simple curiousity -> broadcomm hardware

[jared r r spiegel <jrrs_(_at_)_ice-nine_(_dot_)_org>]

  this is just passing curiousity.

  for those who have used broadcomm NICs and/or anything
  from broadcomm, what has been your experience as to the
  quality of the hardware/components ?

  i ask as i encounter their "bcm v.92" modem on a quasi-daily
  basis in the context of supporting dialup customers.

  most often a "new dell" with the "bcm v.92" or a "new gateway [2000]"
  with the re-branded "gtw v.92" modem ( as seen in modem.cpl in
  win32 ).

  to ~briefly cite my first-hand encounters with them acting poorly:
  ( outside of hearing them not be able to handshake their way out
    of a wet paper bag, quite often )  

A - dialup customer had a "new gateway" and 2 phone lines, was
  configuring the "new gateway" for our dialup.  he also had his
  old PC sitting next to the new one.  old PC had either rockwell/conexant
  or a pctel modem ( by no means excellent ).  the old PC could dial
  *fine*.  when telling the new PC to dial, the modem would pick up 
  the phone, hear dialtone, and dial the POP# --- and would *NOT* 
  _break_ the dialtone.  ie - you could hear the modem rendering out 
  the DTMF sounds, but the dialtone persisted.  the customer *did* have 
  the phone cable in the correct jack -- the fix was to switch him to
  pulse dialing, whereupon the modem did break the dialtone and connect
  "ok".

B - several seperate customers recently ( from various regions in the US )
  with these modems in PCs attempt to dial our POP#s and receive an 
  "error 678", which could imply that the modem did not hear a handshake attempt
  from the other end of the line ( for instance, dialing the wrong #, or
  dialing the # with 11 digits ( 1+area code ) in a context where 7 digits
  is all the telco will allow for local calls, etcetc ).  i've had these
  customers pick up their phones and dial the POP# by hand and they do
  hear our modem pick up and try handshake -- after 9x checking the # listed
  in the dialup window, they are swearing on their grandparents' graves that
  they have the # "to be dialed" input identical to that which they dialed
  on their receiver --- switching them to pulse dialing also yields success.

  so, basically, my only experience with them [broadcomm] is with respect to several 
  instances of their v.92 softmodem being *inept* at correctly rendering
  DTMF signals for tone dialing --- i'm wondering how good their NICs are, 
  especially in light of seeing their NIC appearing on many motherboards
  as an integrated peripheral?.

  is broadcomm total trash, or do they just have a poor modem division?

  thanks.

  jared.
 
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