I don’t miss hearing it over and over and over until FINALLY I got through.
Where I live, the maximum speed was 26400 bps. Actual speed was somewhere around 18k. That’s with compression turned on. (there is no digital phone service in my area/CO has a 1A switch)
When I moved up to wireless dial-up, I never looked back. (I’m in a fringe coverage area, but still get decent download speeds. 1.5-3.8 Mbps is a normal 3G rate here)