I am thinking of getting Bellsouth

BellSouth told me that their dialup using v.92 standard 56k modems automatically cuts off and on when a phone call is received, and when you hang up it returns to the internet to where u were cut off. Does anyone have any feelings about this feature?

Called "modem on hold" at

Sure, any "wireless box" can work if you have a NIC in your dialup computer.

Enable ICS and simply connect the NIC to "wireless box". If the "wireless box" is a wireless router, disable it's DHCP. (ICS is the DHCP server.) If the "wireless box" is just a standalone Access Point, shouldn't have to do any configuring on it's WAN side.

Did this a while back before getting broadband. It'll work, but (obviously) only is (nearly) practical for one device for even just web browsing. It gets painful with only a second PC. Worked great for several PC's just emailing though.

Cheers, Eric

Yeah, MOH is possible with V.92

Obviously, you need to be subscribed to Call-Waiting with your telco to use MOH.

If you have Caller-ID, MOH also works with "Caller-ID on Call-Waiting".

I.e., if you are online and a call comes in, a dialogue box will pop up giving name of caller and option if you want to take the call or not. If you do take the call, the modem goes on hold for a select (telco specific) amount of time. Its usually only a couple of minutes you can keep the modem "on hold" while taking the other call.

Obviously, if you set up a (W)LAN, you'll only get the MOH message on the computer doing the dialup.

I used MOH years ago and it "worked" somewhat. At the time, v.92 had just emerged and the drivers (Lucent) were pretty flakey. Sometimes the MOH wouldn't pick up the CW and the modem would simply disconnect, sometimes the CW would be picked up but not CID, sometimes the modem wouldn't properly switch back over after dropping the second call, ect. Imagine it should work much better today though.

May be different now, but at the time I only was given two minutes of "hold time" from the telco, which didn't make MOH all that practical. You'll have to ask your telco how long of "hold time" you are given.

Cheers, Eric

Thanks Reco, I have been checking my number for yrs for dsl. Still not in my area and currently no plans to add it...ty

Jennie, take a look at Bellsouth's DSL starter service, the price for our region of the country is not all that unreasonable v what you pay for a normal phone line.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Where generally do you live? With adelphia in your address, I'm guessing some where just north of Georgia and west of North Carolina. Is Adelphia's cable rate too high for the budget?

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.