If there is anything a computer user hates, it is obsolescence. So what are the thousands of Hong Kong owners of 56 kilobits-per-second modems to do with their soon-to-be-outdated equipment? The industry's advice is not to panic. Changes will be gradual and there is no need to upgrade if you do not want to.
The announcement of the V.90 standard by the International Telecommunications Union last month ended a year-long rivalry over two competing standards: Rockwell's x2 and K56Flex, developed by Lucent Technologies and US Robotics (USR).
Ratification of the V.90 standard is expected in September.
Because the rival standards were unable to interconnect, consumers were left to choose the technology their Internet service provider (ISP) was equipped with. V.90 is a combination of both.
3Com, which acquired USR last year, was the first vendor to jump on the V.90 bandwagon.
It announced recently its first shipment of V.90 modems, seven months ahead of ratification. The product, which is backwards compatible for connection to K56Flex back-end modems, should appear in Hong Kong stores in a few weeks.