After an e-mail discussion about Diamond's new "Shotgun" technology, I have decided to share some thoughts. A response to my original thoughts were answered by a Diamond tech. Please do not read my original thoughts without following them up by the notes sent to me by the Diamond MM tech.

The idea of shotgun technology (connecting two modems to two phone lines to use the bandwidth of both) is a good idea. There is no need (that I can find) to buy Diamond's brand of "Shotgun" technology. Shotgun requires a special protocol to be running o n the terminal server that you are dialing into. Microsoft has a competing software solution built right into Dial-Up Networking (version 1.2b and later) and Windows 98 that does not require you to have a particular brand of modem. Furthermore, terminal server manufacturers are building their new equipment with this protocol (MultiLink PPP or MLPPP or MPPP) built in. This means there is no extra equipment that your Internet Provider must have. That also means that you will not be stuck with one company's modem. We have successfully tested MLPPP with a mixture of MWave, US Robotics, Microcom and Cardinal modems with very good success. In every case, we used modems that we had sitting around anyway and connected them to terminal servers that we had bought for other reasons - nothing special or proprietary about any of the equipment.
Before you think you need this technology - think again. 8^)

---Received 02/10/1998---

Shotgun uses the protocols that already exist on the central site equipment -- namely PPP, ML-PPP, and MP+ (for Ascend). ML-PPP is available for Windows '95 via the DUN 1.2 software update from MS and Windows NT 4.0 includes ML-PPP support. Note that they are quite different -- there's some neat points for each, but they're certainly not the same to a user. Shotgun utilizes the DUN 1.2 connection manager but provides a more efficient MP stack and the ability to support other protocols. It also provides a line monitor that provides what we find to be interesting info for most users. One observation is that the Windows-provided MP implementation does not provide the 2x performance you would expect with two like modems. It appears to be about 1.7x using HTML and marginally higher using FTP. Considering that you're still only setting up one TCP/IP connection, there isn't overhead added on the client. Shotgun overcomes this and provides up to 2x performance. MP also requires outbound dialing of all lines. For a home where one line is primarily voice and the other is data, this doesn't seem like a realistic plan. DUN 1.2 provides an add/drop button in '95 only, but if a line gets dropped and not initiated through this interface, the routing is typically hosed and the connection must be dropped entirely then re-established. Shotgun provides bandwidth on demand so you start with one channel (the data line, for example) and add the second (the voice line) as needed. User interface -- I found the way NT 4.0 handles multiple line connects to be really hard to monitor -- you have a pull-down box for each line in the connection and have to highlight each to see that modem and function -- you only know your connect rate for 3-4 seconds as text help when DUN bonds. As I recall there's only a 64k channel 'knowledge' in DUN 1.2, so anything higher is not reported correctly either. This might have been addressed in some patches, but again, it doesn't help the user understand what is going on. Since Shotgun can be combined with other vendors' modems, there's nothing proprietary in the way we're doing this. We see that we're providing a common, usable vehicle to obtain faster analog connections. Thanks for listening!

I have noticed problems recently with Supra modems that have a Rockwell Voice 33.6 (RCV336) chipset. The problem is that the modems connect at 33.6 every connection, but disconnect after a few minutes. The only solution that I have found to work reliabl y is to force the modem to connect at a lower speed. To do this add the following to Windows 95's extra settings:
+MS=11,1,26400,28800
This will force the modem to connect between 26,400 and 28,800
Some newer Packard Bell supplied modems (with the same chipset) seem to suffer from the same problem.

---Received 08/27/96---

... I happened to think a situation I ran into might help some one. Here it is. The ISP I use changed to the new US Robotics 336 modems. For some reason the modem I have (Supra Express 288i PnP) wouldn't connect. While looking around I found some int strings to try the one I use is AT&F2+MS=74 it forces the modem to the V .34 protocol and it works great. I have the fastest connection I have ever had. Just thought it might help some one...