I thought this was interesting.

Catherine

 #21  ONLINE SHOPPER
          Steve Baxter tells all about the future of connection prices,
the
          future speed of connection and the future of the mobile
          communications industry. He know a lot

Silly Billy
By the end of this year or - things being the way they always are - some
time
during 2000, we'll be able to take advantage of high-speed
communications
technologies. Whether these will take the form of cable modems or ADSL
modems
I'm not sure. What is certain, though, is that both technologies will
bring
with them a very different billing regime.
Both cable and ADSL modems stay permanently connected to the network.
This
being the case, a billing system like the one we use at the moment -
which
charges you by how long you stay on the line - is entirely
inappropriate.
The most logical alternative is a billing system the charges you
according to
how much information you send down that line. Even though high-speed
services
are already being launched (BT Interactive was launched a couple of
months ago)
nobody is prepared to publicise any pricing information yet.

I've done some calculations so that, when such services are priced,
we'll know
what we ought to be paying.


The table ***WHERE*** is divided into five columns.
The first three columns relate to the costs associated with specific
connection
speeds. So, for example, if you connect to the Internet with the
56Kbit/s
connection it will cost you just over £0.12 to download 1Mb of data
during the
working day. Not surprisingly, it costs almost £0.24 to download the
same
amount of data through a 28.8Kbit/s connection - which is half the
speed.
The final two columns represent the two extremes of real-world download
performance. On the one hand, 'Download speed A' represents a slow Web
site
from which you can only download data at 1Kbit/s. It would cost you
almost
£0.70 to download 1Mb from this site whereas it would only cost you
£0.11 to
download the same amount of information from a fast Web site.



HAVING IT CHARGE
Bearing in mind that a high-speed phone line to your desktop does not
necessarily mean high-speed downloads from the Internet (there will
probably be
even bigger bottlenecks somewhere else in the system), any per byte
billing
system that tries to charge you more than £0.15 per Mb has to be viewed
with
caution.
Telecomms companies won't necessarily go with a billing system that is
simple
to understand. Corporate marketing dictates that when you're trying to
sell a
product that is, in practical terms, indistinguishable from your
competitor's
product you have to construct a baffling pricing system to avoid falling
into a
simple price war. This is why British Telecom relies so heavily on
newfangled
offers such as Friends & Family and Best Friend in combination with old
favourites such as differential daytime, evening and weekend rates.
Also, corporate logic seems to go that if you could work out how much
your
calls actually cost you might defect to a competitor. Because
maintaining the
status quo is in the interests of a market share leader like British
Telecom
they confuse you with complex pricing schemes knowing that most people
will
adopt a 'devil you know' attitude.
With this in mind, we're likely to see some companies launching billing
schemes
that involve a basic rate subscription topped up with per byte billing
once you
exceed a certain volume of information transmission. This could make
selecting
a datacomms carrier as difficult as selecting a mobile phone tariff.



Supra-nova
Diamond has just released the latest modem in its Supra range. It is
several
years since Supra modems, then produced by the independent Supra
Corporation,
dominated the lower end of the data communications market. In that time
Diamond
has seen their (***their  or its? Supra modems' or Diamond's? You
decide***)
market prominence diminish and the market itself turn into a cutthroat
'cheapest is best' bloodbath.
The new modem, the Supra Express 56e Pro, is an attempt to prove that
innovation is still alive (if not well) in the modem market. Its most
innovative feature is what Diamond call Shogun technology.
Shogun allows a user to combine two modems into a single Internet
connection.
The theory behind the technology is as simple as it is sound: twice the
modems
equals twice the throughput. Everybody is interested in an Internet
connection
that is twice as fast as their current connection.
You don't get anything for nothing. A connection that is twice as fast
is also
twice as expensive. When you dial up to make a connection to the
Internet the
connection is made through two modems - and phone lines - at the same
time.
Once the connection is established, you have the benefit of the combined

throughput of both modems.
Shogun technology allows a Diamond modem to take control of another
modem - any
other modem. These two modems can be very different. Not only can they
be from
different manufacturers they can also have different specifications. You
can,
for example, combine a Supra Express 56e Pro with an old 33.6Kbit/s
modem that
has been languishing in the corner of your office with nothing to do.


ON WITH THE SHOGUN
Having two modems active at the same time means you're building up a
bill with
your telephone company at twice the normal rate. If you were to work out
how
much it costs to download 1Mb using a twin modem Shogun link you would
find
that, therefore, it costs exactly the same as a single modem link. Or at
least,
that's the theory. In practice, the Internet pauses. You never download
information at 56Kbit/s even if you're lucky enough to connect at
56Kbit/s.
Bearing in mind that a Shogun link keeps two phone calls active at the
same
time, these pauses cost you twice as much as they would do on a single
modem
link.
As a twin modem link costs twice as much as a single modem link,
deciding
whether it's good value for money depends on how highly you value your
time. If
you want to receive information quickly you may decide it's worthwhile.
I'm afraid there's a fly in the ointment. For Shogun technology to work
in
practice, you have to find an ISP that supports it. This depends on two
factors. They must be using Ascend Max equipment and they must have that

