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Rockwell, 3Com Announce 56-Kbps Modems Can Communicate

V.90 interoperability testing for incompatible 56K modems moving faster than anticipated.

By Brian McWilliams, PCWorld   

Less than two weeks ago, an International Telecommunications Union committee approved a draft standard for 56-kbps modems. But at that time Rockwell and 3Com, the biggest makers of 56-kbps equipment, said they hadn%squott been able to work out an arrangement to test whether their V.90 products were interoperable.

Modem analysts and even some representatives of the companies themselves said the lack of testing between the two big players would make the draft standard useless, and could lead to consumer confusion and disappointment.

But the two big modem makers agreed to test their V.90 products for interoperability, and they completed that testing much sooner than anyone had predicted.

As Rockwell%squots president Dwight Decker puts it: %dquotThe testing I would characterize as intense 7-day-a-week kind of testing. Both of our companies were very far along in [finalizing] our V.90 products, so ... that permitted [interoperability testing] to be completed very quickly.%dquot

Also on Tuesday 3Com said it has begun shipping V.90 modems, and is the first vendor to do so. The company said information about software upgrades for its existing U.S. Robotics x2 modems will be available at its site by the end of this month.

Rockwell said it expects to ship V.90 products by the end of this quarter.