In article o.uk,
"Dave Liquorice" writes:
On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:20:35 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:

It seems to me that a modem should be able to re-connect
without external help;
I wonder if there are ADSL modems around that do this?

Yes, mine does. It also has a configuration setting to not do this.

What is your modem.

ZyXEL P660R-61C

I have ZyXEL P660R-D1 (basic modem with NAT) and ZyXEL P660HW-T1 V2
(more advanced modem with NAT, Firewall, WiFi), and both auto reconnect.

Still have a couple of old Dynamode R-ADSL-C1 modems. These also
reconnect, but do periodically lockup for other reasons and so are
regularly checked and if necessary rebooted by a computer on site.
Eventually they die completely.

Also still have a very old BT-badged Alcatel modem as a spare, which
reconnects without any problems. These are infamous for the internal
mains PSU dying, but mine's still OK.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]