Yes, I want it to do this. Otherwise, people try to call us and it just rings and rings at their end but we don’t hear anything. “Gee, we tried to get through to you all day yesterday, where were you?”
With Juno Internet, incoming phone calls would bump us off (after about 4 rings at the other end–it would only ring once here). We were never able to figure out where you set this at, no matter how much we rummaged around amongst various Juno and IE5 setup menus. But now with this new e-Machines with Windows Millenium, MSN Internet, and Internet Explorer 5.5, we’re back to total silence from the rest of the world. So how do we tell it to allow incoming phone calls through?
We don’t have Call Waiting installed on our line, it’s just a regular household line. One line, one phone number. Plain vanilla. No answering machines or automatic dialing programs.
I cant remember the name,but I saw an add for a service that for a certain fee each month,it will notify you if anyone is trying to call you and who they are when your on the internet.
My first step in that situation would be to call my local phone company and inquire as to why folks who call don’t get a busy signal, as they should if the line is the ‘plain vanilla’ variety.
I do remember seeing modems that had call waiting built in at Bestbuy. I don’t know how to do it on the software end.
I also rember seeing the same service as Mike, IIRC they send you a sort of instant message when you get a call (with the callers name/number through caller ID) and you can decide to answer it or let it go to voice mail.
T-bone is right that callers should be getting a busy signal, does your computer automatically dial *70 to disable call waiting? Maybe that would change it from a busy signal to endless ringing.
This happened to me when I bought a V.90 modem, which doesn’t recognize the call-waiting signal. I bought a Call-Catcher, which is a box you attach to your phone line before it goes out to your modem. It recognizes call-waiting and chirps to let you pick up the call.
You need call-waiting to use it though. And it was $50.00.
Okay, so any ideas on why Juno Internet will disconnect when it receives an incoming call, without any of those call-waiting software or hardware thingies?
Hey, Ducky, try Pagoo. I have friends who suffer the same problem with AOL and being online, and being booted when a call comes in. Pagoo seems to help them out.
This isn’t a solicitation in any way, I don’t work for them. Just have heard good things about them. Good luck.
Hey, folks, we seem to be straying from the OP’s point. Ducky is, I think, trying to figure out what to do to make a plain vanilla single phone line behave as all such lines are designed to do. The *70 suggestion is irrelevant, since it only affects lines that are equipped with call-waiting, which *Ducky sez is NOT the case. The modems I’ve seen that are capable of beeping an incoming call are also generally dependent on the presence of a call-waiting service. What is with Ducky’s situation?
I would wonder about this, too. You might also check out the behaviour of the phone line without a dialup connection involved to help confirm what’s going on. Call someone, and have a third friend call you while you’re on that call and report whether they get a busy signal or it rings.
If they don’t get a busy signal, the simplest answer is that you actually DO have call waiting, whether you thought you did or not. Perhaps somebody screwed up, put call waiting on your line, and they haven’t been billing you for it.
Try callwave.com. I’ve got it. It’s a voicemail system for the computer. The caller gets a message that you’re online and they can leave a message. There’s a little box (like oen of those ad boxes) sitting at the top of my screen. It rings when a call comes in, let’s me know that it’s recording, then plays the message for me. And it’s free. Well, almost. You just have to pay the phone company something like $1.50 a month for forwarding the calls to callwave, and callwave will even arrange that for you.
I have Callwave as well. I used to have whoisit but they stopped the free service. With whoisit the phone number of the person calling appeared on the screen, which was nice; but with Callwave, if they don’t leave a message, you don’t know who called. Also, since I installed Callwave I have been having a freezing problem (I have the latest version). But for a free service, Callwave is good. I just wish I could resolve the freezing problem. I keep getting that window “trying to close internet phone service” when I click on a link.
Okay, I would know if I had call waiting, wouldn’t I? Isn’t that where it clicks when you’re talking on the phone and there’s an incoming phone call? We’ve had this same phone, same phone line, same phone number since October of 1986 and I’ve never noticed anything like that. We’ve never signed up for call waiting. I am 99.9% certain that when I pay the phone bill every month, there’s nothing in there about call waiting. Would McLeod USA give me call waiting without my asking for it? And then hide the charges under “Taxes” or something?
