U.S. Robotics

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USR redirects here. For the Unix directory, see /usr.

U.S. Robotics

Type	Subsidiary
Founded	1976
Headquarters	Schaumburg, Illinois
Industry	Computer
Products	Modems, Wired and Wireless Networking, VoIP
Owner	Platinum Equity
Website	www.usr.com

U.S. Robotics (popularly referred to by its acronym USR) is a company that makes computer modems and related technologies. They were a well known brand for some time in the industry, first by selling high-speed modems in the 1980s, and later maintaining their lead through a reputation for high quality and compatibility. With the virtual disappearance of the voiceband modem market in North America in the early 21st century, USR is now one of the few modem companies left in the market.

1 History
2 Palm Pilot, 3Com, Commoditization
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] History

USR was founded in 1976 in Schaumburg, Illinois by a group of entrepreneurs, including Casey Cowell, who served as CEO for most of the company's history.

USR was one of the first companies to offer high-speed dialup modems for personal computers. Prior to the development of the high-speed standards such as the V.32 family of protocols, in 1986 USR introduced its own HST (High-Speed Transfer) protocol that operated at 9600 bit/s. In 1989 HST was expanded to 14.4 kbs, 16.8 kbit/s in 1992 and finally 21 kbit/s/24 kbit/s as phone lines improved and the system was adapted to use more bandwidth.

USR was not the only company making proprietary high-speed modems; Telebit's TrailBlazer series offered speeds up to 19.2 kbit/s even in its first model, and Hayes eventually responded to USR and TeleBit by introducing their own 9600 bit/s Express 96 (or "Ping-Pong") system. However, USR became the most popular of the three, by far, due to a clever marketing scheme that offered large discounts to BBS sysops. This was an extremely attractive deal, as it allowed large long-distance file transfers, such as FidoNet packets, to be exchanged far more quickly. Of course end users wanting to take advantage of these higher speeds would invariably have to turn to USR in order to be compatible. In contrast, TeleBit became very popular in the Unix world through their ability to "spoof" the UUCP protocol to greatly improve transfers, while the Hayes system never became popular.

The proprietary nature of HST allowed USR to maintain its market dominance even when off-brand V.32-based modems began selling for less than an equivalent HST modems. As the price differential increased, however, V.32-based modems eventually became a popular and viable alternative to HST. Nevertheless, USR maintained its popularity by creating slightly faster HST protocols (in particular, a 16.8 kbit/s mode), maintaining its exceptional quality, and by producing "dual standard" modems which were able to communicate with both HST and V.32 modems at high speeds.

During this period they differentiated their high and low-end product lines by supporting only the V.32 modes on their low-end Sportster models, while their high-end Courier models supported V.32, HST, or both in the Courier Dual Standard models. The Sportster actually used the same motherboard as the Couriers, and on certain 14.4 models a sequence of AT commands could be issued to enable the 16.8 HST mode.[1] The Courier remained a favorite in the BBS and emerging ISP world, where they were known to run without problem for extended periods of time (although the initial large-scale deployment of Courier modems in the CompuServe network uncovered a serious bug which would cause the modems to crash and stop answering calls under high call volumes).

Later, when 56 kbit/s modems were introduced, USR again went its own direction, with its X2 technology battling rival K56flex before the creation of a formal 56K standard. Once again, after the V.90 industry standard became available, USR abandoned its proprietary protocol. In a further effort to reduce the retail price of its modems, USR was one of the first companies to market a Winmodem.

Some models of Courier modems are famous for their long-term upgradeability, since they used an upgradeable DSP design. When the Courier V.Everything modem was first released in 1994 under the product label "Courier V.34 Ready", they shipped with only V.FC support as V.34 had not been released yet. A free V.34 upgrade was made available shortly via FidoNet networks, as well as via the Internet. USR surprised many early Courier V.Everything modem owners with a limited-time free offer of an X2 firmware upgrade, which added 56K speed capability. Finally, USR released a V.90 upgrade that was compatible with X2-upgraded Courier V.Everything modems. Even the 1994 hardware released pre-V.34 was fully V.90 upgradeable with no hardware modifications, yielding a very long product life to those who owned Courier V.Everything modems; many of these modems are still in use today, more than a decade later.

[edit] Palm Pilot, 3Com, Commoditization

After acquiring Palm, Inc., inventors of the Palm Pilot in 1995, USR was in turn acquired by 3Com Corporation in June 1997.

USR was then recreated as a spin-off of 3Com Corporation in June 2000 as an independent company, assuming 3Com's entire client modem business, but minus the Palm portion, which itself had been spun off three months earlier. Other portions of the original USR remained in 3Com as the CommWorks Corporation. USR then quickly built up its device portfolio, and today makes not only traditional dial-up modems, but also wired and wireless networking components including Ethernet switches, gateways/routers, and wireless access points. The company was acquired by Platinum Equity in 2005.

With modems more of a commodity item today than they were in the 1980s and 1990s, the USR brand no longer carries the mystique it once did. Like other modem companies, it sells more Winmodems than anything else. However, its Performance Pro line is one of the handful of controller-based modems still on the market that are universally compatible with operating systems other than Microsoft Windows. As a result, USR —or at least the USR Performance Pro line— is still held in regard by computer professionals and users of the Linux operating system.

[edit] Trivia

The name for the company is a reference to Isaac Asimov, who is widely credited with inventing the term robotics, and whose Robot stories featured a fictional company named U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men. The 2004 Will Smith movie I, Robot, loosely based on Asimov's works and set in Chicago, uses U.S. Robotics as the name of the fictional robot manufacturer. The film's U.S. Robotics corporate logo resembles a former real-life USR logo.