Call Waiting doesn't disconnect

[Bob]

Hi,

We WANT our call waiting to disconnect us from the
internet when someone calls. I can't seem to get it to
do it. Our old laptop alerts us the call is coming in
but not our new desktop (both are XP).

I have checked the dialing rules and "To disable call
waiting: dial *70" is NOT selected.

Any help?

Bob

 

[allan grossman [mvp]]

Hi, Bob -

The last time I did this for someone was about ten years
ago - thanks for the memories ;-)

My friend had a spiffy new high-speed (I believe it was
9600 baud) modem and his mother complained that she was
missing calls - used to be when the phone rang the call
waiting tones would kick my friend offline and the phone
would ring. With his shiny new US Robotics external
modem the modem would absorb the call waiting tones and
Mom didn't get her phone calls.

After much research what we ended up doing was disabling
error correction on the modem - which is probably okay
for viewing web pages and such but I wouldn't trust the
solution if I were downloading files. Also, it might be
good to understand that this will make your Internet
connection considerably less reliable.

All you have to do is add "\N0" (no quotes - and that's a
zero after the N) to the extra initialization commands in
Control Panel --> Phone and Modem Options.

Again, this will most likely kick you offline when the
phone rings, but without error correction enabled on the
modem you're liable to see corrupted downloads and be
kicked offline a bit easier. I can't tell whether it's
an acceptable tradeoff for you, though.

Hope this helps -