New 56K Modem Standard
On February 4, after debating the standard for nearly a year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) came to an agreement on 56 kilobits per second (Kbps) modem proprietary recommendations, thus ending a fierce marketing battle between two incompatible 56K modem technologies.In February 1997, Motorola Corp. introduced the first 56K modem, which was built on Rockwell's K56flex proprietary recommendation. At the same time, U.S. Robotics (now 3COM) released its 56K modem built on its x2 56K proprietary recommendation. These two technologies competed directly, and could not communicate with, each other. Until now, anyone with a K56flex or x2 modem could get fast service only from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) who specifically supported that technology. Many computer users held back from buying the modems, uncertain which technology would prevail.
The ITU, an arm of the United Nations, started meeting in March of 1997 to address this incompatibility issue. Rockwell and 3COM both submitted their proprietary recommendations for review. The ITU was charged with producing one standard from all the different recommendations proposed by the vendor industry. (A standard is defined as, "a technology agreed upon by the various vendors in an industry and ratified by an international governing body.")
Unlike in 1994 when it selected the V.34 standard over V.FC for 28.8 Kbps modems, this time the ITU proposed a merger between K56flex and x2 56K technologies. The new V.90 56K standard will make it possible for consumers to purchase any product and use it with any other vendor's product. The final draft standard is due into the ITU in May, but the new standard will not be officially ratified until September 15.
Manufacturers have announced that they will release modems built on the V.90 standard in late March. If you decide to buy a 56K modem built upon the V.90 draft standard before September, be warned that you may have to upgrade the modem if changes are made to the draft standard. And keep in mind that, while the standard supports 56Kbps when the user requests information or downloads information from the Internet, the maximum transfer rate reaches only 33.6 Kbps when sending information to the Internet. The FCC in North America has limited downloading speeds to 53 Kbps, but is currently reviewing this regulation. If you already own a 56K modem, many manufacturers have promised to offer free software upgrades to make them compatible with the new standard.
At press time, the battle between the two main manufacturers was not quite over. Rockwell has announced that it will not test its modems with 3Com's and that the K56flex modems will connect to x2 modems at a maximum rate of 33.6 Kbps. On February 5, Hayes, Ascend, and Cisco announced that compatibility within the V.90 draft standard is still not reliable. They have decided not to build products until testing between users and ISPs with different V.90 vendor modems is completed.
For further information and updates on the new 56K modem standard, go to http://cait.ucdavis.edu/advtech/evals.