[wplug] external modem recommendation

[Chester R. Hosey]

On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 16:31 -0400, Drew from Zhrodague wrote:
> > Anecdotally, about six years ago a friend of mine who knew someone at
> > Stargate managed to have his port timeout completely disabled. He stayed
> > connected through his Debian-based router's internal US Robotics modem
> > continually for 29 days without a disconnect. A power failure severed
> > the connection, and he ended up getting cable access before trying to
> > beat this record. I've seen HSP micromodems (often $8-$13 on Pricewatch,
> > and an oft-relabled favorite of several major vendors) that couldn't
> > hold a connection reliably past an average measured in minutes.
> 
>  	I wonder if that was me, I had done twice my share of RADIUS mods, 
> both at Stargate, and at Pittsburgh OnLine. I also did quite a bit of AT 
> command tuning with the USR modems that POL had. I certainly don't 
> remember them all now, but I was proud of the fact that with my string, 
> you could pick-up a handset, listen to the screaming of the modem, say 
> hello once or twice, and hang up the handset -- all without the modem 
> disconnecting. Might have been one or two of the S registers. Also, I 
> think X4 would report the actual speed, instead of the serial-port 
> connection speed.
> 
>  	After leaving Pittsburgh for Boston, I swore that I would neve 
> touch an analog telephone line ever again for data. I consider myself 
> lucky that I still don't have to!

It was probably done through Aaron Nowalk, I'm not sure whether he did
anything directly or asked a coworker for the assist.

<nostalgia>
What a small world -- I worked for Ed DeHart's latest project
(aspStation) a few years ago. Ed's a good guy, and sharp, if a little
unpredictable at times. I still manage to run into his son from time to
time, although I'm not with the same circles too often these days.
</nostalgia>

Boston, eh? I lived in Baltimore for two years, and that was bad enough
traffic-wise. It's definitely good to be back in the Pittsburgh area.

Chet