Modem Operandi By Michelle V. Rafter May 6, 1997 The come-ons are hard to avoid. In newspapers, in magazines, advertisements boldly extol the pleasure, the thrill, the rush of logging on at a blistering 56 kilobits per second. Looking at them you can almost feel the wind whip through your hair. Whooosh. Companies selling new-generation 56 kbps modems know they're preaching to the choir. What Microsoft-fearing, Internet-loving modemhead isn't a speed freak? But there's good reason not to flex your impulse-buying muscle — the one that whispers, "So what if you can't afford it, you want it, you deserve it, go for it" — just yet. For one, not all 56 kbps modems are created equal. In their infinite wisdom, the two biggest suppliers of modem chip sets, Rockwell Semiconductor Systems and U.S. Robotics, decided to build their chips according to different standards. Big deal, except that it means modems with chip sets from Company A don't work with modems with chip sets from Company B. And that means you'd better find out what variety of 56 kbps modem your Internet service provider is using, because if you buy the wrong kind, you won't be able to dial in, and if that's the case you might as well have hung onto that old 28.8. Internet providers are just starting to test and install 56 kbps equipment, and chances are, if you're not in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or another major metropolis, you'll be twiddling your thumbs for a few months before your friendly neighborhood Internet provider brings 56 kbps to your town. That includes the biggies like America Online, Prodigy and Microsoft Network. To make matters even more confusing, some companies, including America Online and MindSpring, the Atlanta Internet provider, are testing both U.S. Robotics' "x2" version of 56 kbps and the "K56Flex" technology developed by Rockwell and its partner, Lucent Technologies. Then there are the reports from the field that many new modems get their juice by stealing processing power from the CPU. "This may be OK for users who don't really need a Pentium 200 to begin with, but for power users or servers, (it) may not be acceptable," one modem user said. The good news is many of these complications may be very temporary. North American and international telecommunications standards organizations are expected to endorse one 56 kbps protocol by the end of the year, possibly much sooner. When that happens, people who've already bought a 56 kbps modem will be able to upgrade to the common protocol by downloading and installing a software patch from any number of modem makers' Web sites. Prices, too, are a bright spot. If you insist on buying one now, internal 56 kbps modems retail for $140 to $220 depending on the maker; external models and Mac modems may be a little more. Retail and online stores are selling a handful of makes and expect even more product to appear as May heads toward June. I usually ignore the old adage, all good things come to those who wait. But in this case, a few months of thumb-twiddling could mean a lot less frustration, and ultimately get you where you want to go — and fast. Internet columnist and freelance writer Michelle V. Rafter got her first modem — "a whooping 2400 bps" — seven years ago.