[ale] More modem mayhem

[David Brooks]

Generic question about modems:

Normally, I use the init string ATm0 with my modem (PracPeriph 56k Flex, not
upgraded to v.90 as of yet), which essentially dials but without making any
sort of external noise through the speaker.  Since my incident last week, my
modem has been somewhat flaky, but I managed to at least get linux to
recognize that there is in fact a modem on Com2 now (ended up having to move
some jumpers around from its original configuration.  Go figure)

However, since I'm trying to at least get some sort of recognizeable net
connection out of my box, I'm using the ATZ init string, which is pretty
standard and tells the modem to not dial silently.  When I dial up our
Lucents at work, the "modem noise" never seems to stop, and thus never seems
to start the handshake process.  /var/log/messages shows this (this is
obviously not a direct cut and paste, just giving the important stuff):

<pppd starts, modem inits, dials, etc>
    alarm
    failed
    exit.

I can pretty much deduce that this is not a remote problem with the
PortMasters because a) No matter what access number I try this with, the
same thing happens, b) I've even loaded FreeBSD using user-ppp and the same
thing happens, and c) we havent had an onslaught of hundreds of angry
dial-up users lambast our technical support department complaining that they
can't connect.

Anyone have ay sort of remote clue what may be going on here?

-dave
db at trusted.net

--
david a. brooks
trusted net, inc. [http://www.trusted.net]
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