Diamond Supra Express 56E

It's taken a while, but it looks like the 56K modem wars might be coming to an end. Over the past six months, two competing standards have caused endless problems with many ISPs (Internet service providers) supporting either 3Com's X2 or Rockwell/Lucent's K56Flex. Though 56K modems were available more than six months ago, most ISPs only implemented support at the beginning of 1998. The latest V.90 standard looks set to resolve these problems by replacing X2 and K56Flex, but formal ITU approval may be as late as September. The bottom line is: if you buy now, expect V.90 upgrades available towards the end of March.

Diamond's offering in the 56K arena is a basic, no-frills modem, and uses a Rockwell chipset - so you'll need an ISP that supports K56Flex. It's a pocket-sized slab of plastic with a recessed front panel holding eight status indicators. The rear panel has a fixed serial cable which is terminated with a 25-pin connector, although Diamond provides a 25- to nine-pin adaptor. There are no sockets for microphone or speakers, but the SupraExpress can make use of any resident sound cards for recording and playing back voicemail. Diamond has a SpeakerPhone version with these extra sockets, but this model isn't currently available in the UK.

The SupraExpress doesn't disappoint in performance terms, but download speeds vary, depending on factors such as the phone line quality, the number of users on a particular site and the amount of traffic the ISP itself is dealing with. Don't expect to see downloads blasting along during peak hours. I got the best results when I retrieved a 3.8Mb test file from my local ISP, Pavilion Internet. The transfer took 370 seconds at an average rate of 85Kbits/sec.

To put this in perspective, I requested the same file using a 28.8Kbits/sec modem and achieved 79Kbits/sec. I also used a Pipex Dial K56Flex account for testing. Transfer rates often fluctuated and were slightly lower than those achieved with Pavilion, indicating phone line quality over the longer physical connection may be causing a problem.

Diamond bundles Trio's Communication Suite 5.1 with some demonstration software. It offers standard send and receive fax facilities, but ties this in with Trio's DataCOMM terminal emulation software and TrioVOICE - a complete fax and answering machine. The functions are tidily integrated and accessed from a single desktop-style interface.

With TrioVOICE you can present your business using special scripts created from Voice Designer. You can create complex structures for different functions such as fax-on-demand and multiple voicemail boxes, but it isn't easy. The Communication Suite can be tricky to set up, and I failed to get voice functions to work initially, as the modem would only answer as a fax machine. Luckily, the answer was Trio's Web site at www.trio.com. The problem is unique to the Rockwell chipset and requires the SupraExpress and associated COM port to be manually selected instead of allowing the Communication Suite to autodetect it as a TAPI device.

Compared with the Pace 56 Voice, the SupraExpress 56E is a tad basic with no speakerphone facilities. But if you don't need these features, then Diamond's baby modem is a more cost-effective option.

Author: Dave Mitchell