An explanation of what it all means, from a tech guy's point of view.

Our Hardware Information

    Ok Folks this is how it goes... There was a company called Livingston (www.livingston.com), who were bought out by Lucent Technologies (www.lucent.com). Livingston made terminal servers. Terminal Servers are machines containing modem "cards" which in turn have modem "chips" on them, which act as the modems that you all dial in to. These modem cards do not look like your typical internal modem that you might buy at the store. Each "card" has 10 modem "chips" on them, and each Terminal Server has 5 cards. They sit in a climate controlled room on vertically mounted racks. Different ISP's use different types of terminal servers. The type of terminal servers that we purchased are Livingston's (now Lucent's) PortMaster 3. Now that you understand that, I can move on.
    These PortMaster 3's (PM3) run the K56Flex technology (As opposed to x2 technology). This is why it matters that our users purchase a K56 Flex compatible modem, instead of an x2 modem. (Once again, we don't use the x2 technology, we use Flex). The PM3's are all identical. Alll of the PM3's are connected via ethernet to our network. All of them answer requests 24 hours a day.

V.90 Information

        From the time Lucent came out with the 1st beta version of it, I knew it would be quite confusing to explain to our customers -the long-awaited V.90 standard. V.90 is supposed to be some what of an "agreement" between Flex and X2. For example: if you had an x2 modem, then theoretically you could upgrade to V.90 and connect to an ISP also running the V.90 standard. As you may or may not already know, it doesn't allways work this way. Different modem manufacturers use different chipsets. And unluckily, the world of high-speed dial up access is not too forgiving. If you purchase a V.90 modem for $19.95 at Billy Bob's Garage Sale, don't expect it to do much better than a 14.4. Keeping this in mind, there are a few other bits that get factored in as well. CaliforniaCom is currently running the V.90 standard beta 15. Did you see that? the word "beta". Yes it's true, as of when I wrote this (9/8/98),Lucent has not yet released a totally supported and final version of this V.90 thing yet. So just as you call in for support about your low connect speeds, we call Lucent about our customers getting low connect speeds with supposedly V.90 compatible modems. They tell us to wait for the final version to come out. Now until that day comes, we will offer you the best support based on our knowledge of known issues. In actuality, there are alot more things that you can do/set/change with your modem, than we can do with our PM3's. Which brings me to our next section:

FAQ
I developed this next section according to the amount of questions I received on each issue. Now assuming that all of your settings are correct, the answers and linksI am listing here should help you out in one way or another. You should check your settings before calling in. Alot of times, people have the wrong DNS numbers, or other weird stuff like no TCP/IP in your Network Icon. For a brief tutorial on how to setup your connection the right way, you can do 1 of 2 things:

    Download a file that will set it up for you (Win 95-98 only) -or-
    Double check your settings with our online documentation:
        -Windows 95/98
        -Macintosh
        -Windows 3.x
        -Windows NT 3
        -Windows NT 4

    Q. Why am I only getting 24,000 (or something lower than 40,000) with this V.90 modem?
    A. If you upgraded to v.90 from Flex, downgrade back to Flex.
    A. Try using 5 commas after the phone number.
    A. Ask your modem manufacturer if your modem is capable of talking to Flex/v.90 servers as opposed to x2/v.90 servers.

    Q. Why am I only getting 24,000 (or something lower than 40,000) with this Flex modem?
    A. Try the upgrade to v.90 (visit your modem manufacturers website)
    A. Try using 5 commas after the phone number.
    A. Ask your modem manufacturer if your modem is capable of talking to Flex/v.90 servers as opposed to x2/v.90 servers.

    For more Q&A (found at K56Flex.com), Click Here

    56K Documentation about x2 modems found at 3com.com, Click Here

   Upgrade modems, find out more about v.90, K56 info found at k56flex.com, Click Here

Click here to go back

article by Sean Murray

CaliforniaCom Inc.
Internet and Network Service Provider
Serving the San Francisco Bay Area
1624 Franklin Street, Suite 30
Oakland, CA 94612
U.S.A
Tel: 510.287.8450
info@california.com

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