Posted by Rome on September 13, 1999 at 23:04:56:
I've been having an awful time connecting using my ISP over the last month, and was wondering if anyone had some ideas to help. Here's the situation. I recently moved to Balitmore, before then I had been living in Norfolk. My ISP worked great in Norfolk, but when I moved I found that I simply couldn't connect to the new local number. It seemed that my modem was having a very hard time making the connection, and when it did, everything moved very slow (2 hrs to download my email.. text only). One thing odd I noticed when putzing around with my computer was that when I call the phone number, it doesn't ring, the other modem goes straight into the handshake without pause. Since then, I have been playing with other ISP's. I've tried compuserve and MSN (was using Netcom), and I've not been able to SETUP either, much less make them work. It seems like my computer is having the same trouble with their service as it was having with netcom's. Long delay trying to connect, then moving hideously slowly once done, making it impossible to even establish service with them. My guess is that either my modem got fried when I moved my computer (though I carried it myself, and didn't let the movers touch it.. so that's unlikely), or the new phone lines I'm using are crap. Anyone have any ideas? Every modem # I call seems to pick up before I hear a ring.. should that make much of a difference? And if it does, is there a switch I can add that will make it matter less? Thanks.. ...Rome...