equipment configured to accept two calls from the same user at the same
time.
There are numerous ISP's that use the correct equipment. Unfortunately,
neither
I nor Diamond's PR company have been able to find any ISP that supports
the
twin modem specification. This means that the technology, nice though it
is, is
dead in the water.
If you want to boost your Internet connection speed by using two lines
at once,
there are two avenues to pursue. The first is ISDN. Some of the ISPs
that I
spoke to say that they do support twin channel calls but only if those
calls
come in on an ISDN line. Bundling the two 64Kbit/s lines into a single
128Kbit/s line is an established feature for ISDN.
windows 98 modem bundling 001; 002***
The second alternative is to use the channel bundling features that are
built
into Windows 98 Dial-Up Networking. This does not require you to use
ISDN.
However, it does run into the same problem as Shogun technology. ISPs
are not
keen to allow standard modem users to bundle lines together. It is
doubtful
that this situation will change. V.90 was the last major update ISPs
will apply
to their equipment before they move on to digital technologies such as
cable
modems and ADSL.
This leaves the Supra Express 56e Pro to be judged as a standard modem.
As such
it's average, not spectacular. Its overall connection speed was just
above
47Kbit/s. It would need to be above 50Kbit/s to be described as good and
above
52 Kbit/s to be rated excellent.
In tests, I found that it always established a connection but too
frequently
this connection was made at, or slightly above, 33.6 Kbit/s. A higher
standard
of reliability is required.
The modem is shipped with a minute 12-page manual. Not only does this
cover the
internal and external versions of the modem, it also includes statutory
information and safety notices. There is little of any value to be found
in it.
More comprehensive manuals are provided - but only on CD.
Although this modem doesn't rank as the best modem I've seen in the last
few
months it does have one saving grace: it's very cheap. At £57 it comes
in well
below the modem I'd choose if quality was my prime concern (the
Multitech
Multi-Modem ZDXV, costing £85).

Wireless warzone
A battle royal is developing between multinational alliances for a
promising
but technically immature market. The goal each of these alliances has in
its
sights is control of mobile access to the Internet.
When compared to practically any other form of data communications the
capabilities offered by mobile communications are laughable. Whereas we
now
consider 56Kbit/s to be the starting point for communications that use a
normal
phone line, mobile users have to be satisfied with a 9.6Kbit/s
connection - the
same performance offered when GSM communications first emerged.
Despite its poor performance and slower rate of development the mobile
market
has a massive potential (according to the manufacturers in it). They
assume,
probably correctly, that you'd like to be able to do everything on the
move the
you already do in your office. The 'if' - and it's a big one - that
should
follow such a statement is 'if the performance is comparable'.
The initial goal is more humble. The demand for handheld PCs such as the

compact PalmPilot and more capable devices such as Windows CE computers
has
shown that users want to take a core of information (e-mail, contacts
and
diary) with them when they're on the road.
The next step for the users of these devices is to be able to link them
back to
their office through a mobile phone connection. Because design briefs
now have
to have a global dimension, the connection between the mobile user and
his
office has to be made via the Internet.
As the performance of these mobile links to the Internet improves you
can
imagine two more applications coming to the fore. Firstly, there is
access to
the Web. Downloading Web pages through the current 9.6Kbit/s links is
possible,
but it's the kind of feature you only demonstrate at trade shows. Only a

deranged evangelist would try to use it in reality.
The second application is voice over IP. In case you've been lucky
enough to
avoid this phrase up until now, voice over IP refers to the process of
making
phone calls over the Internet (Internet telephony by any other name).
Voice over IP has yet to make a breakthrough because of the
inconvenience of
making calls through this technique and the quality of the call once
made. But
when you're talking about a mobile connection the second reservation
doesn't
apply. Calls from mobile phones sound awful anyway, so the stutters and
splutters from an Internet connection will be lost in the general
confusion.




SYM CITY
Last June a new alliance was formed to attack the mobile datacomms
market. The
alliance was called Symbian and it (now) includes Psion, Ericsson, Nokia
and
Motorola. This alliance recently hit the headlines once again because
Psion
issued a profit warning.
Despite this, Symbian is in a strong position. With Psion on board, it
has
experience in handheld computers and the operating systems the drive
them. From
Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola it gains experience and an almost
unassailable
market share in mobile phones.
In normal circumstances Symbian's success would be considered a fait
accompli.
But that fails to take into account the second major player: the
alliance
between Microsoft and British Telecom. Even if Microsoft is only playing
in a
market you have to take notice of what it is doing.
Their alliance seems much weaker on paper. As the supplier and developer
of the
Windows CE operating system Microsoft knows a lot about handheld PCs,
but it
doesn't actually produce one. British Telecom has mobile phone networks
in ten
countries; but it doesn't make mobile phones.
Their alliance can't lock out users wanting to go the Symbian route.
Psion can
supply computer technology if Microsoft won't play ball and there are
plenty of
other phone networks if British Telecom tries to force its hand.
Symbian, on
the other hand, could be very awkward for Microsoft and British Telecom.
Their
stranglehold on the mobile phone market gives them the ability to
dictate
specifications to Microsoft, not the other way round.
It will be nice to think that these two enormous alliances could work
together.
It's difficult to imagine this happening. Psion and Microsoft have
directly
competing technologies. Any partner who goes with one has no need of the
other.


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