Great! I'm glad it turned out to be a hardware based modem for those who picked one up.
Constant Mesh, you could make some AT-Command adjustments to possibly improve your connection rate if you'd rather not return it.
No hooha here! I don't think this area is zoned for cows. My post was in responce to someone's earlier post that ALL external modems are hardware based. Your own post agrees that there are external USB softmodems.
Yes, the 6827 is in our hardware based modems. I didn't say it was a softchip.
Someone posted that it came with an 11251-11. I confirmed that the 11251-11 is a softmodem.
Of course a hw based RS-232 modem can work on a Winbox, Mac, etc.
Since the dawn of winmodems, OEMs have tried to keep the softmodem fact off the box.
Only the modem requirements and features that are intended to be included/supported throughout that model's production life are listed on the box.
Everything else is added with a sticker or flyer insert. Included software and it's features change over time.
A sticker used to denote if the bundle was for use with Windows or Mac.
The modem came with software for one or the other.
OEMs sometimes contract with a retailer or deistributor to support the modem on one or the other only. Just the same, if you contacted us, we'd make sure the modem was funtional regardless of what system you used it with.
Sometimes OEMs bundle both Win & Mac software in one box.
If only one or the other was offered and as long as a cheap deal and special serial number was not issued for one retailer/distributor as I menionted above and someone posted earlier, endusers could request any OS software the OEM made available through Customer Service, Tech Support or Sales.
As for the box, I can only speak from my experience. Other companies may be at different stages or may just not care. We used to list requirements and features of the modem and software without detailing which applied to the modem and which applied to the software. That caused legal problems. Endusers didn't want to use the bundled software but expected the listed features from the modem even if they stuck with their old faithfull software. We had to detail what were modem/software features separately. Finally, we reduced software specs to a minimal with a disclaimer printed on the box that software features required use of the bundled software. Those features could change with future revisions or substitutions. A sticker was afixed listing the featured software and only a few basic features of what the software could do.
Your probably right about MOH. I haven't worked with it for quite a while. Back then, Enhanced Call Waiting was hard to come by separately. Companies that marketed CID often included it. If a carrier offers ECW, it would be conterproductive not to offer CID. There's a bigger market for CID. Any carrier that offers CID and lacks ECW and other V.92 features by now is somewhat substandard.
I don't recall seeing any modem list ECW support as a selling feature. Usually CID and other V.92 features are listed to market to the masses. Requiring ECW is usually in the product's white paper from the manufacturer of the board or software that supports it or possibly in fine print in the manual. I suppose some manufacturer may include "CID software requires ECW for MOH". I don't know of an OEM who supports or reccommends MOH without use of their software but I suppose it could be done. As you mentioned, a hardwired modem is just a conduit that passes the data through. OEMs supply an applet to tell you who's calling and to allow you to MOH. I hope you can get it to work. Everything changes from rev to rev and from manufacturer to manufacturer and can sometimes be tweaked later if not now.
I didn't challenge or contradict anyone.
... just the facts as I know them -- Dragnet
Your experience may differ.