One of the first modems to routinely exceed 9600 bit/s speeds, the TrailBlazer used a proprietary modulation scheme that proved highly resilient to interference, earning the product an almost legendary reputation for reliability despite mediocre (or worse) line quality.

Baran had recently started a networking company known as Packet Technologies on Bubb Road in Cupertino, California, which was working on systems for interactive television.

Packet Technologies later failed, and several of their employees were folded into Telebit, while most of the others formed StrataCom, makers of the first Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switches.

It employed a large number (initially up to 512) of closely spaced carrier frequencies, each modulated at 6 baud, encoding 0, 2, 4 or 6 bits per interval.

If a particular carrier was distorted, attenuated or interfered with, it could be turned off, allowing the data rate to degrade gracefully in steps of 10 bps with decreasing line quality.

While this adaptive duplex scheme was able to send large files quickly, for users accustomed to having the distant computer echo characters, the delay associated with having the digital signal processors (DSP) take turns using the bandwidth tended to make interactive typing difficult, as there could be as much as a second and a half delay for a single character echo.

[3] Support for these features did not come cheaply; the TrailBlazer Plus, for instance, used a Texas Instruments TMS32010 DSP processor for the actual modulation and demodulation functions, and a Motorola 68000 for control.

Later smaller versions, the PN and STi, were offered which consisted of a small-form-factor PC combined with custom software and one of a variety of modems or other connection systems (ISDN, etc.)

Initially V.32 modems were very expensive, but Rockwell aggressively attacked this market, introducing modules, and eventually entire chipsets, that brought the prices down.

The later T1600 had basically the same feature set as the T1500, but used Telebit's own V.32 implementation rather than the Rockwell module, resulting in reduced production cost and better performance.

In this case Rockwell quickly released a V.32bis chipset, appearing on the market so rapidly that Rockwell-based systems generally pre-dated implementations from dedicated modem companies.

All of the 1st-tier companies had serious difficulties adapting to a market that was now filled with low-cost modems with similar or better performance and features than their own high-end models.

Telebit started slipping in terms of relative performance, while still trying to sell their products at their traditional high price points.

There were some design studies of a possible full-duplex PEP using echo cancellation (as is used in V.32), and this technology was proposed to the CCITT (now known as the ITU-T) for possible adoption as the V.fast modem standard.

Nor would the FastBlazer support PEP, which, although by then a minor consideration for most potential buyers, was still a differentiator for Telebit's existing installed base.

By this point even long-time supporters were publicly pooh-poohing the company on the Usenet, the medium that originally drove the widespread adoption of the TrailBlazer.

[citation needed] Late in 1993 Telebit completed their merger with Octocom, the idea being to use Octocom's Chelmsford, Massachusetts manufacturing capability headed by veteran executive Bryan Holley, as executive vice president of worldwide operations, downsizing the existing Sunnyvale office to become a NetBlazer development site under the supervision of James Norrod.

The difficult integration of the Sunnyvale operation into the corporate Chelmsford, MA headquarters was fraught with more difficulties than those of finance and marketing.

[12] Telebit executive vice president Bryan Holley was named president and chief executive officer for the new ITK Telecommunications, Inc. under which leading the newly minted ITK through further M&A activity culminating with the combined company being acquired in July 1998 by Digi International, makers of the DigiBoard multi-port serial card for PCs.

In 1995, a Silicon Valley engineer sent a Worldblazer to an NGO in Somalia, which promptly put it to work connecting that remote country to the Internet, at first by UUCP, then by other means.