Suppose that you have a modem or some other serial device connected to a COM port on a PC in your network and you wanted to communicate with that device using a serial communications program (fax software, Hyperterminal, WinWedge, etc.) running in a different PC than the one where the device is connected. You could accomplish this by running TCP-Com on the workstation where the device is connected and configuring it to run as a TCP/IP server opening the COM port that the device is connected to. You could then run a second copy of TCP-Com on a different PC in the network and configure it to create a Virtual COM port that is connected as a TCP/IP client to the copy of TCP-Com running as the server in the PC where the device is connected. You could then use any serial communications software to open the Virtual COM port created by TCP-Com and when you do so, you would actually be communicating across your network directly with the device connected to the COM port on the other PC. The above technique will work with modems (as well as any other RS232 device) therefore you can use TCP-Com to share a modem on one PC with all other computers located in the same network.