🚀 go-pugleaf

Michael Anthony Vitale (rodney@cs.utexas.edu) wrote:
> In article <42pkam$7oj@Sierra.onr.com>, Gary Davis <gdmedia@onr.com> wrote:
> >    I just got a 28.8 modem and notice that my internet connection 
> > baud rate now varies from a low of 16-something to (usually)24.0.  
> > But never 28.8, not so far.  
[...]
> The following informations is second-hand from a friend in NJ who works 
> for AT&T.  The current phone line system only carries 64.0K of data across 
> each line total.  28.8K is the most that can be devoted out of each line 
> to data that our modems can use.  The other 35.2K is used for sustaining 
> the connected and other things which the phone company must do on every 
> phone call.

Well, sort of.  The current phone system samples signals at a rate of 8 KHz,
and so there is a finite limit on how much information can be sent over
a signal such as this (the Shannon limit, named for the the Bell researcher 
who discovered it and invented the field of information theory at the same 
time.)  The only way around it is to increase the information sent on each
signal, hence the development of phase-encoding and other additions to 
squeeze more bits in each signal.  The more you try to squeeze into a signal
the greater the chance that line noise will interfere with your connection.

> I have also heard some talk about USR making another proprietary protocol 
> to establish connections at something like 31.6K.  I have nothing in 
> writing to back this up, and it's only rumor.

Not a rumor, fact.  If you have a USR Courier modem you can get a flash 
upgrade that will let your modem handle the new connection speed.  I connect
in to Illuminati Online at this speed all the time (although I am on the same
switch as IO so I usually have no line noise problems :)

jim