No Problem - Just Curious

[wyoungman]

Hi,
For several years, eventhough we had a 56k modem, we have suffered with a pretty low connection rate; around 28800 with occasional jumps into the low 30s. I even replaced all the phone wiring inside the house and ran the USRobotic check that said our service was not capable of 56k. We replaced the V90 modem with a V92 and that actually slowed it down a little. We finally gave up and decided to just live with it because we didn't want to pay the money for a cable modem or DSL. Then one day we logged-on and were amazed to find we had a connection of 115200. Its been that way ever since. We're happy as clams. However, being the curious type, I would love to know what changed. I know I'll probably not know for sure without talking to someone willing to give out that kind of information at the phone Co. Has anyone here ever experienced such fortune and do you have a clue as what was done to cause the improvement?
Grinning!
Bill

[jscher2000]

One of my friends reported that his modem got 115K. I don't believe it. I think the software is telling you what the serial chip can do, not reporting what the modem can do. To test bandwidth, you can try the 2Wire Bandwidth Meter, it's on the right side of the page. (You don't have to enable the Flash animation to access it.)

[cowboydawg]

Maybe your ISP changed something.

[LegareColeman]

That 115200 is normally the maximum speed that the serial port can operate. The port will normally communicate with the modem using that speed during the modem initilization. Since a 56kb modem can not send/receive data to the other modem at 115200, I would guess that for some reason the connection speed is now being reported as the speed used during initilization, and is not reporting the actual connection speed. Have you run one of those programs that claim to optimize your modem to speed things up? If so, it may have changed some setting that is causing this.

[MichaelRead]

Just as a matter of FYI concerning dial ups and DSL, recently I switched to a DSL at $30 US from a dial up at $20 US per month. With the DSL however, I believe you have to be within 3 miles of a telco switching station. For comparison's sake, I used to download at a max of about 5.2kbs with the dial up...with the DSL, I can regularly download at about 110.0kbs or more. Updating Quickbooks, antivirus defs, or downloading the latest shareware/freeware takes only seconds with the DSL.

If you live close enough to a switching station and can maybe get a similar deal, the $30 US is well worth the extra speed (there also were no equipment/setup charges). A 56K simply cannot match the hardware configuration of a high bandwith line.

[wyoungman]

Sorry it took so long to respond. Been away. I appreciate everyones response. I rather assummed that the modem was not actually functioning at 115200. However, something happened to make everything go faster be some factor. I tried the 2wire bandwidth meter. It just dinged at me when I clicked it. No matter. It was just a curiosity question. I'm otherwise pretty happy.
Thanks
Bill