[plug] Dailup Modem troubles.

[Tim White]

To be bluntly honest, it probably is Telstra's fault. From the sounds of 
it, you are on the end of the line in all regards. If you are on the end 
of the copper line (phone line), then chances are their is something 
causing noise on the line. I assume you use the phone line for calls, do 
you ever hear noise on the line?
We had similar problems on our line affecting our ADSL (and probably 
used to cause the random drop outs on the dialup too), that was 
corrosion of the copper lines, being the end of the line, we only have 
3-4 more pairs in the box that we can be changed onto, and we've been 
changed twice now. Seems that each pair only lasts about 3-4 years of 
constant use before corrosion is an issue. I believe water gets into the 
copper pairs as well as rain causes more problems.

Best way to sort it out, listen for noise during phone conversations, 
then call telstra and complain of noise on the line (don't talk about 
internet drop outs), then they have to come and check the lines. Do your 
best to work out if any weather makes it worse, then call them at the 
start of the "bad" weather so chances are they check it at it's worst.

Tim

On 19/02/10 11:23, doodli wrote:
> Yes, some poor soul still have to use them. My dailup internet service
> at the moment is terribly unreliable . Sometimes it stays connected  the
> full time but other times it is all over the place in duration .  Below
> is the last section of the connection log in Opensuse 11.2 64Bit. This
> is the same problem using 3 different modems on 3 different computers
> using 3 different operating systems. OpenSuse 11 +11.2, Windows 7 RC
> trail version, and winXP.  The only constants now are the ISP and this
> house.
> Now, I'm just sought of wondering out loud here, not knowing a terrible
> lot about electronics at all, we seem to suffer a fair few mini
> brownouts, being in the middle of nowhere and the last on the power
> lines, our lights and tv flicker (darken and sometimes even brighten),
> could this sort of carry on cause the modem to drop the connection?? or
> could it trip the dtr into causing the modem to hangup.
> Any suggestions that a clean and wholesome and could fix our problem are
> most welcome. The ISP says they can see no problems at their end,
> Telstra says , well really nothing of terrible interest other then it is
> our fault.
> Call waiting has been turned off. Automatic disconnect is turned off.
>
> Status is: connected
> pppd[0]: Hangup (SIGHUP)
> pppd[0]: Modem hangup
> pppd[0]: Connect time 45.1 minutes.
> pppd[0]: Sent 1857487 bytes, received 7118866 bytes.
> pppd[0]: restoring old default route to eth0 [192.168.1.1]
> pppd[0]: Connection terminated.
> pppd[0]: Script /etc/ppp/ip-down finished (pid 15148), status = 0x0
> Status is: disconnected
> pppd[0] died: A modem hung up the phone (exit code 16)
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