V.90 upgrades: a follow-up

Several readers sent us information concerning whether a v.90 upgrade is "backward compatible" with existing lines (as discussed last time) and whether or not you should upgrade to v. 90 now:

Reader Max notes that there will be no clear standard for the implementation of v.90 until September. He suggests waiting until then to upgrade. "If users are getting 40 - 50K speeds now, that's probably all they can get over a POTS anyhow."

Steven Polivy writes: "Hayes, on their web site, makes it quite clear that one should not perform a flash upgrade to v.90 until the ISP's have upgraded; they also provide a 'downgrade' option if you do make the mistake of upgrading too early."

Steven Blacher confirms that if the v.90 upgrade is not yet available for your USR modem, the Upgrade Wizard may simply report that your modem is already using the latest version available. He adds: "I spoke to USR this morning and learned that their web site has incorrect information on update availability on some models." Expect the corrected information to be posted soon.

56K.com For more general advice on 56K modems, check out 56K.com (thanks, Sam Kass).