Minnesota Computer News

Internet Connectivity in the Twin Cities, Part I
"The Fun of Owning a 56k Modem"

I’ve spent the last three weeks agonizing over, what I thought, was the poor quality of my
local telephone lines. I’ve been connecting to the Net with a 3COM 56k Winmodem. 56k
modems are the highest speed modems available over standard telephone lines, and they
happen to be the only decent chance that most of us have of connecting to the internet (at
home or on the road) at a decent rate of speed. The connection to my ISP (Earthlink) was
slow to the point of uselessness and extremely unstable- every fifteen minutes or so my
connection would drop. Thinking that the quality of the PSDN (local telephone stuff) was
bad and my 56k modem was useless, I started investigating other options. My two best options were
DSL (Digital Subscriber Line, a high speed connection offered to USWest subscribers in
the Twin Cities), and the high speed RoadRunner service by my local cable company,
Time Warner, unfortunately neither option was available in my area. My apartment is too
far away from the DSL junction box and Time Warner simply hasn’t upgraded the
Minneapolis Cable network to support cable modems. My only option, besides WebTV,
was good ol’ fashion modem technology. I had to make my 56k modem work.

Thankfully there’s a site on the internet dedicated to 56k modem technology,
http://www. 56k.com/. I’ve detailed some of the lessons I’ve learned from the 56k.com site
below. The resolution to my problem ended up being the replacement of my modem drivers
with newer ones from the manufacturer. After the replacement I experienced an increase of
connection speed from 33000 to 45333 and increased connection stability. My connection is
much better and I’ve been able to surf at a satisfactory speed.

Here’s an overview of the steps detailed by 56k.com.

1. Upgrade your modem driver to the latest version. You can usually do this by going to
   the support section of your modem manufacturer’s web site (Yahoo Manufacturer's directory)
2. Find out which 56k standard you’re using v.90, k56Flex, or x.2 (once again this information
   can be obtained by consulting your modem’s documentation or through the manufacturer’s web
   site).
3. Contact your ISP (through the web site- here’s a list of local companies
   Yahoo List of Minneapolis Local ISPs and here’s a list of national providers Yahoo list of national ISPs)
   and find out what phone numbers are their 56k modems are and what standard they’re using. If you’re
   using v.90 then make sure your calling a v.90 56k modem on the ISP’s end. If you’re using v. 90 and
   you’re ISP is using k56flex you’re not going to be able to make a solid 56k connection.
4. As a last resort you can try using the 3com line test to check if your 56k line is compatible at http://www.3com.com/56k/need4_56k/linetest.html. This will determine how many digital to
   analog converters are located on your line- more that one and your phone line probably won’t be able
   to support 56k.

Stay tuned for the next part in our series, WebTV!!!! jmb Dec 21, 1999