London-based Dataflex Design Ltd has announced a range of V.22bis desktop and pocket modems with facsimile, claimed to be the first single chip device to get the British Approvals Board for Telecommunications nod – the others all use three chips. The company claims that the use of just one chip – a modified Rockwell 224AT – puts the list prices more in line with non-approved grey imports than other approved products: the PC Card and Pocket Gem are to have a list price of UKP160, while the addition of facsimile capability is to cost an extra UKP40. In real life this means that they will be selling for around UKP100 and UKP120 respectively, says the company. This is Dataflex’s first dip into the purely commodity market – maximum data rates are V22bis (2,400bps), although it has facsimile capabilities too. V.42 error connection and V.42bis/MNP5 data compression are standard, but need help from the attached computer and are available only when it is running communications software using the Rockwell Protocol Interface. TranSend software is bundled with the built-in facsimile versions of the modems. The company said that it worked with Rockwell to change the firmware in the chip to get it to work in the European environment. The 224AT has proved highly popular in the US. Elsewhere, Dataflex says it is currently shipping about 60 of its ISDN adaptors every month.
