Dial-up picks up the pace

Broadband high-speed connections may be the future of Internet access, but analog modems aren't out of the picture yet. In fact, at least one industry insider predicted dial-up connections could continue playing a major role in the market for another five to seven years.

To that end, the International Telecommunication Union has upgraded industry standards for the dial-up modem. The industry has been using the V.90 standard since 1998 when it was developed to resolve technical disputes between rival 56 kb/s modem products from U.S. Robotics, later bought by 3Com, and Lucent Technologies. V.90 was a must-have for consumers hungry for higher-speed access to the Internet and also for service providers no longer faced with buying two sets of equipment to support rival technologies.

The newest version, dubbed V.92, features faster configuring of Internet connections, an improved upstream rate and the capability to receive and initiate phone calls during an online session.

The ITU committee that developed the new standards includes representatives from 3Com, Cisco Systems, Conexant Systems, Lucent, Motorola and PCTel. The group considered technologies that would help bridge the gap between analog and broadband, said Michael Tramontano, marketing director for Motorola's software product division.

"You've got a variety of people who are beyond the digital divide," Tramontano said. "They cannot get DSL service in their area or cable modem service in their area. Other folks are not willing to pay $40 a month."

Through a feature called quick connect, V.92 eliminates the need for an ISP to reconfigure an Internet connection to the same user. The development was achieved by studying the training algorithms of modems after the dialing sequence, Tramontano said.

"Since you're mostly calling the same ISP every time you dial in, the modems become intelligent," he said. "They know the characteristics of the phone line because they are making repetitive phone calls to the same number. It remembers the connection route, saving time."

The time savings can be substantial. "The traditionalmodem handshake time can be anywhere from 25 to 30 seconds," said Helen Yoder, business development manager for Conexant, which makes semiconductor equipment. "This [new standard] can actually cut that in half."

Another timesaving upgrade comes from faster upstream connections. Today's V.90 standard can deliver up to 56 kb/s downstream but only 33.6 kb/s upstream, Tramontano said. The upgrade increases that speed by more than 30%, potentially boosting upstream speeds to between 44 and 48 kb/s, he said.

The feature accommodates the consumer desire to share family photos, MP3 files and other bandwidth-intensive material.

"People are taking more digital pictures and they want to upload those large images," Yoder said.

The third feature of V.92 capitalizes on traditional call waiting by allowing users to put their modems on hold. This feature allows the user's modem to detect an incoming call and gives consumers the option of answering, said Patrick Maurer, senior electrical engineer for Motorola Laboratories.

If a user wants to answer the call, the user's modem sends a message to the digital modem located at the ISP asking for permission to put the data connection on hold.

If the digital modem agrees, the caller can answer his or her other line. The line holding the dial-up connection is taken out of frequency while the digital modem continuously sends a tone that will alert the user's modem to its presence when the consumer attempts to reconnect, Maurer said.

"The user modem is doing the management of the situation and the digital modem is the one doing the waiting," he added.

The technology also can be used in reverse, allowing a consumer to put the data connection on hold to place a voice call.

Time limits on how long a service provider would hold a user's data line will be determined by the individual ISPs.

Upgrading to V.92 features will require a Web-based download for consumers with software-based modems. The technology should be released in new products beginning later this year, said Amy Helland, an analyst with Cahners In-Stat Group.

"We're predicting [that] even by 2004, the majority of people will still be connected by analog devices," Helland said. "Certainly consumers would see upgrading as being worth theirwhile."

In the meantime, Conexant has organized a PlugFest testing event for September to promote interoperability between V.92 products from a variety of manufacturers, Yoder said. Conexant will track the results as client modem companies worldwide call into a virtual site and determine the servers to which they are capable of connecting.