In computer news this week, 04/03/2002

Why your 56K modem isn't performing and who's to blame ....

For the past few years I've had a problem with dialup services, both national like AOL and Earthlink and local ISP's also. Has this happened to you ? You connect with your online service, check your email, then start surfing the web. Things seem to be going smoothly until you notice that when you click your mouse on something - there's no response. You look at whatever browser you're using and you notice that the lights which indicate data transfer are off. No matter how many times you click your mouse in frustration nothing happens, until after a minute or so things start working again.

At first I thought this was a problem with my modem, but I found my modem was working perfectly. Then I wondered if my online service was having problems, but they claimed they weren't. So what could it be? What other entity is there between my computer, and the online service I'm using. Could it be the telephone line?

The telephone line could be a major part of your connection problems; specifically the quality of the line. One of the best sites I've found providing information on your modem and phone lines is http://www.modemsite.com/ . Here you will find technical but understandable answers to questions on this subject, as well as several free programs you can download to test things yourself.

There are even programs that come with windows that allow you to do diagnostics. Microsoft includes a program named ping.exe that you can run in a dos window to test the response times of websites. Open a dos window and type " ping kpbx.org " (enter) and you should get a short report of times.

Another built-in windows program is tracert.exe which you run the same way and it gives a more detailed report. You will find instructions on how to use these windows utilities at this site, but there are actually better programs you can download to test both your modem and the quality of your phone line.

Ping Plotter http://www.pingplotter.com/download.html is a highly detailed technical program you can download and run to find out everything you wanted to know and more about your internet connections.

Modem Check http://www.mall.co.nz/utilitysoft/edit/downloads.htm is a smaller simpler program you can download, and you can use it to specifically check on the quality of your phone line.

There is also an online diagnostic you can run at http://www.modemsite.com/ where you can click on your symptoms and see a list of possible solutions.

I found that high connect speeds and poor performance are an almost universal problem if you are going through phone lines using a dialup connections. This is known as the phenomenom of modem retraining - your modem connects at a high speed - but because of the poor line quality it constantly has to adjust itself to the conditions - and thus you get the long delays while it retrains itself.

Probably the simplest solution is to disable the 56K part of your connection and connect at a slower more reliable speed. You can call your ISP and they should be able to tell you how to do this through control panel -advanced modem settings - enter a special modem initialization string which will turn off the 56K feature. You can also turn it back on as required.

I'm having mixed feelings about this patch solution. In testing I find that I generally don't get the frustrating minute-long delays that I was getting - but at the same time I'm surfing a lot slower. The problem of course is that once you get used to speed, you want more, especially on the internet, which wants everything you have, and more.

Ahhh, someday we'll all have high speed low-cost access, just be patient.

For Raw Bytes, This is Frank Delaney

POB 222 Spangle, Wa 99031 (509)245-3736 624-7230