Hello,

I volunteer at a small radio station in Western Colorado. My general
field of expertise is UNIX and Linux servers, though oftentimes
nessecity forces me outside of that niche.

The station uses a plain-jane DSL connection for their office internet
connectivity. However, our local provider (Qwest) is problematic (at
best). Due to errors on the ISP side of the DSL connection, the
ActionTec DSL modem/router provided by Qwest often loses its
connection.

This is easily fixed by simply power cylcing the modem. However, due
to the volunteer-based workforce at the station, many times there is
no one availible with the ability to perform this task.

My question is this:

Do any of the readers here know of a device which can physically
switch off the power to the modem through a software control?

That is to say, for example, the software could execute a simple DNS
request to the ISP's name servers every thirty seconds. If the
request comes back accurately, then there's no problem. However, if
it times out, that would indicate the DSL modem has become
disconnected, and the power circuit to said modem could be interrupted
for five or ten seconds, allowing it to reboot.

I'm a rank amateur in electronics, but could what I'm describing be
called a "relay," or perhaps a "watchdog?"

Thanks for any advice you may have.