flexfax: ZyXEL is seriously studying ZyXEL-Hylafax performance issues

[Shuvam Misra <shuvam@spacenetindia.com>]

Dear all,

I think I must tell you about ZyXEL's ongoing effort to study our
problems. Most of us on these lists use Hylafax as the fax software, and
quite a few of us use or have used ZyXEL modems. Many of us have
reported poor throughput with ZyXEL modems and Hylafax, in spite of them
being one of the best by all accounts.

ZyXEL has finally woken up to this fact. I think four things pushed them:

(i)	my persistent attempts at making noise, 
(ii)	the repeated responses I got to my noise from many of you, who
	recommended Multitech as an answer (which I promptly passed back
	to ZyXEL :)
(iii)	my friend and ZyXEL distributor for India, Ketan, and his help
	in escalating this problem, knowing fully well that I am a very
	small customer of his
(iv)	ZyXEL's realisation that they are not just addressing me but two
	worldwide mailing lists of serious fax users through me.

Now they've set up Linux with kernel 2.0.X in their R&D centre at Taiwan,
and have reached the stage of doing "faxaddmodem". There they've got
stuck, probably because they misspelt "ttyS1" as "ttys1". We should see
some action soon.

What surprises me is that any modem vendor will go to so much trouble to
actually install an unfamiliar OS (these chaps are pretty much Windows
and OS/2 oriented, it appears), install an unfamiliar fax system on it,
and then try out their modems. I appreciate it.

I have copied this message to Rowen Chu and his colleagues at ZyXEL
Taiwan, so that you can write to him, and I guess he can write to you. At
this point, I'd appreciate it if all of you who have used Hylafax and
ZyXEL can help ZyXEL's team lick the problems once and for all. If these
guys are willing to try so seriously, let's give them a hand... or a few
hundred hands. :)

It is possible that ZyXEL might be in a position to release beta versions
of their field-upgradable firmware which some of you might be able to
use in your TPC cells or fax broadcast systems. This should give ZyXEL
a very quick turnaround for their testing.

Regards,
Shuvam