Replying for both Moe (dig the ID, btw) and Sebastian.
Thanks again for all your help.
OK...my old modem is a USR Sporster 56k external on the com port. Runs like a champ. I've had it for about 7 years or so.
The new modem is a USR 56K USB.
I had bought the new one for the faster upload speeds for updating my websites.
On both modems, they typically want to connect at 49.2, sometimes higher. But I was getting dropped about 1/3rd of the time. This happened on the old machine as well.
The old modem has the commands to set max and min connect speeds. Right now I have it limited to 45.2 and I don't get dropped as often, if at all. It does retrain once in a while. I can tell when RD/SD are low when there should be stuff moving. Only takes a few seconds to retrain. I can live with that as long as it's not actually dropping the connection.
The new modem does not have those commands so therefore it always connects at a high speed, and eventually I'd lose it.
As for the DSL, when I tried to get it but couldn't get sync, they came out and checked the line. Turned out I am something like 24,000 feet from the switch. I was told it typically tops out at 17-18K feet. They couldn't but barely get a signal at the J-box down the road which was supposed to be at about 21K feet. I was told they are working on a new system that can go further, but no telling when it would be available.
Shit, I just wish I could have a fiber optic right to the CPU. :)
Brian