Man, I can defiantly tell that you are "New" school. If you noticed at the
beginning of the post I said "I am going to basic language here" meaning
that I was not going to try to confuse the original poster.

I know exactly what you intended, but the simplified explanation was simply
wrong, if not outright confusing.

All a modem does is take computer data and convert it into a simpler form so it
can be sent through the phone lines to the modem at the other end. It also
takes a signal from the modem at the other end and converts it back into
computer info.

That's what modems do in a nutshell. There is no simpler explanation than
that.

When I said the
modem gets confused, id didn't want to go into all this description, that
the poster may not understand.

A modem doesn't get confused. It simply gets interrupted, which is what
outside noises do.

It's like two people talking, but you drop a soundproof wall between them for a
couple of seconds.

Now, with the *70, many phone companies are starting to charge to use the
*70. You pay a monthly fee to have the option to use the *70 function.

Actually, you pay a monthly fee for the call waiting service itself. Of
course, this is for the telephone service with MCI Neighborhood. Your service
and their charges may vary.

However, the newer modems have a call waiting Function that will alert you
when a call comes in.

Only on modems compliant with v.92 and only on ISPs that support v.92. Not
very many ISPs in the world, however, completely support v.92. This includes
the big names like AOL, NetZero, Earthlink, and PeoplePC.

The reason is that the upgrade from v.90 to v.92 is very expensive with very
little gain, plus the rise of broadband acceptance has had an impact. There's
simply no incentive for many ISPs to widely support v.92 and the benefits that
it has.

But no matter if you are "Old" school, or "New"
school, everyone can agree that you modem will work only as good as you
phone connection.

That's always too true.

I personally have never seen a 56K reach 56K Maybe
someone out there has, but not me.

And you never will, at least in the U.S.A. FCC mandates restrict data
throughput rates on telephone lines to a maximum of 53k, and only if your phone
line is the cleanest that is possible with minimal or absolutely no D/A
conversion in the phone lines. - Reinhart