My home PC's internet access is currently on a 56k dialup service. Lately something frustrating has been happening.
What happens is that the data being downloaded (whether d'ling email or web pages or files) stops. I have a counter that I can launch from the system tray, and it shows how much data is coming in and going out (that's how I discovered last year my PC was infected by a worm - the outgoing data was much higher than normal). There is still some bits/bytes going out, so I know the connection is still valid; it's the incoming data that stops.
So I have to disconnect/reconnect. Sometimes it works, sometimes the problem will repeat itself. There appears to be no pattern; the problem just strikes randomly.
While it's not a critical problem, it's downright irritating & frustrating. Especially when downloading email. When this happens, I have to download *all* the email from the POP server all over again. So you can imagine the time it takes, especially if someone has sent a 2MB or 3MB attachment (which my wife's friends are fond of doing).
I spoke to the tech support of the ISP. They said to check my modem, check my phone line, blah blah. I suspect it could be a problem on *their* end.

Could anyone suggest some possible causes for what I'm experiencing?

<font color="lightblue">Change ISP. </font>

I intend to - another local ISP has just launched a volume based broadband plan that looks quite attractive, and I pay as much as I am currently for a dial-up.
But I am curious as to what the cause of all my dial up difficulties could be...
[img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

<font color="lightblue">Bad ISP. [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>

emmm..you might want to consider having different ISP at one time. thus when one acting funny you'll still have the other to play with.

A better ISP is definitely in order. I had this problem with a few ISPs. Ive had 2 ISPs in the last 3 years that were truly reliable. Its frustrating when they make you sign a year long contract then provide a crappy service. Make em take you to court and sue you for the money.

In the meantime, get cable DSL or ADSL depending on what country youre in.

I just got cable here in Australia and now I download at 1.5 meg per second and I never have to worry about getting disconnected, or even dialing up for that matter. Screw 5.5kps. 1.5Mbps is much more to my liking. :D I downloaded 4.5 GIGs in 5 days. Try that on dial up :D