56K Questions and Answers

* How can I check to see if my phone line supports 56K ?
Try the web site:
USRobotice 56k line test

Follow the directions given there to see if your phone line is clean enough to handle the connection.

If it says your phoneline cannot handle 56K connections, then it will not help to call the 56K modem pool. Also, your connection speeds will not increase over the standard modem rates you have been getting if you have just purchased a 56K modem.

* What are the access numbers for 56K service?

All of the WCNet's dialup points are now 56K capable. Please see the phone numbers page for more information.

* Blade Article on 56K modems and their speed

An article by Michael Woods, the Toledo Blade technology writer, describing why 56K modems are not that fast is located here.

* Why do I only connect at XXXXX bps ?

The connection speed reported is the INITIAL speed negotiated by the modems. The real speed varies as the line quality improves or gets worse. A utility such as Net.Medic can report the actual data rates being achived. There is a free "demo" version available for download there.

Also the quality of the phone lines between your house and our server can effect the data rates. It has been known to happen that data rates are reduced on rainy/windy days.

Typical data rates are in the high 40K's. There is no way to guarantee an actual 56K data rate, as in many things "Your Mileage May Vary".

It may be, too, that your modem driver needs updated. The two most popular modem driver updates are for the LT Winmodems and the Rockwell HCF modems. Until these drivers are updated, connections to the 56k lines are problematical. Click on the links below to download a driver. Both drivers are self-installing. just double- click on the file to install it once you've downloaded it to your computer. Make sure that you have your Windows 95/98 disk handy. You will need it for the driver upgrades.

Rockwell HCF Driver

LT Winmodem Driver

 

* What Protocols Are Supported?

Currently we support only V.90 and X2 protocols for 56K speeds. We do NOT support Kflex.

 
* I'm sometimes cut off after only a few seconds
 

The Buffer Fix!

Try resetting the FIFO buffers in your dial-up networking connection icon. Open my computer, open dial-up networking, click on your connection icon with the right mouse button. Click on properties with the left mouse button. Click on the configuration button. Click on the connections tab. Click on the port settings button. Make sure both slider bars are set to the third notch.Click okay. Click okay again. That's it.

From this:

To this:

In Windows Me, it looks slightly different.

From this:

To this:

Here is another trick you can try to prevent disconnects:

- Go to Modems in Control Panel (Start - Settings - Control Panel)

- From Modems select Properties, select the Connection Tab, then click the Advanced button

- In the Extra settings dialogue box, enter S10=50; this will force the modem to stay connected without a carrier for up to 5 seconds.

* Where can I learn more about V.90/56K modems?

Try www.56k.com
or www.modemhelp.com
or 808hi.com/56k/
or v90.com

You may also try the newsgroup: comp.dcom.modems