What is V.92?		V.92 is a new standard for dial-up communications that offers several important improvements over the existing V.90 standard. These improvements are intended to make communications faster, easier and more enjoyable. V.92 and its companion compression standard V.44, have been officially adopted by the ITU, the International Telecommunications Union.
What makes a V.92 modem faster than V.90?	There are three features that allow the V.92 modem to give you faster speeds. The first is the V.92's improved "automatic negotiation" or "handshake" is the way modems determine compatibility and decide what standards to use to communicate. With a typical V.90 modem this can take as long as 30 seconds. With QuickConnect , the entire process can take as little as half that time. The V.92 Modem also includes V.44, a new international data compression standard. V.44 was designed specifically for the Internet, and can double the effective speed of your Internet page loading. Finally, the V.92 standard increases the upload speed by as much as 30%., from 33,600 bps (the maximum upload speed using V.90) to 48,000 bps.
How does V.44 increase the speed of my web browsing?	V.44 is the latest compression standard approved by the ITU. Compression increases the effective speed of your connection by analyzing the data and encoding it so that it can be sent more efficiently. The old standard (V.42bis) was created about 10 years ago, so it wasn't designed with the Internet in mind. V.44 was, and it is therefore much more efficient at compressing WEB pages - up to 100% more efficient in some cases.
Do I need a special service or new ISP?	No. But you may not be able to take advantage of all these features right away. While your current ISP will almost certainly support V.92 and V.44 at some point, it may take a while before the equipment manufacturers that your ISP or online service uses sends them an upgrade, or until they implement the upgrade. However, V.92 and V.44 are true international standards, so over time you can be assured of nearly universal support. In the meantime you can use the V.90 protocol, which is also in your V.92 modem, until your ISP switches over.
Does V.92 "QuickConnect" work on all calls?	This feature of the V.92 standard allows the modem to "learn" and "remember" the variables associated with calling a specific telephone number and connecting to a specific modem associated with that number. This feature will be most effective when you repetitively call the same number - such as that for your on-line service or internet service provider. The modem will then be able to use its stored profile and deliver the advantage of a quicker connection.
Does V.44 work equally well on all file transfers? Which are most improved; least improved?	V.44 compression is optimized for the types of files associated with internet use including WEB pages, graphics and documents such as .pdf files. As with all compression the amount of improved performance varies both with the actual format and with the content of individual pages. For reference, WEB searches show the most visible improvement, especially searches on WEB stores or areas that have high amounts of text and numerous small images. The next most improvement is in standard WEB browsing. Email and downloading of ASCII type text files show noticeable but more modest improvement
Will a V.92 modem work automatically with earlier modems? V.90, K56flex, X2? With 33.6k, 14.4k, 9600 and 2400 modems?	A V.92 modem will automatically negotiate and connect at the best achievable shared speed down to 2,400 bps. The negotiation and the related connection time may take longer if the connection does need to be negotiated down to a very low speed as the higher speeds are attempted first. However the connection between a 56K V.92 and a 56K V.90 will take approximately the same time as between two current V.90 modems.
How do V.92 modem speeds compare to ISDN, ADSL and Cable speeds?	First, remember that V.92 is asymmetric in nature, the same as ADSL. It offers download speeds from the WEB which are higher than it's upload speeds. This means that it is inherently different from ISDN and has been optimized, like ADSL, for Internet access. In fact it is optimized primarily with V.44 compression rather than with purely higher transmission speed as found in ADSL and Cable. Because of this it is not possibly to directly compare the different devices except in terms of the Internet experience itself, including Web browsing. Given optimum V.92/V.44 performance of approximately 300,000 bps, this still means that that it will operate at less than half the speed of most broadband services (which range from 600,00 bps to 1,500,000 bps).