PE> Pardon?  It should work fine.

RS> Not when the handshaking time in successful sessions varys extensively
RS> as you change modems at your end. Particularly when the time that
RS> matters is the longest time thats ever seen for a successful
RS> handshake, plus a margin for safety. The longer that gets, and it has
RS> to be reasonably long, the more likely it is for you to come back on
RS> line late in the dial attempt, loop the line coz its ringing, and then
RS> the caller times out coz there is nothing like enough time left to
RS> successfully handshake. In other words the callers system aborts the
RS> handshake coz you looped the line very late in its timed event.

PE> My idea is for the callers to set their timeout to about 4 minutes.

RS> I cant see what you think that will achieve,
RS> thats no different to the Telstra timeout.

That's exactly what I'm proposing.  If you let Telstra be the one
to cut the connection, rather than your modem, you can guarantee
there was no answer on the other end.  If there was an answer,
Telstra wouldn't have timed you out.

RS> And when its that long, you have done nothing different
RS> to what you had before you busied the modem.

The difference is that a Telstra timeout costs nothing, a 1-minute
timeout your end does sometimes cost you.

PE> Yes, that sounds good, although you may have trouble
PE> with one person aborting and the next person getting
PE> through, so that it takes ages for the RINGs to clear,

RS> I think you are having another brain fart. This proposal is no different
RS> to the situation where you just dont answer the phone during the mail
RS> processing, and just avoids the risk of picking up the call at the end
RS> of a long series of rings, just before the caller is about to give up,
RS> only to have his mailer timeout very soon after you answer.

RS> It has no effect whatever on the separate
RS> problem of more than one caller etc.

PE> although that could be countered with a 5 minute timeout.

RS> I think you are misunderstanding what I intended there.

If I come back online, and see RINGs, you propose that I spin my 
wheels.  The trouble is, with 4 people attack dialling me, 1 is
getting RINGs, the other 3 are getting BUSY and redialling.  Now
if the first person finally gives up, the idea is that I stop
spinning my wheels.  But if someone else calls straight away, I
won't know to stop spinning my wheels, because I think the first
person is still ringing!!!  BFN.  Paul.
@EOT:

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