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Understanding and Dealing With Dialup Connection Problems

What's involved in connecting to the internet
One of the most misunderstood problem areas that you might encounter in using the internet is that of connectivity -- be it having a hard time initially establishing a connection, or being unceremoniously disconnected while in the middle of browsing, or simply having things run terribly slow while on the internet. The inclination is to immediately blame the ISP (Internet Service Provider) that you are using to connect to the internet. And sometimes that is indeed the case -- the problems are at the ISP's end of things. However, the reality is that the majority of the time the problems are somewhere between your computer and the ISP. So before you start making irate phone calls to your ISP's tech support, you can save yourself a lot of grief by understanding a little about how the connection process works, and what you can do at your end to make things run smoother.

If you are connecting to your ISP via a dialup connection, you are using "voice grade" telephone lines to transmit data back and forth. These lines were never designed to carry digital data at the high speeds that today's modems attempt to use, and therein lies much of the cause of connectivity problems. Quite often these lines have "impairments" (i.e. "noise") that are virtually imperceptible for purposes of carrying on a voice conversation, but which cause all kinds of havoc for data transmissions (for an excellent discussion of this issue, click here). The good news is that today's modems are quite good at detecting and dealing with the noise that is encountered -- and once properly configured, even with very poor telephone line conditions you should be able to maintain a decent connection with acceptable reliability -- say at least 28000 bps -- and hopefully a good bit faster.

Another important factor in the connection process is how the modem at your end is configured. This is important because of the way that modems work -- when you establish a connection between your computer and your ISP, it's YOUR modem that is doing all the work. It's the one that is analyzing line conditions and establishing just how to do the transmissions. The modem at the ISP's end of things is "passive" in this process. So when things are not working correctly, quite often the problem is with the user's modem -- as that's the key component. And it's rarely a problem with the ISP's modems.  But when this does happen, typically it's a simple matter of changing your modem setup to fix problems.
First things to check when having problems
If you are experiencing problems connecting to your ISP, the very first thing you should check is the status of your dial-in site. Most of the major ISP's will keep good status reports on their support web pages.  Find out if your ISP maintains such a report, and if so, you should bookmark that page or add it to your "Favorites" so that you can easily refer to it.

If you are having problems and the ISP's status page shows that everyone else in your area is connecting without any problems, then logic would dictate that the problem is either at your end or somewhere in-between (i.e., in the phone connection between you and your ISP). If that's the case, here are some quick things to check:

a) Unplug the phone line that goes in to your modem and plug it in to a regular phone, and then using that phone start to dial a number by pressing just the "1". Now listen to the line. Do you hear any static or humming noise? If so, that's your problem and you will need to report it to the telephone company.

b) Next, remove any other devices that you might have on the same line that you use to connect with -- other phones, fax machines, caller ID boxes, surge protectors, etc. Also check the line from your modem to the wall plug and make sure it is in good condition and not wrapped around any other electrical devices or wiring. Now try to connect. If that solves the problem then more than likely one of these devices was causing noise on the line -- so just start adding them back one at a time until you discover which was the culprit.

c) Finally, check with your modem manufacturer to see if you have the latest software (drivers) for your modem. As mentioned above, it's your modem that is in charge of negotiating the connection with the ISP's modem, so the more current the software you have for it, the better job it's going to do in dealing with all the line impairments and noise that it's going to encounter.

d) If all that fails to solve the problem, you might want to just wait a while and try again later or on the next day. As noted, many of the problems you can encounter are because of noise on the phone lines -- and a lot of times, those problems can be temporary ones (weather can quite often cause temporary glitches like this).
What to do if problems persist
If after trying all the above the problems persist, then it's probably time to take a more detailed, technical look at the problem. If you are fairly "computer literate" and want to do some sleuthing on your own, a great resource for helping diagnose problems is at:

http://808hi.com/56k/index.htm

There's an interactive trouble shooter there that will guide you through the steps of diagnosing and fixing your connection problems.