Hello meego,
ISPs often disconnect users after 20 or 30 minutes to prevent idle
users from hogging their limited modem lines. They typically do this
in a rather unfriendly way: their server modems simply hang up the
line without informing the client. The result is that your modem does
not realize that the connection has been lost. For this reason, it
thinks it is still connected. To regain a connection, you have to
manually reset the modem by disconnecting and reconnecting.
The best way to prevent this is to stop your ISP from seeing you as
"idle". They usually track data transfer activity to see who is idle
and who is not. Users that have transferred very little data in the
last half hour are likely to be disconnected because they are not
doing anything and are probably idle. You can prevent this one of two
ways:
1) Keep loading data from the ISP to keep the activity timeout from
disconnecting you
2) Download or purchase a third-party program that will simulate
activity for you
Do note that these methods may be in violation of your service
agreement with your ISP. Remember to check with the documentation that
came your Internet setup package beforehand!
Solution 1) Keep loading data from the ISP
You can load a streaming radio station, which would make the ISP
continuously send music data to your machine. If you enjoy the music,
then that's great; if you want to work in quiet, then you can turn
down the volume in the music program and leave it minimized. Either
way, your computer will continuously request data from the server,
preventing it from disconnecting you because of inactivity. A
disadvantage of this solution is that it consumes bandwidth. However,
if you are doing low-bandwidth activities (typing an e-mail), then you
can afford to spare some of your connection.
This page ( http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/8795/timeouts.html
) discusses timeouts and using a streaming audio file to simulate
activity in detail. It is written for WebTV users, however.
You can listen to any internet radio station for this to work. Good
examples are Live365 ( http://www.live365.com/ ), MostlyClassical (
http://www.mostlyclassical.com/ ), or New Zealand Audio.net (
http://www.audionet.co.nz/live.html ). These radio stations stream in
MP3 format, which you can play with Windows Media Player (
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/download/default.asp
) or Apple's QuickTime Player ( http://www.apple.com/quicktime/ ).
Both of these programs work on Windows 2000.
Solution 2) Use a third-party program
There are many programs that can simulate activity by repeatedly
pinging a server or by loading pages in the background to prevent your
ISP from disconnecting you. WebAttack has a great page (
http://www.webattack.com/shareware/comm/swdisconnect.shtml ) with a
long list of such shareware programs. A variety of rated programs (so
you know that they will work) are listed. Some programs are simple -
they just repeatedly load a small piece of data - while others are
whole suites of internet tools, providing you with a dialer, activity
log, etc.
While searching for such programs I also came across Yonc (
http://www.emtec.com/yonc/ ) which is a full internet tools suite. One
of its features ( http://www.emtec.com/yonc/features.html ) is that it
can simulate line activity to keep it from being disconnected.
The first solution (audio file) is the cheapest, but running streaming
audio in the background may take up too many system resources and too
much bandwidth for your liking. If you enjoy music, however, then the
first solution is best. The second solution is good if you want
something you can install and forget about. If you opt with buying a
program, I recommend that you try all of those listed on the WebAttack
page by downloading trial versions. If one works for you, then you can
purchase it.
I hope this helps, and good luck with your internet connection!
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