Disconnections or noise on line

Disconnections or noise on line

There are many reasons “disconnects” may be happening. Here are a few of the most prevalent;  (See entry #5 below that also refers to a Silence Test for noise on the line)

1. Quality of telephone line connections can be a cause of disconnects.  Either your individual phone line connection or our servers line can be the culprit.   The phone company is the only one that can solve this type server disconnect and it is difficult to pinpoint this type failure.   If  you believe this is your problem, notify your phone company,  and ask them to check your service.
2. You are being timed out by your settings.  If you are writing mail,  or reading a long article while online you can easily be disconnected because the server does not “read” any activity.  Many times, what seems like just a couple of minutes is actually 10 minutes or more, thus the disconnect.
3. If you experience “disconnecting” immediately after sending/receiving email, your Outlook Express may need a minor adjustment as follows:  Open Outlook Express and go to TOOLS – OPTIONS – CONNECTION and remove the check that appears on Hang Up after Sending/Receiving Email. That should do it.
4. Your “call waiting” may be the culprit. To prevent this from happening, disable “Call Waiting” in the dialup settings as follows:

In WinXP- Start>My Network Places>Click,View Network Connections>Right click NFN icon and left click “Properties” In NFN Properties>Check “Use Dialing Rules”> Click “Dialing Rules”> Click “New”> Check “To Disable Call Waiting”>Enter *70 in box and click “Apply” the click “O.K.”

In WinME-  Start>settings>dial-up networking,then right click NFN>properties, and check “Use area code and dialing properties.” Double click the NFN icon and then click “dial properties.” Check “to disable call waiting” and enter *70. Then click “apply.”   (This procedure works the same for Win95 and Win98 except the dial-up-networking is found in “My Computer.”)

When NFN is dialed up and the Call Waiting is disabled you shouldn’t be “disconnected” anymore by incoming phone calls.

5. The quality of telephone line connections by Embarq can be a cause of disconnects.  Bad or noisy phone lines are the most common cause of dial up or DSL problems.  Dial up modem connection speeds and reliability are very susceptible to poor quality phone lines.

Try the silence test —- on a working phone connected to the line suspected of giving problems, pick up the handset, get a dial tone, and then hit the key “5”.   You should have absolute dead silence for 5 or 10 seconds before a beep beep tone is heard.  If you have any hum, crackling, or other noises, then you have a phone line problem that needs repair.  Try this technique several times, because if you have an intermittent problem, you may not hear the noise during every listening attempt.  Intermittent phone noise problems are the biggest single reason for dropped computer connections.

6. Some users that subscribe to DSL have experienced erratic connect problems when using dial in.  This has been traced to the fact that a DSL filter may be required on the phone line going to the computer’s dial in modem.  Some dial in modems are interfered with by the DSL signal on the phone line.