October 1997 / BYTE Hardware Lab Report

Bandwidth on a Budget: 34 Fast Modems Inside, Outside, All Around the Modem	Speed to 56 Kbps and beyond with X2, K56flex, ISDN, and ADSL devices. - by By BYTE Editors
Best Overall: High-Speed Modems	Modems based on 56-Kbps, ISDN, and ADSL technologies are so different that separating the products according to their underlying technology clearly makes sense.
ADSL Conundrum Clean Lines Deliver the Data	Because the technologies that are used by ADSL modems are too different and are not interchangeable -- and they have no formal standardized test suites -- we declined to choose a Best Overall ADSL winner from among them.
High-Speed Modems Ratings Best Overall/56-Kbps Modems X2 Technology: U.S. Robotics Courier V. Everything V.34 (E) Best Overall: 56-Kbps Modems/K56Flex Technology: Zoom Telephonics 2849-PC (E) Best Overall: ISDN Modems: 3Com Impact IQ U.S. Robotics Courier V.Everything V.34 Zoom Telephonics 2849-PC 3Com Impact IQ
Details ISDN Inside Small Lights, Big Documentation Zoomin' Ahead of the Rest	ISDN Inside Logicode's internal ISDN modem connects to an ISA slo t and is the only unit of the ISDN lot that connects internally.
56-Kbps Reality Check 56 Kbps: Reality vs. Expectation	When the news broke that 33.6 Kbps was the end of the line for Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) modems, we had no reason to doubt it.
Test Results A Loop de Do	The three types of modems we evaluated -- 56-Kbps, ISDN, and ADSL -- use specific technologies to solve different problems.
The "x" in xDSL	Accompanying the emerging Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology is a veritable alphabet soup of new acronyms.
Contact Information	Where to Find ISDN Remote Adapters Flash 200.................................$195 price as tested Overall rating: **** Arescom Phone: 510-445-3638 Fax: 510-445-3636 Internet: http://www.arescom.com Inquiry Number: 1020 Webglider.................................$399 price as tested Overall rating: **** Boca Research, Inc.

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