On Thu, 16 Nov 2017 00:37:02 -0500, Paul wrote:

International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - a standards body.

*******

Shotgunning, combines the bandwidth of two modems.
It's not practical, and is some kind of sad joke.

Teaming, is the same idea, with two NICs on a computer.
Generally the NICs are identical (as the teaming software
is provided by the manufacturer of the chip, and selling
a second one is in their best interests).

On ADSL, MLPPP is the teaming of multiple ADSL connections.
My ISP will sell you up to 7 ADSL connections, for seven times
the monthly price.

In some cases, the lunacy might make sense, but most
of the time, it doesn't. In some cases, you don't
get to combine the bandwidth into a single IP connection,
and must use a multi-connection downloader software
to get the enhanced transfer rate from a single site.

*******

There were two "camps" of chip makers. One camp made K56 solutions.
The other made X2 solutions.

Rockwell was the K56Flex camp. Rockwell spun off its chip making
portion as Conexant. Towards the end of this web page, it
suggests Conexant still owns the data modem business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conexant

The datapump version of Conexant chips is possibly called "ACF".
Some of this info, is needed on the Linux side, for setting
up modems, and otherwise we might not have got any
taxonomy info at all.

http://modemsite.com/56k/rockacf.asp

This is a picture of my Diamond MultiMedia Supra brand modem,
with a Rockwell chip inside (making it K56Flex).

Supra was bought by DiamondMM (1995). This product was
made some time in 1998 maybe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supra,_Inc.

Main chip RCVDL56ACFW/SP ACF = single chip modem w. datapump
Rockwell 1998 Week 8
CY7C109-15 Static RAM for processor
Atmel AT49F020 Flash EEPROM (reprogrammable)

(213,951 bytes)
https://s8.postimg.org/459vr7nz9/Diamond_Supra_ACF.jpg

The question then is, how do we track down a list of
ACF modems ? They might not be the only flavor of K56Flex.

Another supplier of ACF might be Creative.

*******

This is the only list I found so far. And of course,
it doesn't sound like the year 2017 here. Some of the
text strings hint at K56 or ACF. HCF is not the same thing
(probably a softmodem of some sort). There are also X2 modems
mixed into this lot.

http://xmodem.org/modems/extlist.html

Paul

This gets very complicated and confusing to me. To sum it up, from what
you said, it seems like there is V90 / 92 and K56 Flex. The two basic
options. Since my Sportsters have never given me a decent connection
using XP, I want to try something else. Since the Sportsters are V90/92,
I assume I need to try the K56Flex. Is that correct?

This Supra Express modem says it has BOTH the V90 and K56Flex. Is that a
good choice for me, or is there something better (another brand)?

What should I be looking for? Model numbers will help a lot more than
all this highly technical info. I cant see what chip is being used when
I look at modems on ebay or whereever.