Modems War Not Over Yet
The Age
Tuesday February 10, 1998
AS PLANS for the imminent implementation of a unified international standard for 56kbps modems, V.PCM, proceeded last week both X2 and K56Flex camps were claiming victory.
The International Telecommunications Union was given the task of ameliorating two de facto market standards when early competitive pressures forced products to market before a unified standard could be agreed to. The K56Flex standard supported by Rockwell, and X2 supported by USRobotics (later 3Com), have fought a bitter war for supremacy since 1996.
Owners of K56Flex modems could not connect to X2 modems and vice versa. But now that a unified standard is imminent, both sides are laying claim to the credit.
"The ITU vote will finally remove market uncertainties, yet doesn't change the underlying fact that standards-based Rockwell products are always fully-backward compatible," said Rockwell semiconductor president Dwight Decker "As we've said all along, it's business as usual."
Said 3Com Australia managing director Gerhard Rumpff last Friday: "As far as 3Com are concerned, we have been telling the market this is the way that it is heading. Now that it has been ratified, our customers who went with X2 are laughing."
Rumpff also believes that 56kbps will remain the primary onramp to the Internet, ahead of DSL and cable modems. "For the consumer market the 56k modem is what most users will use and what ISPs will adopt on a large scale," he said.
The V.PCM standard, yet to get an ITU standards number, will allow most existing modems to be upgraded to full intercompatibility with a simple software download. Modems upgraded to V.PCM will be able to talk to other V.PCM modems, or other upgraded modems, even if the original modem was from a competing vendor.
© 1998 The Age