With Internet users starting to the feel the pinch of higher telephone bills, a new modem standard has slipped quietly into the market and may go some way to reducing accounts just a little.
The standard, known as V92, promises to cut the connection time users experience, while working in conjunction with existing Telkom services such as "call waiting". Most current modems use the V90 standard.
Locally, Internet Solutions (IS) has been the first to offer V92 compatibility, and according to Leon Labuschagne, IS GM for remote solutions, the standard will be available to all of the Internet service providers (ISPs) that use the IS infrastructure. These include service providers such as World Online and Absa`s new paid-for Internet service.
The benefits offered by V92 over the dominant V90 standard include faster upload speeds, call holding and faster connection times. V92 modems connect to a service provider 33% faster than current 56K modems. Labuschagne explains that the V92 modems achieve this by making use of the now dominant digital tones used by phones to limit the negotiation necessary to establish a link.
Typically a modem connection has to distinguish between tone and pulse dialling phones before establishing a link. V92 modems reduce this negotiation to a minimum, reducing connection times to as little as 10 seconds or less. Using QuickConnect, V92 also "learns" the characteristics of the phone normally used and uses it in its set up.
V92 also has the ability to work with the existing Telkom call-waiting service to allow users to put an Internet call on hold while answering a second call. Labuschange says this feature is dependent on having these services installed.
The holding period for an Internet connection is dependent on ISP settings, although it can in theory be infinite.
The third feature offered by V92 is faster upload speeds. V90 modems operate at a maximum of 33Kbps while the V92 standard supports up to 48Kbps. "With this users can send data at faster speeds which will benefit them when sending mail, for example," says Labuschagne. However, base download speeds of the V90 and V92 are the same.
Labuschagne points out that V92 modems also support the newer V44 compression standard, in effect meaning that the same amount of data can be downloaded in a shorter period of time. While not a guarantee of faster online speeds, the compression rate can offer between 20% and 60% improvements in download speed.
Users of V92 modems will not be charged more than users of other 56K modems. Most manufacturers of modems have already announced software upgrades for their modems and in most cases users can upgrade their existing V90 modems to the new V92 standard.
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