RE: [aclug-L] Feist ISP...

[Jonathan Hall <jonhall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I have been in contact with Gabriel Mains at Feist Support over the past few
> weeks.
> 
> But as I stated before.. as soon as 'SWB' can offer ASDL I am off of
> Feist....
> 
> Oh.. by the way the Modem is an internal Cardinal 56K 2X with the V.90
> firmware upgrade.

Cardinal unfortunately no longer exists, which makes finding documentation
for their modems next to impossible.  Finding updated drivers is also very
difficult.  If you haven't already tried this, you migth get the latest
V.90 drivers for your modem.  You may already have them, they are dated
May of 1998, so they're nowhere near new--that's one of the disadvantages
of a company that no longer exists.  But you can get the latest drivers
from http://www.hayes.com/cardinal_drivers.html.

You might also try disabling V.90, as x2 may be more reliable than V.90
with V.90 code that old.  This can be done with most modems using a TI
chipset (as I believe cardnal does) with the following init string:

  ATS32=66

If that produces an error, you may wish to consult your modem's manual to
find the correct command.

Another point of my personal curiosity... As SouthWestern Bell said that
ADSL will be available in your area?  Last I heard, it would only be
available within 7000 feet of the CO which, at SWB's own admission, would
only creach 40% of Wichita.  But then you said you're close to the CO,
right?

Also, you mentioned in a previous e-mail the use of some Norton software
to benchmark your modem's performance.  Was that reporting 80kbits/sec or
80kbytes/sec?  80kbitss/sec is comprehensable with a 56k modem when
transfering highly compressable data such as text files or HTML pages. 
80kbytes/sec, however, is far more than even the theoretical maximum
throughput of a 56k modem.  __Theoretically__ you can get a 4:1
compression ratio, which would put the absolute maximum throughput at
about 21.2kbytes/sec, which is nearly twice as fast as a 16550A UART can
handle anyway.  And computer technology (or any other technology for that
matter) always performs at least slightly below 100% effeciency, and in
the case of analog modems, usually far below 100% effeciency. 

So if your benchmark software was actually reporting 80kbyte/sec, and not
80kbit/sec, I would SERIOUSLY question the validity of the tests, and
wouldn't take the test results to mean much.

So anyway, I'm curious to see how updated drivers and disabling V.90
effect your connection rates.


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  Jonathan Hall  *  jonhall@xxxxxxxxxxxx  *  PGP public key available
 Systems Admin, Future Internet Services; Goessel, KS * (316) 367-2487
         http://www.futureks.net  *  PGP Key ID: FE 00 FD 51
         -=  Running Debian GNU/Linux 2.0, kernel 2.0.36  =-
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