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 Modem Reviews 

Looking for a new modem? Recommended modems for CallStation, Phone Plus, and IDentify! are reviewed below. Before getting to the reviews, here is some general information you may find useful when looking for a modem.

Voice Features
If you wish to use CallStation or the Auto-Hang-Up feature on IDentify! or Phone Plus, then your modem must have voice capability. Voice modems are able to play and record audio over the phone line. Some voice modems also have speakerphone support which allows you to have telephone conversations using a microphone and speaker connected to the modem. Speakerphone capable modems used to be quite common, but it has become increasingly difficult to find modems with this capability.

Caller ID
If you want to use IDentify!, or the optional Caller ID features found in Phone Plus or CallStation, you must have a modem with Caller ID capability. Many modems do not have this capability, so make sure that the modem you buy specifically states that it has Caller ID support. Also, it must support the Caller ID standard used in your country.

VoIP Phone Services
Be aware that modems can have compatibility problems with the telephone adapter boxes used by VoIP phone services. These adapters typically put out lower signal levels than you would find on a normal telephone line. Modems can be sensitive to the low signal levels and may not detect when the phone is ringing, or the Caller ID may be unreliable. The modems recommended below worked perfectly with a Vonage VoIP telephone adapter (Motorola) and with Comcast Digital Voice service (Arris telephony modem), so they are likely to work with most digital phone services. Ooma VoIP telephone adapters, however, are known to have compatibility problems with pretty much all modems (unreliable Caller ID).

Vista and Windows 7
All Impulse Technology products are fully compatible with Vista and Windows 7, however, there is a bug in these operating systems which can prevent applications from playing audio through the modem to the phone line. The caller will only hear silence. This bug mainly affects modems with Conexant chipsets. The modems reviewed below both use an Agere chipset and are not affected by this bug.

Modem Reviews

  Rosewill RNX-56AG PCI Data/Fax/TAM Modem
Interface: Internal PCI bus
Chipset: Agere (software modem)
O.S. Support: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7
Cost: $7.99 plus shipping at Newegg
Drivers: Download the drivers below. A Readme.txt file is included with installation instructions. The Windows XP drivers can also be installed on Windows 2000.

Windows XP Drivers (680 KB): RNX-56AG_XP.zip
Vista Drivers (1.42 MB): RNX-56AG_Vista.zip
Windows 7 Drivers (1.45 MB): RNX-56AG_Win7.zip
Note: Two other modems are basically the same as this Rosewill modem. Although they have not been tested, they should work with the drivers above. These modems are the TRENDnet TFM-PCIV92A and the HiRO H50006.

The Good
This modem has excellent Caller ID detection, probably the best I've seen on any modem. The Caller ID comes up almost instantly, and it worked every time (even when the modem was connected to a VoIP phone adapter).

Sound quality and volume when playing a hang-up message or greeting is very good. Recording quality was good on Windows XP and Vista. The recording level was rather low, but that is typical of most modems. Simply configure the CallStation "Record Boost" option to +10dB to compensate.

When it came to dialing phone numbers in Phone Plus, this modem performed nicely. The dialing sounds are actually routed through your sound card instead of playing the sounds through a tiny speaker on the modem like most modems do. The sounds were very clear and easy to hear. Also, when dialing a busy number the busy tones were detected very quickly (in about three seconds).

The Bad
Unfortunately, there are a couple problems with this modem. Both of these problems only affect CallStation users, and involve recording messages or conversations.

First of all, there is a 60-second limitation when recording audio through the modem. For some reason, the modem just stops recording after about a minute. This seems to be a common problem with Agere based modems.

Secondly, there are issues with the recording quality under Windows 7. A recording may sound just fine in the beginning, but then the volume may suddenly shift up or down, or the audio may become very distorted. These issues were not seen under Windows XP or Vista.

Also, when dialing phone numbers in CallStation, the dialing sounds could not be heard (except under Windows 7). This is apparently related to the fact that Phone Plus dials in "data" mode while CallStation dials in "voice" mode. CallStation will, however, indicate when the dialing has been completed and you should pick up the receiver on your phone.

Conclusion
This modem is recommended for use with all three programs, but be aware of the 60-second recording limitation if you are using CallStation. Also, this modem is not recommended for use with CallStation under Windows 7 due to the sound quality issues.

  HiRO V.92 56K External USB Voice Modem Model H50113
Interface: External USB device
Chipset: Agere (software modem)
O.S. Support: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7
Cost: This modem can be found on eBay (new) for under $20
Drivers: For Windows XP or Vista, use the drivers on the disc that comes with the modem. For Windows 7, download drivers from the HiRO website

The Good
This modem has excellent Caller ID detection, as good as you can find. The Caller ID comes up almost instantly, and it worked every time.

Sound quality and volume when playing a hang-up message or greeting is very good. Recording quality was good on Windows XP and Vista. The recording level was a bit low, but that is typical of most modems. Simply configure the CallStation "Record Boost" option to +6dB to compensate.

When it came to dialing phone numbers in Phone Plus, this modem performed nicely. The dialing sounds are actually routed through your sound card instead of playing the sounds through a tiny speaker on the modem like most modems do. The sounds were very clear and easy to hear.

The Bad
Unfortunately, there are a couple problems with this modem. Both of these problems only affect CallStation users, and involve recording messages or conversations.

First of all, there is a 60-second limitation when recording audio through the modem. For some reason, the modem just stops recording after about a minute. This seems to be a common problem with Agere based modems.

Secondly, there are issues with the recording quality under Windows 7. A recording may sound just fine in the beginning, but then the volume may suddenly shift up or down, or the audio may become very distorted. These issues were not seen under Windows XP or Vista.

Also, dialing phone numbers in CallStation did not work as well as it did in Phone Plus. When dialing a number, the dialing sounds could not be heard. This is apparently related to the fact that Phone Plus dials in "data" mode while CallStation dials in "voice" mode. CallStation will, however, indicate when the dialing has been completed and you should pick up the receiver on your phone.

Conclusion
This modem is recommended for use with all three programs, but be aware of the 60-second recording limitation if you are using CallStation. Also, this modem is not recommended for use with CallStation under Windows 7 due to the sound quality issues.


The reviews on this page are the opinion of Impulse Technology. Your results may differ.

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