NEW V.34 HIGH-SPEED MODEM STANDARD MOVES
INTO THE FAST LANE FOR ADOPTION

SKOKIE, Ill., -- November 15, 1993 -- V.34, the forthcoming
standard for 28.8 Kbps dial-up modem transmission, moved closer
to adoption at a recent ITU-T (formerly CCITT) meeting in
Dublin, Ireland.

After almost three years of intense effort, all of the technical
issues relating to the data phase of the V.34 standard have been
resolved, assuring fully interoperable analog communications at
28.8 Kbps.  Field testing of the new high-speed data transmission
standard will begin in early 1994, using prototype modems that
conform to the draft standard.  Formal adoption of V.34 is
expected in June 1994 by Study Group 14 of the ITU-T, which is
responsible for international modem standards.  Prior to that
meeting, a "stable technical draft" of V.34 is scheduled for
approval at a meeting of the V.34 rapporteur's group in Orlando,
Fla. December 13 and 14.

"We're not at the point where you could build the final modem
from what we've written, but we are pretty close,"  says Ken
Jones, chief scientist at Telebit and a member of the V.34
rapporteur's group.  "We'll finish up the technical details in
December, but the technical choices are pretty much done.  Right
now it's down to a matter of some decisions that in some cases
get down to heads or tails kinds of choices."

V.34 Modems in February?

Dick Brandt, Chairman, Working Party 1 of Study Group 14, says he
expects V.34-compliant modems to appear in the market soon after
the completed draft standard is submitted to the ITU-T in
February.

At the recent Dublin meetings, the rapporteur's group got
international support for much of its work and straightened out
most of the details on the training sequence or "handshake" that
allows two V.34 modems to communicate.  The rapporteur's group
agreed on a 64-state trellis coding that increases V.34 modems'
immunity to line noise.

"The more powerful coding increases noise immunity by an
additional db and it works under almost any line condition,"
explains Dale Walsh, U.S. Robotics vice president of advanced
development and a member of the committee developing the standard
once simply called V.fast.

Adds fellow committee member Dave Forney, vice president,
technical staff, of Motorola, "On any given connection, V.34 will
always work better than V.32 or V.32 bis because it takes
advantage of whatever the line conditions are.  It will use every
bit of available bandwidth.  In addition to higher data rate, it
will also give users more robustness and flexibility."

V.Last?  Don't Bet on It

At some of the earliest V.34 committee meetings, the standard --
then known as V.fast -- was also jokingly referred to as "V.last"
by some members, since it stretched the limits of dial-up
telephone lines.  But those same committee members are already
thinking about a new, faster standard, tentatively called V.34bis.

There was talk at the Dublin meeting about tweaking V.34 to make
it a little faster, admits Telebit's Jones.  "I think we could
the push data rate a little if we really want to spend some time
on that, but I can't see us getting much beyond 32 Kbps on dial-
up lines."

A Standard by Any Other Name Isn't a Standard

Walsh also notes that users should not confuse the many non-
standard high-speed modems, like the 19.2 Kbps V.32 terbo or
28.8Kbps V.Fast Class modems, with V.34.  These technologies may
be useful, but will most likely not communicate with standard
ITU-T V.34 modems without some sort of upgrade.  These
technologies arose from the delays associated with the V.34
standard, as an effort to provide data transmission at higher
speeds.

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