Mercury’s 56 kbps Fax Modem

The two most appealing features of Mercury’s external 56 kbps fax modem are

its looks and price. Mercury has apparently decided to do things differently

with this particular model and designed a more aesthetic external modem, as

compared to the clunky boring box that you might have got used to seeing.

The modem offers the usual slew of features found in most modems nowadays.

There are speaker and microphone inputs available as well, which are useful in

using the modem like a telephone. It supports the V.90 standard, and is

plug-n-play in nature. The modem connects to your PC using a serial cable.

In our tests, the modem gave us stable connects and good transfer rates with

VSNL, Delhi. Transfer rates also depend upon your ISP, Websites being accessed,

and the condition of your phone line. The modem ships with three CDs: one

contains the drivers and needed software, while the other two have MediaRing

Talk and the PC-Cillin anti-virus software. Using MediaRing Talk, you can make

PC-to-PC phone calls over the Internet (the charges will be as for local

telephone calls), as well as PC-to-telephone calls by paying for them like

regular phone calls–local, STD, or ISD. The modem is very competitively priced

at Rs 2,500, and comes with a five-year warranty.

Anuj Jain at PCQ Labs