CompuServe Thread

Well, there are basically three different standards. V.34 is the official one. There were two other standards released by modem makers prior to the final standard- V.terbo (or something like that- it was a funny spelling) from AT&T, and V.fast which was released by Rockwell. V.34 is faster than the other two. Most new modems, including USR's, can do all three, but it's something you want to check. The Sportster is supposed to be true V.34, as far as I know anyway. -Karl

Both supra and sportster are available with and without v.34. Get v.34. It is the current standard, is better, costs only a few extra dollars.

Micheal, IMHO, the USR COURIER V.EVERYTHING is the only product I would consider from USR at this time. Any V.34, that doesn't support V.FAST, might leave you dissappointed. The Supra 28.8, when their done with it, will support both. Gosh, if your coming from 2400, even 14.4 will be a huge jump for you… // Gary Vander Mei on Auto-Pilot \X/

Michael – > I was thinking of getting a Supra 28.8K baud Fax modem. My recommmendation would be Practical Peripherals PC288MT. I had first the 1200 bps Commodore Amiga modem, then moved up to the 2400 bps Supra (before it had data compression, error correction, or fax). Then I started reading PPI's support forum here on CIS (GO PPIForum), and decided to get their 9600, now upgraded to 14400/9600fax. I was extremely impressed by the level of support I found there. Besides the support forum on CIS, PPI also provides free EPROM upgrades when any problems are discovered and fixed, and have a limited LIFETIME warranty. (When the puppy chewed my power cord, killing the transformer, they sent me a new one free.) > The Sportster is 28.8 data but only 14.4 fax. Is this true for the Supra There is no standard for fax over normal telephone lines that is faster than 14400 bps. > It also says it is V.34 compliant, but I had heard that the Supra's used > something called V.Fast. V.34 was called V.fast before the ITU-T (formerly the CCITT) ratified V.34 as an official standard. Modems developed and marketed to the "best guess as to what V.fast will be", before ratification of the standard, are said to be "V.FC" (for "fast class"). jsaklad@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu . . JimDoc, on AutoPilot

Hi.. A couple of things.. On the Supra 288- the V34 version of this modem is now shipping, it supports V34, VFC (Rockwell's early implimentation of the 288 protocal), V32bis, V32, and V22.. It does not support V32Terbo (the 19.2 protocal). I am biased but I like it. I have on my desk and have been testing with the Supra (of course), a MultiModem ZDX (AT&T chipset, supports V34 but not VFC), the PPI PM288MT II (supports the same as Supra's–based on the same datapump with a different processor), a ZyXel U-1496E (a Terbo modem supporting 19.2 Ter but not VFC or V34), USR's Sportster and Courier (older and newer rom codes-older roms had various bugs with V42bis (among other things)), oh yea, and a AT&T protype V34 (doesn't support VFC), and the Rockwell protype with their base rom code. The Courier supports everything (like the ads say), but then it costs more (quite a bit more). I am not sure if the Sportster supports Terbo or not, I have never had the need to test whether it did or not. Their rom code is getting more stable (I had real problems with some connections with their earlier code). The PPI (like the Supra based on the Rockwell 288DPI datapump) reminds me a bit of our LC (because of the type of display). The reason it has taken this long for our product to reach the market is that we wanted to be sure that we had overcome all the various compatibility/connectability problems before we shipped (maybe we learned something from the V32bis release, but then I wasn't here then, so I can't say). The combination of the price, our design (metal case, alpha-numeric display), and features (we have reworked both Silent Answer and adaptive answer to perform more reliably than any of our modems in the past–yes we will be porting the new code back to earlier modems) of the the new SupraFax 288 V34, I honestly think it is a good buy. You should be seeing various reviews of V34 modems starting in March and I am confident that our modem will perform quite well. I didn't really mean to make this a sales pitch but there seemed to be some confusion about the different modems. I use my Supra V34 to access my internet server from home and connect V34 288 regularly (local call). I do not mean to say that you will get 288 connects everytime you call out because I doubt you will. I don't trust the phone companies enough to say that, but I do connect at speeds higher than 21600 calling all over the world (I do get some connects lower than that but what can you do?). With our new modem I am also able to fax to Germany and France at 14.4 much more reliably than I have in the past with any modem. Later all, Alex Johnson Product Testing Supervisor Supra Corp.