flow control

     Call Termination:   Normal Disconnect by Remote Modem
     Connection Time:    00:08:08
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

My local ISP and I probably share the same exchange as we both have the
same 3 number prefix. It would appear from the above that the problem is
not likely to lie at the phone line (at least from the exchange to my
house and within the house itself) since I can call STD at 28.8k without
a problem. The other thing I have noticed is that when I call my local
ISP with a modem setup that doesn't force a connection speed (ie
identical to the setup used when calling the STD BBS), in addition to
the line speed spiralling down to 12k, I also notice that the ISP modems
never do a Remote Rate Renegotiate as the STD BBS modem did (see *
above). Could the absence of this from the ISP have caused the line
speed not to fall forward? The ISP uses Netcomm Smartmodems. Does anyone
know if the Netcomm setup can be altered to enable this? I was told by
the ISP that they have Retrain enabled.

Notice that in the call summary, retrain and rate renegotiate are
different entities.

I suspect that the STD BBS modem is a USR Courier. Could the Courier be
so good that it can handle poor STD line so much better than what a
high-end Netcomm can't even do at a local exchange?

Thanks.

mslim{at}ne.com.au


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