I've seen the discussions on people having problems getting their new 56k modems to work at the higher speeds. One of the points I did not see discussed is the distance from an analog line (your telephone line) to a digital switch/circuit. In order to get 56K speeds (really 53K by a FCC rule) the modem must be within 4 miles of a digital switch/circuit in order to get the benefits of the higher speed. 56K modems rely on a digital circuit. The line has to be: Modem --> analog circuit -->digital circuit -->ISP. I got this information from US Robotics. They have a line testing program that will test the line to see if it meets the qualifications in distance between the modem and a digital circuit. Hope this helps, Jim O'Brien