Each with its own compatibility issues. In most circumstances, local phone wiring and switches play an overwhelming role in the quality of your connection. It never hurts to check with a friend or neighbor regarding the quality of their 56K connection. Also, price can be a good guideline. In order to reduce costs, some modem manufacturers have designed V.90 modems that rely on your computer s processor to manipulate the data flow instead of having an onboard processor for the modem.
Many computer manufacturers sell Winmodems with their systems to reduce costs.
Unfortunately, this generally results in poor quality connections. It may also increase your connection speed. Most modem manufacturers keep free updated drivers and flashes on their web pages for customers to download. Drivers are the programs that interface with the modem and your operating system. Flash refers to the controlling program running on the modem itself, which in most cases, can be updated.