Telecommunications standards

The older speeds of 300, 1,200, and 2,400 bps were well defined. However, as modem manufacturers began to devise methods for gaining higher speeds, each modem manufacturer started to use a proprietary method incompatible with modems from other manufacturers. Today, the ITU-TSS (formerly the United Nations Consultative Committee for International Telephony and Telegraphy, abbreviated CCITT) defines standards for most high-speed communications.

Even high-speed modems are much slower than other methods of computer communication. A high-speed modem can operate at 28,800 bps, but an Ethernet connection operates at 10,000,000 bps. To boost data throughput, high-speed modems typically offer one or more data compression algorithms. These algorithms can boost the throughput of a high-speed modem to speeds of 57,600 bps (if the data rate is 14,400 bps) or 115,200 bps (if the data rate is 28,800 bps). Note that these compression algorithms are sensitive to the data being transmitted. If the data has already been compressed (for example, with the compress command), the data compression methods of high-speed modems offer little or no benefit, and might even reduce data throughput. When using a modem with data compression technology, the speed of the data terminal equipment/data circuit-terminating equipment (DTE/DCE) connection between the computer and the modem is equal or greater than the nominal data rate of the connection between modems. For example, with a V.32bis modem with V.42bis data compression, the data rate of the modem (the speed at which the modem communicates across telephone lines) is 14,400 bps. When the V.42bis compression is active, actual data throughput can reach 57,600 bps. To accommodate the greater throughput offered by data compression, the speed of the link between the computer and the modem should be set to 57,600 bps.

The ITU-TSS defines standards for high-speed communications, including data compression algorithms. ITU-TSS standards are usually named V.nn, where nn is a number. Another, slightly less common standard is the Microcom Networking Protocol (MNP). Available in versions (called classes) 1-9, MNP is a high-performance, high-speed protocol that was available relatively early, and became something of a de facto standard before the advent of the ITU-TSS standards.