I don’t want it to beep and take a message–I want it to disconnect me from the Internet. Personally, I’ve always thought call waiting was a kinda tacky thing to do to someone–“oh, wait, I’ve got another call…[which is more important to me than your call]…”
We don’t even have an answering machine. We don’t screen calls. If we’re here, we’re here, and we pick up.
This is why it’s so important to have incoming phone calls bump us off the Internet. Yesterday The Cat Who Walks Alone’s BF got so desperate at not being able to get through to us all day (“it rang and rang, did you guys go somewhere?”–no, just that there were five of us taking turns all day surfing the Web at lightspeed with our new marvelously fast computer) that he rousted his cousin (with the car) and his cousin’s friend (who had to come along to “help”) at 10:45 p.m. and drove over to our house, hoping to find her still up. Which she was–surfing the Web, tying up the phone.
So it’s suddenly vitally important that we don’t miss any more phone calls.
I like the sound of these instant-message things. I’ve been on a computer where an incoming phone call automatically bounces you off the modem line, and I found it was not good for my blood pressure. Are you sure this is what you want?
Imagine this, CrankyAsAnOldMan has just posted some pressing question and she desperately needs to know if it’s true that when you play The Backstreet Boys’ latest single backwards, the third refrain tells you what color Brian Littrell paints his toenails. You, DuckDuckGoose, are the only person on the boards with the critical information that can attest to the veracity of this hot internet rumor. The thread is degenerating into an ugly cat fight between Arden Ranger, jarbaby, and myself because Arden claims she read that Brian is actually missing the toenail off his third toe on the left foot due to some bizarre fungus. jarbaby has called her a stinkin’ liar because it’s the big toe and and it happened when a he dropped an amp on his foot and it’s not even Brian it’s one of the guys from N Sync. Magdalene has jumped in and is outraged that anyone would even dare to compare the two bands in the same thread. Milossarian has chimed in that he doubts a member of N Sync would know an amp if it bit him on the ass. Cranky has started crying and rending her clothes in frustration.
You, DDG, can end this thing with your bit of knowledge, healing the bad feelings AND getting Cranky this critical bit of information so she can sleep again at night.
There you are, typing away like the wind with your erudite answer (as per usual). Suddenly, you get a phone call from Sears Home Improvement wanting to sell you windows. You get bounced! The answer disappears! Cranky suffers! Enmities solidify! Chaos reins! And meanshile the stinking server is so slow, you can’t get back on the boards even after you told Mr. Home Improvement to go stuff himself!
I’m telling you, this IM thing sounds like the way to go.
This one’s free, and requires no extra equipment or software, but it also might not work.
I used to have the same problem, and this how we fixed it. I’m not at home, and I’m on NT Workstation here rather than W98, so I can’t give you the exact things to click on.
Somewhere in your system–might be modem properties, might be the icon you double-click to launch your Internet connection; anyway, somewhere there’s a way to disable call waiting. Your system is doing this for you and it’s doing it too well, so you need to screw it up. Find that setting and change it to something that you know WON’T WORK, like *82, or something completely bogus.
Worked for us.
Bear in mind that if you play Diablo II online this is a VERY BAD THING TO DO, as our son found out. If you go linkdead whilst actually dead, you can lose all your equipment.
He was pretty upset, and we set things back to the way they were.
I tried a couple of those solutions and just gave in. I got a second line, just for my computer. Since it has no extra charges for extra services, never has toll or long distance charges (no long distance allowed, so no minimum fee). It adds $12 a month, but I justify it by peace of mind not missing a call. It’s just comes out of my entertainment budget, like if we went to a movie we’d blow $18 in two hours, and for TV we pay $x for cable.
Ducky, if you do not have call waiting or call forward (or a hunt group), both of which are additional fee services of you phone company then an incomming call while you are on line should get a busy. If they are getting a ringing then call you phone company and let them know that incomming calls are ringing to the caller when the phone is in use instead of a busy.
If you don’t have call waiting the caller should not be able to knock you off line - the caller should get a busy. Sometimes the caller might cause a click (not a call waiting beep) that could cause modem transmission problems. It sounds like this is a repair issue but if they repair it you will not get what you actually want.
Also a lot of small bell resellers are inculding call waiting as part of their ‘basic’ package so you wouldn’t see it on your bill. Test your line to make sure you don’t have call waiting don’t just look at you bill - whats on your bill and what you actually have could be diffrent.
