V92 Modem Standard

[imagineer]

Has anyone heard anything about the new V92 Modem Standard, i have heard that it is much faster at uploading and connecting, is this true?
Maybe some guys over in the US know more than me, they always seem to get everything before us Brits...

[KeithMcL]

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU)has ratified a new modem standard,
v.92, that promises to boost upload speeds by 40 per cent.
Sounds good, but in fact, it's not that hot. Current 56Kbps modems upload at
around 33.6Kbps, on a very good line. Offically 33,333 upload speed and 53,333 download.
The new standard simply takes that upload speed to just over 47Kbps and download to 56kbps.
And even then ITU admits that speed is only achieved
on "the best connections". How many of us have those?

Download speeds are a theoretical 56KBps, but a more practical 47KBps on a decent line.

The new standard does appear to reduce the time it takes for modems to handshake, which should allow users to log on to the Net more quickly. It also allows modems to cope with call waiting signals so that single-line owners can elect to answer voice calls and still stay connected to the Net. How, I do not know ?

More importantly, though, the group behind the v.92 standard announced a new modem data compression standard, v.44, which it reckons will improve data throughput
rates from the current 150-200Kbps to 300Kbps.

Hope this helps

[imagineer]

Thanx for that keith, but do you reckon its worth upgrading, how much will they cost compared to the standard V90 modems?

[Hierophant]

Cost will be similar. Unless you don't have alternatives it might be worth upgrading but only if you upload a lot. Unfortunately Analog telephone lines have reached their capacity at 56K and your not going to see much improvement in the bandwidth of Modems.

Using DSL and Cable is going to be the future. As more and more telephone switches get upgraded DSL is becoming cheaper with rates as low as $30 a month and free equipment. Cable is running approximately the same. Both are in there first interations and can acheive T1 speeds. As Reliability and usage increase then you will see speeds increase. Both of these technologies will also see speed increases through the expanded use of Fibre Optics and other light switching technologies. Fibre Optics can currently do approx 2 GBPS per strand with each cable having thousands of strands. That is a lot of bandwidth. A few strands could provide a home with more Internet, communications and Television bandwidth than they could ever use.

[imagineer]

Thanx Wayne.
Cable over here in england is about £30 now and is getting cheaper and faster. As with DSL, most ppl over here only know of ADSL which only has 512k per node (not per user).
And im not sure where but i saw an article on a new laser chip about the size of a 5p coin (5mm in diameter) which can currently communicate with other chips at about 1GByte (not 1Gbit)per sec and costs almost nothing. When this is used with fibre optic cables it will have limitless range and eventualy limitless speed. Sound good? I think it sounds to good to be true
My 56k will do for now ....

[Hierophant]

As with DSL, most ppl over here only know of ADSL which only has 512k per node (not per user).

WOW??? That bites pretty much. Where I live in California you can get ADSL at speeds of up to 1.5 mbps per line. The most common usage is 768 kbps though. This is per line not nodes. Node usage is limited to cable at 8 mbps per node which means you can get really good speed when you don't share your node with anyone else but crappy speeds if all 256 connections per node are used.