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[email protected]> Man-wai Chang ToDie
That may be your (and maybe my) belief. But in reality, look at those
new motherboards. They rather give you 4 PCI-E 16x slot than giving you
3 PCI slots. I suspect that soon, the PCI bus function would be removed
from all motherboards.
I haven't personally bumped into one with 4 PCI-E 16x slots, although I
haven't bought one in many moons with less then two (and all of the
desktops in my house have two PCI-E 16x cards installed)
The only justification for removing the 56K modem function from the
world is the spread of cheap broadband services. I don't see that
happening. The ISP still charges customers' BB service 3 to 4 times more
than 56k dial-up service.
That really depends on your area. Around here, $16.95/month gets you
lite DSL (256Kb/128Kb), cable modem is $19.95/month (plus you get
discounts on your cable service)
The telco sells dialup for $12.95/month for 12 hours, and $25.95/month
for unlimited. $19.95/month seems to be the going rate for the largest
local ISP's dialup account (unlimited)
SO where is the logic for all these? Are internal controller-based
modems a huge military and security risk? Or is it really a business
decision?
If I had to guess, business decision. How many people do you know that
buy a new PC on a regular basis, but are on a dialup modem?
How many of those would be just as happy with a $30 PCI modem that moves
from PC to PC as they upgrade?
At least in my circle of friends, family and business contacts, I have a
couple dialup users left, but not one of them has bought more then one
PC in 5 years.
Given that PCI modems are under $30 for those who want 'em, why waste
the extra components for the majority that doesn't?
Now in other areas the situation might be different, but unless a
majority make onboard modems a purchasing decision, it's purely a
business decision.
As far as security, I'd argue that there is little security risk since
installing a modem (even if there is on-board support) requires opening
the case, installing a card, enabling it requires access to the BIOS
(assuming a properly secured environment, with unneeded security risks
turned off)
An attacker could just install their own PCI card or enable and use USB
instead if they could accomplish the above, so who cares about a bit of
onboard modem circuitry?