3com, US Robotics

U.S. Robotics (popularly nicknamed USR), based in Schaumburg, Illinois and founded in 1976, is a company that makes computer modems and related technologies. more...

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History

USR was one of the first companies to offer high-speed dialup modems for personal computers. Prior to the development of the high-speed standards such as the v.32 family of protocols, in 1986 USR introduced its own HST (High-Speed Transfer) protocol that operated at 9600 bit/s. In 1989 HST was expanded to 14.4 kbs, 16.8 kbit/s in 1992 and finally 21 kbit/s/24 kbit/s as phone lines improved and the system was adapted to use more bandwidth.

USR was not the only company making proprietary high-speed modems; Telebit's TrailBlazer series offered speeds up to 19.2 kbit/s even in its first model, and Hayes eventually responded to USR and TeleBit by introducing their own 9600 bit/s Express 96 (or "Ping-Pong") system. However, USR became the most popular of the three, by far, due to a clever marketing scheme that offered large discounts to BBS sysops. This was an extremely attractive deal, as it allowed large long-distance file transfers, such as FidoNet packets, to be exchanged far more quickly. Of course end users wanting to take advantage of these higher speeds would invariably have to turn to USR in order to be compatible. In contrast, TeleBit became very popular in the Unix world through their ability to "spoof" the UUCP protocol to greatly improve transfers, while the Hayes system never became popular.

The proprietary nature of HST allowed USR to maintain its market dominance even when off-brand v.32-based modems began selling for less than an equivalent HST modems. As the price differential increased, however, v.32-based modems eventually became a popular and viable alternative to HST. Nevertheless, US Robotics maintained its popularity and prestige by such tactics as creating slightly faster HST protocols (in particular, a 16.8 kbit/s mode), by maintaining its mystique of exceptional quality, and by producing "dual standard" modems which were able to communicate with both HST and v.32 modems at high speeds.

During this period they differentiated their high and low-end product lines by supporting only the v.32 modes on their low-end Sportster models, while their high-end Courier models supported v.32, HST, or both in the Courier Dual Standard models. (The Sportster actually used the same motherboard as the Couriers, and on certain 14.4 models a sequence of AT commands could be issued to enable the 16.8 HST mode. ) The Courier remained a favourite in the BBS and emerging ISP world, where they were known to run without problem for extended periods of time (although the initial large-scale deployment of Courier modems in the CompuServe network uncovered a serious bug which would cause the modems to crash and stop answering calls under high call volumes).

Read more at Wikipedia.org