People, any modem that is not a hardware modem is crap.
Non-hardware modems = winmodems, controllerless modems, software modems, etc
v.90, v.92, 56kflex, etc require compression to work(the modem compresses the information, kinda like Zip-ing each packet) and in non-hardware modems, that task is left to the computer. In netscape and IE the computer is hardly ever tasked enough to show a decrement in performance, but in games, the performance sucks ass. My brother just got a geforce 3, and his winmodem slows his Tribes 2 down to 5fps in 800x600. Some are worse than others, as the one I have does much less to affect performance(and my video card is not up to snuff enough to show the modem as the bottleneck). But any modem that requires software to run(not including drivers) is total, complete crap. They were originally called winmodems because the modems only work under Windows, while their software is running, but someone(I forget who, maybe 3com?) copyrighted the name, and now it is very rare to find modems that even mention their methods. The worst winmodems are basically just phone jack input/output cards, while the best are little better(they may take some of the lower-level functions off of your hands). If you cannot get cable/DSL, go with a normal, hardware modem. The reason that some of these modems are upgradable to v.92 is that THEY THEMSELVES DO NOTHING, its just the software that must be changed. You will get a MUCH higher performance boost switching to a hardware modem. One of the 2 reasons that external modems are more expensive is that they are usually hardware modems, simply because it is not economical to make a plastic case & LEDs for something whose internal components cost a tenth as much.
remember:
controllerless=crap
winmodem=crap
softwaremodem=crap
any modem that requires software to be running to use it=crap
any modem that ONLY works under windows=crap
try referring to this page:
http://www.mctxs.com/modems[1].htm to see examples of winmodems and non-winmodems