On 24 Feb 99, at 10:37, Robert Cunningham wrote:

> Is her PC capturing the phone line merely by being turned on?
> Though we both seldom surf at the same time, it can be annoying to
> have to shut down her PC just to get my email.  I could connect my PC
> to our first phone line, but that is impractical for certain reasons.
>
> What is going on with these selfish little PC's?  How do I teach
> them to share?

  I don't think I've seen this exact scenario -- but I might have a fix
for it anyway.

  My local electronics store sells a modular telephone dingus -- looks
just like a small modular extension -- billed as an "Internet
Connection Saver".  Sells for about $7.95 usually.
  Basically, you take a phone line that is split n ways, and put one of
these on each of the splits.  When a device goes "off hook" (picks up
the phone line), the savers on the other splits all cut out so that the
call cannot be interruoted (or overheard) from an extension.

  Ultimately, I think you're going to want something like this so that
neither of you can try to connect while the other is on line.
  But my hunch is that even if this is something her modem is doing,
this will isolate your use of the line from her modem, and so it may
fix your current problem as well.


David G

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