Product: Gazel 128 USB
Company: Bewan
Website: http://www.bewan.com/
Estimated Street Price: $110.00 ; £79.00
Review By: Julien JAY

Drivers

Bewan provides its modem with drivers made by FHLP. These 5.54 drivers ensure a perfect functioning under Windows 98, 98SE, Windows Me & Windows 2000 and use the exclusive Gazel Virtual Modem Software technology. After you have installed the Gazel 128 drivers and rebooted your PC, you’ll notice the presence in your tray area of a small ISDN icon. If you double click on it a dialog box appears and when you’re online it’ll display useful & detailed information about the status of the current connection (line free, number of bytes received & sent, encountered errors, etc.). Best of all while you’re surfing the net the ISDN icon of the tray area changes to display one red/green light that indicates if the connection is active (if two connections are established then two lights will be displayed).

    
Bewan Gazel 128 USB Connection Status Indicator (click to enlarge)

Since the Bewan modem uses a Miniport Wan driver it’s totally compatible with the RAS module of Windows. But the best thing to come is the emulation of a conventional AT port so you can use your ISDN modem with every software (there’s no need that the software should be compatible with the modem). So you can at least use an ISDN modem with WinFax Pro, pcAnywhere, or other applications like WinPhone Suite or terminal emulations software. Indeed configuring your current applications to use this modem is just a child game, as you’ll only have to select the ‘Gazel Fax, Minitel & Data Modem’ in the list of modems and that’s it! You’re ready to use it with every TAPI enabled software, thanks to the virtual modem technology. We tested the modem with Symantec WinFax Pro 10 and we were able to send and receive faxes with it. It also worked with WinPhone Suite from BVRP software and pcAnywhere as well as with less known software like TimTel (a French application to access the ancestor of the internet) and AOL which can use the modem without the need to use a supplementary driver. Bewan also provides what they call Gazel utilities that are very useful, there’s a LOG applet that memorizes every internet connection, a connection tester that’ll run tests to check if your ISDN line is OK and a profile editor to edit ISDN profiles to connect using specific protocols.

Bewan Connection Logger (click to enlarge)

The Channel Trace utility lets you trace the activities of the B & D channels of your ISDN line. There’s also a settings applet that let you define accurately the general settings of the modem and its virtual software to configure it efficiently for TAPI emulations (normally there’s no need to change it since it’s automatically configured by the setup wizard).

Bewan Gazel 128 USB Settings Applet (click to enlarge)

You can also select which driver emulations you want to enable or disable (CAPI 2.0, WAN miniport, AT emulation & generic driver). Some of you may say at this point, well if the Bewan modem is compatible with the CAPI 2.0 standard why should I use the AT emulator? Right isn’t it? If so the answer may disconcert your, but it seems that CAPI 2 is a kind of non-standard… I mean that some software manufacturers that claim their fax software to be compatible with CAPI 2 may not be strictly compatible with it as it may not respect every standardized CAPI 2 commands. Unfortunately this situation often occurs and if the software you want to use fails to use the CAPI 2 drivers of the modem you’ll have to select the AT port emulation. I used several ISDN modems and frankly they never worked correctly with third party software that claimed to be compatible with the CAPI 2 norm so the AT emulation of the Bewan Gazel 128 is a real relief for me as I can at last use an ISDN modem to do something other than connect to the net. Concerning the voice capacities of the Gazel 128 USB modem you can even emit or receive phone calls provided that you have a Full duplex sound card with a good quality line-in port. We tested this feature and it works correctly. However this modem wasn’t designed to do so and it cannot be as convenient as with a modem that supports free hand voice calls. Finally you can select which protocol the modem is allowed to use like HDLC B channel, X.75 B channel, X.25 B channel, V.120 B channel, etc. The modem supports the following communication protocols:

• HDLC, X. 25, X. 75 & PPP at 64Kbps,

• X 25 & PPP at 128Kbps,

• V. 120,

• V. 32 & V32 bis (compatible with analogic modems 9,6 & 14,4kbps),

• Group 3 Fax & class 1 type (V. 27 ter, V. 29 & V. 17),

• V. 23 for specific Minitel emulation in France only.

In corporate environment the modem perfectly works behind a switchboard and can manage DIDs connections.