Modem Guard Hands-On Test 1

Modem Guard Hands-On Test 1:

On October 13th, I received an e-mail announcement about Modem Guard from Australian Protective Electronics (APE). Modem Guard sells for $54.95. The announcement contained the claim that Modem Guard would help modems attain greater performance by reducing RFI interference in the phone line. I posted this on October 14th. The announcement also stated that APE had independent test results supporting their claim and offered members of the media an opportunity to test Modem Guard. I applied to test Modem Guard and received it and the requested literature on Friday, 10/17.

The literature included the mentioned test results from ADI Limited, Test & Calibration Centre - Perth, a laboratory that is accredited in the field of electrical testing by the National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia. The test clearly shows degraded modem performance when injected line noise is equal to or exceeds 1.7 volts in a signal at 1 MHz. At 3.0 volts line drops were common. It also clearly shows that with Modem Guard attached and with 2.0 and 3.0 volts of line noise that the performance of two unspecified modems is nearly the same as with just minor noise of 100mV, i.e. Modem Guard appears to work very well under the test conditions.

The device itself looks pretty much like any other modem protector--I have one (for lightning) from my local store that cost about $30. Modem Guard plugs into a regular three-pronged outlet and has in and out RJ-11 ports for telephone and modem lines. One has to be careful to get the right jack in the right port.

I am not an electrical engineer. I don't know the level of line noise in my telephone line and don't even know how to measure it. I rarely get line drops and do get a "Good" line rating from TechTool Pro but not a quantitative measure in volts. My setup may not be a good candidate for Modem Guard. However, with my Zoom 56K Flex modem I usually get connection speeds of 28.8K with one ISP(1) and occasionally 31.2K and 26.4K. With another ISP(2), I usually get 26.4K and occasionally 24.0K and 28.8K connections. Neither have 56K connections yet although one advertised that it would some time ago. Perhaps connections at less than 33.6K, which I have never obtained, could be due to line noise so I devised a simple test with Modem Guard. I tried 10 connections randomly sequenced with a trusty quarter with and without Modem Guard for each ISP.

Unfortunately, the results were disappointing. Every connection with ISP(1) was at 28.8K, i.e. five with and five without Modem Guard. Every connection but one with ISP(2) was at 26.4K--the one that wasn't was at 24K with Modem Guard attached. Modem Guard didn't improve my less-than-optimal connection speeds so all this really means is this may not be due to line noise of the kind filtered by Modem Guard.

I'll continue to use Modem Guard for the 60-day trial period. I'll report on other tests that I devise during the trial period.