[Underclocked]

I suppose they could say that anything which goes into your computer is hardware but yes, that is a misleading description.
If you go to USR's website and check the various pci modems, you will notice that although they do not say "this is a winmodem", they certainly indicate the ones that are hardware based. Of course, I'm sure that's just an oversight on their part.

Here's one (at the top of the page) that has me confused. TeamExcess tries to identify whether it's a winmodem or not and I admire them for that effort but I think they are also confused on this one. The only drivers I can find would indicate it to be winmodem but the description says Lucent chipset. The driver references the Lucent Venus chipset which is found in hardware modems. ??????

edit: I just noticed that TeamExcess changed the picture of that modem since I cancelled my order for 5 of them. The one pictured earlier was definitely hardware based. I would imagine this one is a winmodem and is in fact based on a Motorola chipset instead of the claimed Lucent.