Modems operating in the 1200-2400 bits per second range (like V.22 or V.22bis standards used over telephone lines) primarily employed Phase Shift Keying (PSK) or differential PSK (DPSK). For instance, V.22 uses QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying), a form of phase modulation, and V.22bis uses Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), which combines amplitude and phase modulation. However, phase modulation is the fundamental technique used for encoding data bits efficiently at these speeds compared to simple AM or FM which are less spectrally efficient for digital data. The option "Phase modulation" correctly identifies the core technique relevant to this speed range.