U.S. Robotics

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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 (often referred to by its abbreviation USR) is a company that makes computer modems and related products. It sold high-speed modems in the 1980s, and had a reputation for high quality and compatibility. With the reduced usage of voiceband modems in North America in the early 21st century, USR is now one of the few modem companies left in that market; its UK page, for example^[1] primarily lists updated drivers.

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

[edit] History

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USR was founded in 1976 in Chicago, Illinois (and later moved to 8100 N. McCormick Blvd. in Skokie, Illinois), by a group of entrepreneurs, including Casey Cowell, who served as CEO for most of the company's history and Paul Collard who designed modems into the mid-80's. The name for the company is a reference to Isaac Asimov, who is 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.

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

USR was not the only company making proprietary modems; Telebit's TrailBlazer series offered speeds up to 19.2 kbit/s in its first model, and Hayes also introduced a 9600 bit/s Express 96 (or "Ping-Pong") system. However, USR became the most successful of the three, due to a marketing scheme that offered large discounts to BBS sysops. This allowed large long-distance file transfers, such as FidoNet packets, to be exchanged more quickly. However, end users wanting to take advantage of these higher speeds would have to purchase a USR product. In contrast, TeleBit became popular in the Unix world through their ability to "spoof" the UUCP protocol to improve transfers, while the Hayes system never became popular in that market.

U.S. Robotics Sportster 14,440 Fax Modem (1994)

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 decreased, however, V.32-based modems eventually became a cost-effective alternative to HST. Nevertheless, USR maintained its user base by creating slightly faster HST protocols (in particular, a 16.8 kbit/s mode) and by producing "dual standard" modems which were able to communicate with both HST and V.32 modems at high speeds.

During this period USR differentiated its high and low-end product lines by supporting only the V.32 modes on their low-end Sportster models, while its high-end Courier models supported V.32, HST, or both in the Courier Dual Standard models. The Sportster used the same motherboard as the Couriers, and on certain 14.4 models a sequence of AT commands could be issued to enable the faster 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).

USR Sportster 56k 117102 ISA modem supporting X2 and V.90

Later, when 56 kbit/s modems were introduced, USR again went its own direction, with its X2 technology pitched against K56flex before the creation of a formal 56K standard. 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 also marketed a Winmodem.

Some models of Courier modems were known for their long-term upgradeability, because they used an upgradeable DSP design. For example, when the Courier V.Everything modem was first released in 1994 under the product label "Courier V.34 Ready", it shipped with only V.FC support because V.34 had not been released. A free V.34 upgrade was made available later via FidoNet networks, as well as via the Internet. USR then 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 without hardware modifications, yielding a very long product life to those who owned Courier V.Everything modems; many of these modems were still in use 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 re-created as a spin-off of 3Com Corporation in June 2000 as an independent company, assuming 3Com's entire client modem business except for the Palm-related portion, which itself had been spun off with Palm 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 network switches, gateways, routers, and wireless access points. The company was acquired by Platinum Equity in 2005.

With modems a commodity item built-in to every laptop in the 1990s and now often omitted, the USR brand is no longer well-known; 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 compatible with operating systems other than Microsoft Windows; as a result, that line is still bought by users of the Linux operating system. Also, USR has released Windows Vista drivers for some of its modem line [2], including many of its Winmodems; many Winmodems from other companies are not yet fully supported for Windows Vista.