DSL Modem question...

I'm tryijng to help out a friend in Brazil who has DSL. They just upgraded to a 3 mb connection and are still using the modem they had for their 700K connection. They were told that they need to buy a new modem as the old one won't support the 3mb connection, ie, the connection will work but it will be slow. Does this sound right? Thoughts, suggestions? Thanks.

 

Yes, that can happen. I have one that didn't support my full 10meg connection, it could only do 8.

One only capable of 700? That must be ancient.

 

What is the max speed for ADSL? 3 megs?

 

That's only remotely possible.
ADSL is up to 8Mb/s so it makes sense that you need ADSL2 or ADSL2+ capable modem to go any higher, however 3Mb/s is still in the range of ADSL so it should work fine.
There is some problem with USB modems like Thomson Speed Touch 330 where you need to change USB transmission type from BULK to ISO if you need speeds above 3mb/s but that still doesn’t concern your friend.

Another possibility is that faster connections are available as ADSL2 only not because it's needed but because ISP decided it's future proof i.e. you can later upgrade your plan without changing modems.
I have 4Mb/s ADSL2+ connection even though it would run fine as ADSL.

Anyway- it would be easier if you knew exactly what modem is it.

 

I'm going to try to talk to them in Brazil in the next day or so. All I know is that it's a D-Link modem, and they bought it back in 2005. It's hard wired. According to what I read on the providers website, the 3meg connection is ADSL. I'll post again when I learn more. Thanks for the replies.

 

The modem is a D-Link DSL-500G. Now they have to find out if they G-Lite or
G dmt service. According to what I have read, the 500G supports 8meg on
Gdmt and 1.5mb on G-Lite.

 

It really doesn't matter. Modem supports both G.DMT and G.Lite and modem sets the right one automatically. G.Lite is rarely used and it's very easy to identify it- if you use G.Lite you don't need splitters, so it they have splitters they use G.DMT.
In this case new connection will work as long as it's run as ADSL. If it's ADSL2- they need a new modem.

 

Thanks for the help. It's much appreciated.

 

The connection is ADSL and the modem is fine. The phone company tech that did the installation was wrong. It is working fine. Again, thanks for the help.