i'm not sure if this is an appropriate forum for this question (or whether the network programming forum is more appropriate), but here's hoping!

I have a couple of XTEND MAXSTREAM (wireless, point to point) modems.

I have to modify an existing c++ application to use these modems for communication instead of using winsock.

I would like the communication between the modems to be reliable (like TCP as opposed to UDP). I believe there is an "RR" parameter that ensures this. but i'm not quite sure how to use it. if i enable this parameter on the modem (using the software that came with teh modems i guess!), do i have to do anything special in my code? or should the modem automatically take care of acknowledgements and stuff? do i have to check for them? or can i keep sending data out over a serial port?

I would also like to be notified of when the modem is ready to recieve data (ie, when the sending end has sent data and its queued up). I know you can use the select() function to do this if you are using sockets. but i'm not sure if it applies to these modems.. as i understood select(), it is more general on a unix platform than on a windows platform (i'm on windows) and is very restrictive about the types of paramaters it takes (i read this somewhere, so don't quote me on it!).

Also, i was wondering if anyone could tell me a little more about the "UART buffer". how big is it? how can i go about dealing with/preventing buffer overflow situtations?

i use the CreateFile(...), ReadFile(...) and Writefile(...) functions to communicate with the serial port. I also use the GetCommState, SetCommState functions.. but that is about the extent of my knowledge of communicating with a serial port!

really hope someone can help me out with this!
thanks!
drew.

ps. if you can recommend any good links for this type of stuff, it would be veyr useful too!