Review: Modem Booster

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Reviewed by
John Spaller

Software Review of:
Modem Booster
4.04.0

John is retired from the Air Force, also a retired teacher, an avid surfer and researcher.

From the December, 2002 issue of PC Alamode Magazine

I’ve wanted to try out software that promised to significantly speed up my v.90, 56k data fax PC1 modem because dial-up modems are just too slow. Modem Booster 4.0 (latest version) boasts that it can speed up all internet connections up to 300% whether it be Dial up, Cable, DSL or ADSL. It will work with Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4.0, 2000 and the XP operating systems with minimum system requirements of a Pentium 90 processor with 16 MB of Ram, 8 MB free disk space and MS Internet Explorer 4.0. The sellers claim that Modem Booster adjusts your modem settings so that you get the maximum performance available. My system is set up for Windows 98 SE, 384 MB of RAM and 30 GB of storage.

Modem Booster did not load automatically so I used the Add/Remove Programs function in Windows and the installation went smoothly. The set-up system required the Modem Booster to conduct over 20 tests between my modem and my ISP. These tests should take one or two hours. They took 55 minutes. At the end of the testing I was offered the option to let the software tune-up my modem or to do it my self. If you do it yourself you can adjust the MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit), RWIN (Receive Window), TTL (Time To Live) and cache size. The software made the necessary adjustments and predicted that my average gain in modem speed would be 7%. I hoped it was wrong.

To try out the program I surfed and down-loaded programs. A visit to the MS game site usually takes a long time to get to and to play games. It was a little faster this time but nothing to brag about. It was the same way with the other sites I visited. Then I did some down –loading. Below is a chart of a typical sample of down-loading times before and after the software was installed

Program	minutes	seconds	minutes	seconds
	BEFORE		AFTER
MS Security update	0	33	0	29
MS Media Player 7.0	34	30	30	30

I would not purchase the software because an 8.8% increase in speed is not worth $24.95 to me. If it looks good to you, they are offering “30 Days Risk Free 100% Guaranteed.” To try it out go to inKline Glogal on the Internet. Technical help is available for one year after purchase but only through e-mail. I checked in local software stores and could not find the product.