In addition, make sure you check with your ISP to see which standard they support. Drag Racing Performance testing for 56K modems is no easy task. We had to contend with the two 56K specifications and an absence of testing benchmarks. We decided to craft a methodology that would best simulate the real world in our lab environment using the resources at hand. We would have liked to have included a connection reliability test, but time and resource constraints prohibited this.
All results are in characters per second.
Our first test, Throughput vs. File Type, tests each modem's ability to transfer five different types of compressible and noncompressible files over a clean line. Throughput vs. Network Model Coverage would have been an excellent test in its own right because it measured the modems' abilities to negotiate a matrix of local loop and central office impairments, simulating the real world. While we would have liked to prioritize each test, Network Model Coverage does show the modems' versatility in handling the various configurations. Throughput vs. Impairment tests isolated the various impairments used in the Network Model Coverage tests. These impairments are ubiquitous in the real world and test the ability of the modem to handle the individual obstacles in an effective manner.