WC>> I've had about a half dozen failures to connect on first
WC>> try in the last month. If I get a 48K connect I now redial
WC>> to get a better connection 

 CA> I've been having a terrible time trying to get either of my
 CA> DOS packet drivers to dialup and connect. They never were
 CA> 100% but now I'm having to try 7 or more times and it's
 CA> really frustrating since I have changed nothing. Obviously
 CA> the ISP is 'tinkering' with their end. I wish they would
 CA> hire competent people, set it up, then LEAVE IT ALONE!

having worked with a few ISPs and seen this type of thing happen, i will
say that many of these problems happen when they update the code in the
"modem cards"... those cards aren't like any conventional modem
that we are used to... these units may have 8, 16, 32, 64 or more
"modems" on them and the box they reside in is connected directly
to the T1 or better that connects the ISP with the local loop... one T1
line can handle up to 24 connections so if you want to allow for 48
connections to be online at once, you have to have at least two T1 lines...
then you have the T1s or better linking you on the other side to your
upstream feed and thus to the internet...

back to the "modem cards"... most of them out there are rockwell
based... some are better than others... some code versions are better than
others... my USR Courier v.everything would connect with one ISP at 50k+
first time, every time... then they had equipment failure and i switched to
another ISP i used before... now its all i can do to get a 33k6 connect
with them... nothing changed on my part... just the phone number dialed...
i've been unable to locate the USR BBS number to check that i can stil get
56k like i used to do with them to verify that the local telco hasn't
screwed up something in the DSLAM just up the road...

)\/(ark