2 ms·
That was great. Never knew exactly where the 56k number came from. When 56k modems first came out I was able to get full speed, and it was a great upgrade. The
by MBCook 3y ago
That was great. Never knew exactly where the 56k number came from.
When 56k modems first came out I was able to get full speed, and it was a great upgrade. Then we moved and I could never pass 28.8 or so.
Turns out in their infinite wisdom in the new development we moved to the phone company divided things up even more so they could get two lines out of what should have been one. 28 + 28 = 56.
I don’t know if they were using some sort of compression or something so that it wasn’t audible on voice calls but it meant a modem was capped forever.
The wait for cable internet was interminable (it came before DSL).
- bwann 3y agoUsually this meant the new neighborhood was put behind a subscriber loop carrier (SLC) which added an extra analog/digital conversion. Voice calls were getting digitized locally, sent across a T1 (only 4 wires needed, instead of 96-192), and back to analog to the normal frame at the CO. The effect of this was the telltale sign of carrier speeds only hitting 26,400 bps.
- MBCook 3y agoThat’s basically the kind of thing I suspected. Thanks! I wonder if that config screwed them when it came time to try to sell DSL. It still wasn’t available years later when I moved out.