Keep in mind that your ability to make a 56K (52) connection will depend on
how far away you are from your phone company's switching station.
Beyond 2.5 miles you will not be able to get a 52K connection and the
closer you are the better your speed will be. For example I live 4.5 miles
away from the switching station and the best I could ever do with any modem
was 26,400bps.

Brand name can make a big difference. My best performers with my poor line
conditions were hardware based USR and Zoom modems. When it came to Windows
modems I had the best luck with Action Tech. My expensive (at the time)
Practical Peripheral external voice modem would max out at 24000.
Fortunately I now have a cable modem but I still use my USR External 56K
Sportster from time to time and the best it will connect at is 26,400. My
situation is not all that unusual.

There are many utilities that will tweak your registry to increase your
packet size. This will not effect your connect rate but can dramatically
increase your download speed.
MTU Speed is one that has been around a long time and iSpeed is another
that is highly regarded. These are both shareware and available at most
software sites.


Mark Rode
The NOSPIN Group


>have buttons for restoring defaults.  However, your connection speed is
>often due to poor phone lines.  I had a 56K internal modem that could not
>connect above 26.4K.  With tweaking I could sometimes get 31.6K, but I did a
>line test from 3com that told me my phone lines sucked.  I now have a cable
>modem connection and routinely get 2.5 Mbps, and have reached 4.2 Mbps at
>night. I could never go back to a dialup no matter how good it was.
>
>Subject: [PCBUILD] Improving Performance Of Modem
>I have bought a new modem, an Aztech external V90. There is no problem with
>my using to surf the internet. However, it seems to be slower than my old
>modem.
>
>Do any of you have any tips/tweaks on how to improve the performance of a
>modem?

            Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to
                    Digest mode - visit our web site:
                   http://freepctech.com/pcbuild.shtml