newsletter://mv.com March 1998 Standardization of "56K" modems 1997 brought the battle of two new implementations of high-speed modems: the X2 protocol by US Robotics / 3Com vs the K56flex protocol by Rockwell and Lucent. While different at a technical level, both were designed to hook into the digital signaling used by most telephone systems. Both designs required a digital connection to the telephone company on one end (the ISP end) and a normal telephone line on the other (the customer end), and both provided for theoretical connection rates of up to 56Kbps in the download direction (from the ISP towards the ISP customer) and up to 33.6Kbps in the upload direction. Both designs were submitted to the ITU for consideration as an eventual standard. During the year, most ISPs began adding support for either one standard or the other, and ISP custo- mers in general made their purchasing decisions accordingly. Individuals as well as ISPs expected to be able to migrate to the eventual standard with little trouble. In February 1998 the ITU agreed on a specification for a new standard, named V.90, which combined elements of both K56flex and X2. (While the agreement has been formulated, it is not scheduled for official approval as a standard until this fall.) The modem-side implementation of the V.90 protocol has preceded the server-side implementation - you have likely already seen V.90 modems appearing on the shelves and in the catalogs. Don't let this mislead you, though. While it's true you can now buy V.90 modems and in some cases upgrade your existing modem to support V.90, the software for the ISP equipment will likely not be ready for another month or two. Even when it is ready, we can expect a period where there are problems of interoperability between different manufacturers' implementa- tions. Bottom line is: V.90 will take some time to be developed for ISP use, and some more time to settle down via real-world testing. Until then, you will still need to make sure the modem that you use can support the K56flex protocol in order to dial into any of MV's K56flex (or K56flex/V.90) capa- ble lines. Is it really 56K? K56flex, X2, and now V.90 modems are often euphemistically referred to as "56K" modems. This is an unfortunate label for several reasons. Although the technology allows for a theoretical maximum data rate of 56Kbps in one direction, FCC regulations limit the implementation to a max- imum of 54Kbps to prevent interference with other circuits. In practice, the inbound connect rate that you get depends on how your call is carried to us - the physical distance traveled, the quality of the wires, and the switching equipment that your call passes through. Most callers who are close to the city or town where the K56flex number is located can expect download connect rates of from 44Kbps to 50Kbps. New K56flex access at MV Our deployment of K56flex access has been severely limited by availa- bility of PRI circuits from Bell Atlantic. For this and other reasons we've looked to other vendors, and by the time you read this we should have new PRI service in Concord and Manchester through Brooks Fiber. Acceptance of the currently-deployed K56flex access has been very strong, and we've ordered additional Bell Atlantic facilities in Nashua to give us another 23 dialin ports. These will be added to the current Nashua K56flex access number. Installation was originally scheduled for February but was pushed back to March. Please watch our web page and our newsgroups for updates and access information. New Dedicated and High Speed Rates Effective January 1 1998 we've made a number of changes to the pricing of dedicated IP dialup, leased line, and frame relay services. Please refer to our web page for complete pricing information, but an overview of the changes follows. * Unbundling of charges for subnet allocations and network routing. Previously, we had separate rates for dedicated dialup for personal use (with a single IP address) and dedicated dialup for office use (with a class C network allocation and routing). High-speed lines included routing for up to a class C network. As of January 1, the routing of an Internet subnet to a dedicated or high-speed account has become a separate charge item. Note that this does not represent a price increase; in many cases it represents a decrease. There are several reasons for this change, the primary ones being: first, all network allocations in the US are now being charged by a registration authority (see www.arin.net), and we need to institute a separate charging structure as well. Second, a growing scarcity of available network numbers has prompted us to offer pricing incentives to use network allocations wisely. Third, routing congestion prompts us to use pricing incentives against the use of old, privately- allocated class C networks. If you're currently using such a private class C network, you'll save money (our fees and ARIN's fees) by giv- ing it back and obtaining a different class C network or subnet from us. * Reduction in frame relay rates. We have reduced our rates for 56Kb and 384Kb frame relay access; the most significant reduction is for 56Kb access. Frame relay service gives you a high-speed digital con- nection to MV from anywhere in the state. Note that a recent tariff change has removed any distance charges from the telephone company charges on frame relay, so we are now able to offer a fixed rate for frame relay service anywhere in New Hampshire. Check out our new frame relay rates and descriptions on our web page; you may find that this has suddenly become a viable option for you or your business. * Reduction in leased line rates. We've also reduced our leased line rates across the board. Remember that leased line telephone company charges are distance sensitive (that is, what you pay to the telephone company depends on how far away you are from an MV location), and this is described in the rates on our web page. Other rate change Another minor change: we've lowered the charge for time that you use beyond the included number of hours for dialup IP and shell access. Time beyond 100 hours is now charged at 25 cents an hour plus the $20 base charge, and time beyond 200 hours is charged at 20 cents an hour plus the $30 base charge. MV index of interesting facts Number of news articles received per day: 500,000 Count of news articles retrieved by MV users per day: 70,000 Email messages delivered per day by MV servers: 35,000 Amount of RAM in use in MV servers: over 500MB Amount of disk space spinning in in MV servers: over 65GB Number of LED blinky lights at MV: over 2,000 MV Communications PO Box 4963, Manchester, NH 03108 (603) 629-0000 .