pianopla@milton.u.washington.edu (Cynthia Kelsey) (06/07/91)
A friend of mine wants to get some 9600 baud modems to use for
file transfer between Macs in two offices. He plans to use Timbuktu
remote (a program that does file transfer and remote control of Macs.
He may also want to remotely control a Mac occasionally). What are
the best modems out there? One person recommended Telebit Trailblazer
T2500 (about $1050 discounted, v.32, v.42bis, PEP, MNP 2-5) . Another
recommended the Hayes Ultra Smartmodem 9600 (about $795 discounted,
v.42bis, v.32, MNP 2-5). I have seen some modems for alot less,
like Prometheus ProModem 9600 (about $658 discounted, does fax, v.42,
MNP 5, ???) or Ultima (about $719 discounted, does fax, v.32, v.42,
MNP 5, ???). The USR V.32 with v.32bis seems to be getting good
reviews in comp.dcom.modems.
At this point, some of the issues I'm wrestling with are the
following:
1) As long as he is just interested in having two of the same
modem talk to each other, the cheaper ones will be fine in the
sense that they will sync well with each other and transfer data
just fine. On the other hand, cheaper modems may be lower quality.
He needs modems that can be left on for 24 hours a day reliably.
2) He probably doesn't need a large selection of protocols (like
Telebit PEP) unless he plans to call modems other than the ones he
buys. On the other hand, a larger selection of protocols leaves him
more options for how he uses his modems later (like dialing in to
online services - he has some interest in CompuServe and Legal
online services). Larger selection also reduces the chance that
his expensive modems will become obsolete in the immediate future
and need to be scrapped.
3) I don't know which protocols are more efficient for his primary
goal - file transfer between offices. Is PEP better? The Telebit
seems to be very popular among UUCP people. From what I've read,
v42bis does up to 4:1 compression (some files he will transfer are
already compressed, others are not). And v.32bis sounds like it might be
preferable when line noise is present. How do these compare to PEP?
4) What are his other options? In particular, can he transfer files
faster by some other method? I don't know what options exist for
high grade phone lines and faster modems, but I assume this would
cost a great deal more.
Any opinions, especially about 1, 3, and 4, would be extremely helpful.
Thanks in advance.
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