🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DKJ0GI.7F9@eskimo.com>, Marc Salvatori <salvo@eskimo.com> wrote:
>I am giving serious thought to acquiring a Penril Alliance V.34bis modem for
>an AMI Enterprise IV EISA system running NeXTStep, which frequently accesses
>an ISP in the Great NorthWest.  How well has this modem worked for you?  How
>satisfied are you with Penril's service support?

I've had a pair of Penril Alliance v.34's for a few weeks and so far have 
been underwhelmed by their performance. Despite the raving review in 
Network Computing, I've yet to get as good of performance from the 
Penrils as USR Couriers or Motorola v.3400s.

I'm running NT 3.51 RAS on both ends. My first disappointment was that I 
had to cobble together the RAS modem.inf script for the Penril myself, 
since their tech support couldn't even spell RAS. My test setup is 
between virtually identical machines at home and work. With a v.3400 on 
the work end and a v.3400 or Courier v.everything at home I consistently 
(95+% of the time) yet 28.8 connections. With the Penril on the work end, 
I consistently get 26.4 connections; with either the v.3400, USR or 
Penril on the home side. Often, going Penril to Penril, after an initial 
26.4 connection, it will rate shift up to 28.8, and sometimes back down 
to 26.4 again. I've _never_ gotten over 28.8 going Penril to Penril, even 
though they have the latest v.34+ (or whatever it's called) firmware, 
which is capable of up to 33.6. I get similar results when dialing from a 
Penril to a USR Total Control modem (essentially a Courier), running RAS; 
and when connecting to Compuserve's v.34 lines; i.e. the USR or Motorola 
connect at 28.8, the Penril at 26.4.

Thus my Penril performance has been poor and I'm disappointed to not see 
any advantages from the v.34+ features, even though I've got excellent 
line quality between my test sites (as witnessed by the high percentage 
of 28.8 connections). The other disadvantage of the Penril is that it's 
_huge_; roughly 11"x11"x3"H (or 3x the size of a USR Sportster).

Sorry to rain on the parade, but that's my experience so far.

Kurt Marko