Latitude PC-Tel Modem Information from Dell

Hello All,

For those of you with the Dell PCTEL 2304WT MDC V.92 Modem in your Latitude C510, C610, C640, C810 and C840, and a host of lesser Imspirion models, I have an official answer from Dell for the performance and connection issues I have been having since I purchased my laptop. First the problems:

I noticed terrible performance, even worse when a browser was not active. As a troubleshooting technique, attempted a Ping, and after perhaps the first request, the ping timed out. I then opened up a browser window, when I was browsing the Internet, my ping came alive. (With high latency) I then tried two Ping's at the same time, they seemed to allow each other to stay alive. Using the Ping test, I was able to explain my performance issues with POP3, IMAP4, and various Socet Applications I regularly run. I am a business user who does a lot a travel, so often I am stuck in a hotel room with only a modem connection.

Armed with this information, I called Dell hoping for a quick solution. I explained my exact issue and the technician said he would get back with me. Thankfully I was able to get beyond all the Driver Version, OS Version, AT commands, etcthat they usually throw at you. The following day, I had this message on my Answering Machine. (I saved it in a .WAV format just incase I needed it for future use.)

Hello Ryan,
This is Jerry for Dell, we talked last night on your PCTel Modem Issue, I did some research on it and the PCTel modem, it is working as designed and it is not designed to be a heavy duty modem as you like to use it and the only thing we can suggest is buy a pc-card modem and it can handle what you need done, if you have any other questions call Dell at 1-800-822-8965 extension 67405, Thank you.

You all can come to your own conclusions about the wisdom of placing such a modem in a "business class" machine.  So, Dell's advice to those of us who want to more than use Internet Explorer with our laptops:  "Go Buy a Real Modem".