brad@kontron.UUCP (Brad Yearwood) (04/12/88)
I was just reviewing phone bills to try to see what Usenet might be
costing us and so on, and discovered, to my horror, a call of
2912 minutes (!) beginning on the night of December 24 from Mountain
View to a New York site that we occasionally connect to. The total
cost of this modem misadventure was about $450.
At the moment, I don't see any good way to track this back to its
cause. Perhaps our system crashed hard during, say, the login
sequence for a uucp connect, and the destination system didn't
hang up their line after too long without successful login.
Question is, does anybody make any sort of cheap sanity timer that can
be interposed between a modem and the phone line? Just something simple
and utterly reliable to go back on-hook after a selectable time (1, 2, 3
hours) off-hook would not bother typical legitimate uucp transfers, but
would prevent senseless waste like the above.
Brad Yearwood
Kontron Electronics {voder, pyramid}!kontron!brad
Mountain View, CAmbr@aoa.UUCP (Mark Rosenthal) (04/14/88)
In article <1839@kontron.UUCP> brad@kontron.UUCP (Brad Yearwood) writes: >I was just reviewing phone bills to try to see what Usenet might be >costing us and so on, and discovered, to my horror, a call of >2912 minutes (!) beginning on the night of December 24 from Mountain >View to a New York site that we occasionally connect to. The total >cost of this modem misadventure was about $450. > >At the moment, I don't see any good way to track this back to its >cause. Perhaps our system crashed hard during, say, the login >sequence for a uucp connect, and the destination system didn't >hang up their line after too long without successful login. > >Question is, does anybody make any sort of cheap sanity timer that can >be interposed between a modem and the phone line? Just something simple >and utterly reliable to go back on-hook after a selectable time (1, 2, 3 >hours) off-hook would not bother typical legitimate uucp transfers, but >would prevent senseless waste like the above. The Multitech 224EH modem has an interval timer which you can set. It will automatically disconnect any call in which there has been no activity for a specified period of time. I think the timer can be set to one of the following: 10 min., 30 min., 60 min., or disable feature. -- Mark of the Valley of Roses ...!{harvard,ima}!bbn!aoa!mbr
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) (04/15/88)
In article <1839@kontron.UUCP> brad@kontron.UUCP (Brad Yearwood) writes: > > Question is, does anybody make any sort of cheap sanity timer that can > be interposed between a modem and the phone line? Just something simple > and utterly reliable to go back on-hook after a selectable time (1, 2, 3 > hours) off-hook would not bother typical legitimate uucp transfers, but > would prevent senseless waste like the above. I seem to recall some sort of thingie along these lines in the "Black Box Catalog"... -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|ihnp4|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@uunet.uu.net Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
dbb@aicchi.UUCP (Burch) (04/15/88)
Black Box company (A division of Micom) makes a sanity timer. -- -David B. (Ben) Burch Analysts International Corp. Chicago Branch (ihnp4!aicchi!dbb) "Argue for your limitations, and they are yours." - R. Bach