These are some possible reasons or causes:

You have been idle for 15 minutes or more

You have been connected continuously for 4 hours or more. You are welcome to connect immediately again. This policy helps us to share the modems fairly among our subscribers. If you need a permanent connection contact us.

Your telephone has a "call waiting" feature. Every time someone dials in while you are using the Internet, your connection drops. Disable "call waiting" before you dial in, or call Telstra to disable it totally.

Bad telephone line. Sorry, only Telstra can help you by connecting you with a better line. Talk to Telstra if you hear noises during a voice session, i.e., when you use your telephone line normally. Check for a loose connection or any wiring not properly joined or ended. Ask Telstra to give you a data grade or fax grade telephone line. Another way to get around a bad telephone line is to use a lower speed. If you are using a 56Kbps modem, set your connection speed to 33.6Kbps and try again.

You have other telephone devices connected to the same line. If you are sharing the same telephone line with other devices, be careful. Some telephone devices, like answering machines, are known to cause problems with your Internet sessions. Disconnect all other devices before you dial in. If you can then maintain a connection for 30 minutes or longer, you know what has happened.

Change the flow control for your modem from hardware to software. Some subscribers have solved the problem by implementing this change. If you are using Windows 95, start the control panel, double click "Modems", open the properties of the modem that you use. Select "Connection" page, click "Advanced", check "Use flow control" on the top right corner then select "Software (XON/XOFF)"option.

After all that, let us tell you something! Despite of all the hype, the Internet is not yet a perfect techonogy especially the connection between your computer and our server. The telephone system was designed to carry voice (anolog signal) and most Internet connections today (yours included) use it to carry digital data by way of a modulated anolog signal. That causes all sorts of reliability problems! There is a whole book written solely on this subject.

If the problem persists let us know. We'll do our best to solve it. We DEFINITELY do not disconnect your session on purpose!