SHOOTOUT: Sportster vs. Courier

Copyright 1996-2017 The Navas Group^SM, All Rights Reserved.
Permission is granted to copy for private non-commercial use only.

Posted as <http://modemfaq.navasgroup.com/shootout.htm>.

This "shootout" was designed to provide an indication of how the USRobotics Sportster (92 MHz model) compares to the well-regarded USRobotics Courier (V.Everything model) over a good connection. A ZyXEL Elite 2864 was included as an additional reference point. Both the Courier and the Elite were external units on a real 16552 UART; the Sportster was an internal unit. All COM ports were locked at 115.2 Kbps.

The shootout consisted of sending and receiving a compressible real-world ASCII text file of 188,389 bytes (an old Agora text version of the Navas 28800-56K Modem FAQ) between a Windows 95 system (Intel 486DX4-100) and an FTP server. Windows 95 DUN (Dial-Up Networking) was used for TCP/IP, and all modem connections were at 28,800 bps. The tests were run late at night in order to minimize disturbances caused by load on the network and FTP server.

All results are measured in Kbps, rounded to two significant digits:

	Sportster		Courier		ZyXEL
	Send	Recv	Send	Recv	Send	Recv
Trial 1	76	63	76	52	70	58
Trial 2	76	72	74	73	71	63
Trial 3	77	73	72	73	70	63
Trial 4	76	73	72	73	71	61
Trial 5	76	72	69	69	71	55

Mean	76	71	73	68	71	60
Standard Error	0.2	1.9	1.1	4.1	0.2	1.5
Median	76	72	72	73	71	61
Standard Deviation	0.4	4.2	2.5	9.1	0.5	3.4
Sample Variance	0	17	6	82	0	11
Range	1.2	9.5	6.8	21	1.2	8.1
Minimum	76	63	69	52	70	55
Maximum	77	73	76	73	71	63

The winner was the 92 MHz Sportster by a nose over the Courier V.Everything!

Sportster version:

ati7

Configuration Profile...



Product type           US/Canada Internal

Options                V32bis,V.FC,V.34+

Fax Options            Class 1/Class 2.0

Clock Freq             92.0Mhz

Eprom                  256k

Ram                    64k



EPROM date             10/13/95

DSP date               10/13/95



EPROM rev              1.1

DSP rev                1.1



OK

Courier version:

ati7

USRobotics Courier V.Everything Configuration Profile...



Product type           US/Canada External

Options                HST,V32bis,Terbo,VFC,V34+

Fax Options            Class 1/Class 2.0

Clock Freq             20.16Mhz

Eprom                  256k

Ram                    32k



Supervisor date        01/23/96

DSP date               01/17/96



Supervisor rev         6.4.5

DSP rev                1.3.0



OK

ZyXEL version:

ati1

 4081



E2864  V 1.12



OK

Try your hand?

Those that want to take a shot at these results will find the test file at <http://modemfaq.navasgroup.com/faq.txt>.

WS_FTP, the Winsock File Transfer Program to be used for transfers and speed measurement, can be found at <http://www.csra.net/junodj/>.

To be fair, you should:

Limit the modem-to-modem connection speed to 28.8 Kbps.
Use Binary mode transfers in WS_FTP.

Email comments and suggestions to John Navas