John Griffin paused, thought it over, and spoke thusly: >Bill I get the same speed you do. The reason is the quality of the phone >lines out here in the land "where the deer and the antelope roam." I >actually haven't seen any antelope, but certainly a car going by on the >dusty road becomes an event. > >There is just no other choice out here and until the next new thing comes >(High Power Community Access WiFi?), I am stuck with it. > >jg There is some help available if you're in the US. According to some obscure FCC regulation, IF you can call your local telco, and say, "There's intermittent scratchy sounds on my phoneline"... they are under an obligation to provide a cleaner line, which they do by putting a cheap capacitor [which acts as a low-pass filter, in essence boosting line level]<---suspect techie talk. Trust me, it works, first time, every time. The KEY here, is DO NOT say "my modem is slow" or "flipper said it has nothing to do with my Mac" etc.... Mum's the word on anything to do with modems, etc, as they are under no obligation to enhance, repair, or give a s**t about our setups. Dumb down, and just say, its this scratching noise, that comes and goes. Smart, eh? The 'intermittency' covers your butt when the tech says, "Sounds fine to me"...just stick to the script. ~flipper