Software modems

[Duston, Hal]

Well, according to the article, the serial cable adds 26ms more 
latency like this. 

"26 ms (100 bytes down serial port to modem)
 50 ms (modem's fixed waiting time)
 28 ms (transmission time over telephone line at 28.8 Kbps)
 26 ms (100 bytes up serial port at receiving end)

Thus, the total time is 130 ms each way, or 260 ms for the round-
trip."

I will grant that as broadband becomes more and more prevalent, 
that this will become less of an issue, but I do believe that 
latency is just as important as bandwidth.  Bandwidth is roughly 
equivalent to how much data can be put in the pipe at once, but 
latency is equivalent to how long the data takes to get to the 
other end.  ISDN and modems have roughly similiar bandwidth, but 
ISDN has MUCH better latency, and that is why it is so much 
faster.  A station wagon full of CD-ROMS going down the interstate 
has incredibly huge bandwidth, but the latency is REALLY bad.  

Hal Duston
hald at sound.net
If Al Gore invented the internet, why is it named after George W. Bush

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mike neuliep [mailto:mike at illiana.net]
> Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 9:42 AM
> To: kclug at kclug.org
> Subject: RE: kclug - Software modems
> 
> 
> A lot of the new compaqs we are buying here at work do not have 
> an ISA bus. Who would have ever thought that would have 
> happened?  To be honest, I'm a fan of external modems.  I like 
> the pretty lights and they're easier to install, just hook them 
> up to your serial port!  Also they're not architecture dependent 
> so you can use them on anything from a dumb terminal to a PC to 
> an HP workstation.  To me, that makes it well worth the extra 
> $20 for external.
> 
> Forget software modems, they're a thing that sprouted from  the 
> ugly beast of Microsoft.
> 
> 	Mike Neuliep
> 	mike at illiana.net