Getting bumped off the net.....HELP

[too-tall]

Help me guys,. For the past week I have been getting kicked off the net if I stay idle for about a minute. Yes I have dial-up. The phone co. and my ISP say there is nothing wrong on their end. So I went and bought a new modem. My Dell is about a year old. I still have the same problem. As long as I am surfing and changing pages, everything is all right. If I stop to read an e-mail, or read something on the screen, after about a minute I an disconnected from the net. I have no problems getting back on, I just cant stay on.
I went to control panel to check and see if I had a time-out setting. I do but it was not checked to disconnect after"X" amout of minutes.
If its not the phone line, not the ISP,not the modem, Not my time-out settings, what on earth could it be?
P.S. I know nothing about computers so please make it simple.....

Thanks all
Too Tall

[lrb111]

It maybe that someone is kicking you off. That used to be a ploy of pranksters. Then it became ploy to hog more limited bandwidth.
Your Internet provider could be lying to you also. The front desk rarely really knows what the techies are doing.

What you might try is setting up a ping in the background., to cover the possibility that you are getting timed out. There are programs out there called "ticklers" that do the same.

to set up a ping. Go to Programs> accessories> command prompt.

In the black window type:
ping name_of_your_isp -t

hit enter, and leave it running.

To make this automatic open Notepad. Type it in there, and save it to your desktop as pinger.bat
Then you will only need to double click it to run it.

pm me if you need more help.

[Texian]

Who is your ISP? Have you looked into broadband? If you do consider a change, talk to others in your area first before making a decision.

Personally I would rather do without internet than go back to dial-up. I would definitely cut expenses somewhere else to have it.

[lrb111]

Actually, there are some broadband ISPs that deliver quite a bit faster speeds than DSL. I'm on a wireless connection, and 5 miles from the tower. We run the net, phone, etc over it. We run Motorola Canopy modules, way better than plug in cell adapters.
Just pulled a speed test: 6113kbs down, 1117 up.

We get quite a few converts from DSL in the one small area where we compete. Rural an DSL are mutually exclusive terms in the lesser populated areas.

[Texian]

Since the subject of just what "broadband" internet access means came up, I thought that the article from Wikipedia about this topic might be helpful. The information presented there does at least indicate that everyone agrees on a couple of points:

dial-up is not broadband

broadband speeds must equal or exceed 200Kbits/Sec (most believe a minimum of 768)

You should be aware too that wireless solutions are much more likely to experience outages in inclement weather (e.g. heavy rain, fog, snow/sleet) and that cable is shared bandwidth and during periods of peak usage can be drastically lower than advertised speeds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_internet

[BobH]

There's a setting in the properties for your dialup networking which has a disconnect after a certain amount of idle time.

[lrb111]

Actually, there are some broadband ISPs that deliver quite a bit faster speeds than DSL. I'm on a wireless connection, and 5 miles from the tower. We run the net, phone, etc over it. We run Motorola Canopy modules, way better than plug in cell adapters.
Just pulled a speed test: 6113kbs down, 1117 up.

We get quite a few converts from DSL in the one small area where we compete. Rural an DSL are mutually exclusive terms in the lesser populated areas.

Interesting, what company is this running off of? Last time I read about the big 3 (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T), their service was maxing at about 1.5 megs a sec, and averaging around 500-768k.

I work full time for the retail ISP. http://www.ridgewoodcable.com There are many like us. http://www.solbroadband.com is in the DFW area.
We purchase and resell the bandwidth. Technically we sell "up tp 2.5mbs" down and "128k up", but we don't choke it. 3mb down and 1.5up are common speeds. Normal users are on and off the net much more quickly. We don't allow anyone to operate a server on our bandwidth. Those are the only folks that get "notices".

Running cable to these extended service areas is becoming absolutely cost prohibitive. The Motorola Canopy system is perfect for the rural areas, that have grown up. Because the cost vs service benefits are competitive.
It is "the" hot ticket for rural delivery. The next big deal appears to be 'net over power line'. Unless some real breakthrough happens there in the near future, we are probably looking a 5 to 8 years out, before it begins to really roll out. Trial systems are going in now.

apologize for the hijack, but maybe someone operating a similar system is available in some of the areas under dial up strain.
It's not an option folks are highly aware of.

[melkor41]

Remove any splitters/couplers and replace the phone cord. Make sure it goes from the modem to the wall.. not modem to the answering machine to wall... or anythign like that.. If your going over 25 feet see about getting a jack installed closer. If your using wireless phone jacks... throw them away.. they were designed for sat boxes low speed modems, not high speed computer modems, and dont reliably connect at anything higher than 9600bps unless the signal is perfect. They just were not designed for it.

When i worked for a huge dial up ISP splitter/coupler/replace cord fixed 95% of the "cant stay connected" calls, the rest fixed another 3% or so and the leftovers were just plain weird.....

[Tahoe132]

Are you still having the problem?

If so...

Are you using a Lap Top? If so does this happen when your computer is plugged in or unplugged? Sounds like a power management problem to me if you don't have a time out time.

Regardless of what you answered, try this..

Go to your Control Pannel. Click on "Network Connections" Right click on your NIC card and choose Properties.

Your computer may very a little bit, I will walk you through how it is done on my computer.

Click "Configure" then go to the "Power Management" tab at the top right. If checked, uncheck the box in front of "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"

[AEA]

What email program are you using.

Outlook Express (and probably Outlook) have a option to disconnect after send & receive. This may be your problem. Check you settings in your email program to ensure that this option is unchecked.