berger@clio.Uiuc.ARPA (10/26/86)
I strongly recommend NEC modems. 1. Educational institutions get a hefty discount. 2. They're industrial grade modems made to Western Electric standards. The filters are 10db better than the cheap plastic hobby modems (Hayes, US Robotics, etc.). They meet all Bell specifications, although there's a switch to let the modem meet sloppier tolerances (for full compatibility with the cheap plastic modems too) 3. They're available in rack mount. In fact, some models plug right into a standard Western Electric modem card rack. 4. Hayes command set and MNP error correction are available if you insist. I prefer the NEC proprietary autodialing menu. We have a couple dozen NEC modems of various vintage and model in the field and on the computer. They all perform admirably. Long distance file transfers are error free, and we haven't had a single modem fail yet. They're warranted for 5 years. Contrast this to reports favoring (!) US Robotics modems that have appeared over the net. One report favoring the USR product boasted that they "worked fine", although he pointed out that four out of twelve were DOA! Another report claimed "only two or three errors in a two hour long distance file transfer". Yuck! The NEC modems have a variety of self-test features.