V.92 a salve for dial-up data users

As broadband continues its inevitable march to data delivery dominance, those forced to continue using dial-up can find solace in the features of V.92 technology, which is slowly spreading into the marketplace.

“It’s going to be a number of years before dial-up is replaced by broadband,” said Larry Hancock, marketing director of modem maker Zoom Telephonics, who estimated 52 million users still get their data access through conventional dial-up services. “Our world and the world of the ISPs that we do business with are still definitely dial-up.”

That will change. Zoom’s analog modem sales are flat and should soon go into decline as sales for cable and DSL units rise. While not stemming that tide, Hancock sees V.92, and especially its “modem-on-hold” feature, as a way to ease the transition.

“The modem has been configured to make full use of call waiting and the various services like caller ID and three-way calling that generally go along with that,” said Hancock.

A user of a V.92 modem – which is compatible with all ITU standards for 56 Kb/s data transmission – installs an applet that triggers the service in both the modem and the ISP headend.

“If you’re on the Internet and you need to make a quick call to somebody, the call waiting applet puts the Internet connection on hold for four minutes,” Hancock explained, noting some ISPs are offering optional service holds for as long as 15 minutes.

Of course callers can’t view data and make a call at the same time, as they could with a cable or DSL modem, but they also don’t miss calls because they are online which eliminates the need for a second phone line.

“Second-line costs have really gone up. Most people who want to get on the Internet don’t want to miss a call. This will be a very desirable feature,” Hancock said.

It’s especially desirable for the growing class of work-at-homers who mostly still don’t have access to broadband, need connectivity and don’t want to invest in a second phone line.

While there are only several hundred thousand V.92 modems in the marketplace today – less than broadband – the number is growing and should eclipse standard 56 Kb/s and V.90 models, Hancock said.

“By the end of the year, over half the new modems purchased industry-wide will be V.92 modems, simply because there’s only a few dollars cost differential and anybody that buys a new modem tends to pay that much to have a newer standard,” he said.

Besides the modem-on-hold features, V.92 modems – which “didn’t happen as quickly as we had hoped” – offer a training feature that speeds up call connections for frequently dialed numbers, said Hancock.

“It trains itself to the point that it can significantly increase the connect speed. Eventually, we expect it to cut the call connect time about in half,” he said.