Modem Buyers Are About to Be Victims of Old Double Standard
For you online junkies hooked on the World Wide Web but frustrated by the sluggish performance of your modem, there is good news and bad news headed your way.
The good news is that next month several dozen companies plan to begin offering modems that transfer data at 56 kilobits per second, twice the rate of the 28.8 modems now widely in use, for prices as low as $89.
The bad news is that modem suppliers have split into two camps, with Skokie, Ill.-based U.S. Robotics backing one standard, known as x2, and a group of 130 companies led by Newport Beach-based Rockwell Semiconductor Systems backing a separate, incompatible standard called K56flex.
The standards battle means that even if you buy one of the fast new modems, your data won’t travel any faster than your old modem unless the modem on the other side of the connection uses the same technology.
For the moment, U.S. Robotics seems to have the inside track among online services and Internet service providers, while Rockwell has done better at lining up large computer makers such as Compaq and Toshiba.
But the split unnerves many in the industry, who know that consumers tend to shy away from new technological products until the standards debate is resolved. That means that manufacturers and service companies are loath to throw in their lot with one or the other, lest they bet on the losing horse.
“We’re trying to put pressure on [the companies] to resolve this,” said John Sidgmore, chief executive of UUNet Technologies Inc., a Fairfax, Va., commercial Internet access provider. “We don’t want to spend lots of money on a useless technology.”
Although U.S. Robotics initially looked like its standard would win when it announced it would have product out by January, the delivery schedule has slipped to next month. Meanwhile, the rival camp has accelerated its schedule to deliver product at about the same time.
Some Internet service providers may offer service at the higher speed by providing connections using both standards. But analysts expect most companies won’t make the investment until standards bodies agree on a single approach sometime after this fall.
Dataquest analyst Lisa Pelgrim recommends that impatient Net users ask their service provider which modem standard they intend to support. She also suggests that consumers buy modems that can eventually be upgraded with software to work with the new standard when it is finally agreed upon.
