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From: michaelv@iastate.edu (Michael L. VanLoon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: Modem recommendation for PPP svc
Date: 27 Jul 94 07:43:38 GMT
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Lines: 49
Message-ID: <michaelv.775295018@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu>
References: <3149sp$46l@access1.digex.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ponderous.cc.iastate.edu
In <3149sp$46l@access1.digex.net> brogan@access1.digex.net (John Brogan) writes:
>Does anyone have a recommendation for a 14.4 modem for a ppp
>service? I'm not sure of the differences between a ppp connection
>and a Zmodem download.....but that's why I'm askin'!
I just bought two 28.8k modems for my PPP line. They're Practical
Peripherals PM288MT II V.FC modems. I couldn't be more delighted with
them. These things are SOOOOOOOOO fast! And they seem a little
better built than the Taiwan-special 14.4's you see floating around a
lot these days.
I know you asked about 14.4k, but I'm going to tell you about 28.8k,
anyway ;-) (PPI does make excellent 14.4k modems, too). The only
problem I have is that they're simply too fast for the SLIP/PPP
machine my office-mate and I use in the office, which is a 386/25. I
have to run them at 57.6kbaud, instead of the full 115.2k, even with a
16550 uart, or the 386/25 simply starts dropping characters all over
the floor. My 486DLC/33 machine at home seems to handle it a little
better, but can still get overdriven at times at 115.2k. I'm
seriously considering getting one of the Hayes ESP cards with the
1024-byte buffer for the 386/25 machine.
The Practical Peripherals modems were recently reviewed with a bunch
of others in Computer Shopper (July issue). They faired excellently.
The thing that made me choose them was that they did particularly well
in two-way mixed (compressible and uncompressible) transfers, which is
what PPP basically is, and they did extremely well on mediocre to bad
phone lines. Additionally, they have a *LIFETIME* warranty! That's
worth good money right there. Plus, they have a technical support
line that's open 7-days a week. These were not the cheapest modems in
the test, nor were they the most expensive. I thought they were the
perfect mix for my use running PPP between two NetBSD machines.
These are both external modems. I strongly encourage anyone using
modems for anything more complex than Windoze terminal to get
externals. The blinky lights can be invaluable for figuring out
configurations problems.
I haven't regretted my decision once, since hooking these speed
monsters up.
--
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Michael L. VanLoon Iowa State University Computation Center
michaelv@iastate.edu Project Vincent Systems Staff
Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free Un*x for PC/Mac/Amiga/etc.
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