On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:14:45 -0700 (PDT), miso@sushi.com wrote:

>What I was hoping this thread was going to cover is quality of DSL
>modems.

Ummm... this is a wireless newsgroup. We don't do no stinkin wires.
You'll probably do better in a DSL harware newsgroups.

Reviews of some DSL modems (in UK).
<http://www.thinkbroadband.com/reviews.html>

The real difference between the various modems is in the DSL chipsets.
<http://www.chipweb.de/dsl/index.php?menu=1&level=9>
Sure, there are problems with flaky router sections, lack of fail safe
timers, and lousy firmware, but those come and go as firmware gets
updated. However, if you're after connection reliability, stability,
uptime, and speed, it's the chipset that makes it happen.

Incidentally, I have not seen a DSL modem that hasn't hung at some
point. The causes are usually power glitches. A UPS does not seem to
help. I even have two that are running on battery power. They both
hang. I have some on mountain top sites, where the power and RF
environment certainly doesn't help.

My ill considered opinion is that the Ti chipset is the best of bunch.
Westel uses Ti. Speedstream uses Alcatel, which tends to hang, but
otherwise works ok. 2-wire uses STMicroelectronics Ascot DSL chipset,
whcih seems to work quite well. I mostly like it because of the nifty
diagnostics. I don't get many hangs with 2-wire routers, but I'm
starting to see some failures, especially the wall warts.

>It's an analog world, dammit! Quality is not a feature checklist.

Maybe. However if you're in marketing, it's a digital world. There's
only one digital parameter of interest:
1 = customer buys the product
0 = customer does not buy the product.
There are no states in between.



--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
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Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558