Ok,
    I finally have time to chime in on this one ...

    First of all...Nick and all the others are right about the weather and phone
line quality...I had an apartment (in a quadplex) that was built in '41 and
whenever it rained I couldn't use my 14.4 modem...took 3 linemen and 1
Line'Lady' to fix the problem heheheh

    There was a screw down plate that would get wet when it rained and that
caused my problems :(   and you know how it rains in Portland, Oregon during the
winter!!! hehehe

An idea:  Try having the people dial into a PC at your site and see how the line
looks??? or have a third party company check out your lines???

Art "I recognized Lee Gunter at his Table!!! hehe" Bahrs

>>> Nick Demos <[log in to unmask]> 08/28/97 11:14pm >>>
>
> We have an HP3000 with a DTC, 4 various modems, and the support modem.
> Some of our remote users complain of getting garbage on their screens,
> not connecting at various times, and no login prompt.
>
> We had Bell Phone company come out and test the lines with 2 scopes.
> They say our lines are fine.  We can use a modem locally, and login
> fine, but users thousands of miles away have problems with garbage on
> their screen.
>
Bet it is still thelines, unless you have very old modems.   My experiences
with
the telephone compamy doesn't give me much cofidence in them.  At
different times during the day or different weather conditions the line
quality can vary.

My advice:

1.  Keep banging on the phone company.
2.  If your modems are old, get ONE new modem - Sportster? and see
    if that helpps.
3.  Try to determine a pattern for the failures and go from there.

Good luck.

Nick Demos  [log in to unmask]
Performance Software Group

Tel. (410) 788-6777 Fax (410) 788-4476