[fa.info-mac] Modems for use in France

info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (09/13/84)

From: BILLOIR@SRI-CSL.ARPA

I am going to go back France  shortly, with my Mac and Imagewriter;  I
would like also  to bring a  modem with  me. I assume  that it  should
work, possible  differences in  the telecommunication  standard  being
taken in account in the  realization of the corresponding phone  sets,
but ...  Does anybody  know for sure  if it could  work on the  french
phone net, or which brands can do it if such a restriction exists?
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info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (09/22/84)

From: Bjorn Lindskog <BJORN@WASHINGTON.ARPA>
If I were you I'd be extremely careful if I wanted to buy a modem here
in the US. Europe and US do use different standards for data tranfers
over the public phone net. I did some hardware hacking a couple of years
ago back home in Sweden and I found out that most of the application notes
on modems (from US manufacturers) were more or less useless. The European
standard uses frequencies much closer to each other than the US' which
requires more complex filters.

However, nowadays when modems are essentially one chip with digital filtering
and other fancy stuff, it would really surprise me if the chip (and
consequently the modem) manufacturers didn't try to make them international.
I suggest you read the tech specs for the modem you intend to buy really
carefully. Unfortunately I can't remember right now what our Europeean
standard is called, it might be V.23 but I wouldn't bet on it.

-- Bjorn
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