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Talkin' 'Bout V.92

Members of the ISP-Tech list are concerned that V.92 modem technology will be expensive to deploy—and, after deployment, will raise costs instead of reducing them.

[October 25, 2001]

On the ISP-Tech list in October, JG inquired,

"Can anyone elaborate on what is needed to support V.92? Has anyone adopted it?"

A number of respondents questioned whether or not it's worthwhile:

[KP asked] "Is this technology really worth spending the money (if your equipment is actually compatible) to upgrade? It seems the only real difference is the upload speed from dialup, and even so not much. How long do we expect dialup to be in business anyhow? What client wants to wait 15-25 minutes for an MP3 download that can take less than a tenth the time on DSL or cable?"

[LK recalled] "We bought a V.92 modem bank card to test, and we could not get it to work for the life of us. We worked with Lucent on it, and we asked them to name one of their customers who is using it: they said they don't have any."

Others warned that there's an added danger with V.92's modem-on-hold feature:

[VB offered] "I guess the added compression might be valuable, but do you really want people tying up your modems while they gab on the phone?"

[RS agreed] "If customers start using the pause function so they can receive a call, our user to modem ratio may be affected, thus increasing costs. I assume that when we start with V.92 we will have to break out one of our PRIs with a separate number. Maybe we can increase the fees: after all, it's an increased service with an increased cost to us."

[DM noted] "Well, I had hoped that ISPs would have adjusted pricing when the world went from 28.8 to 56k. I sure hope that this drives the cost back up to more profitable levels. Is a buck a day for the world delivered to your door outrageous? $29.95: those were the days…"

JG observed that the danger of increased costs, at least, is pretty limited:

"I know that you can set modem-on-hold timeout values, and I think that the standard's going to be something in the vicinity of 15 seconds. So I don't think modem-on-hold will tie up lines any more than usual."

RS suggested that adoption is ultimately inevitable:

"The migration to V.92 will be controlled by consumer demand, just like the migration to V.90. I don't think it will be so much driven by the benefits per se, rather by adoption by the OEM system integrators like Dell, Gateway, and HP. When an end user finds out their ISP does not support the new features on their new computer, they may be inclined to change providers. At that time, we will have to determine if we will join the bandwagon or fade off into the sunset."

—End