Hi Serth

Theres really two parts to the problem.

1 Your operating system - your operating system monitors and checks the modem. You can change the connection properties to your Internet Service Provider( with Win 2K open network properties right click the icon for your dial-up to your ISP and choose properties and then options, on that page there is a a pull down menu labelled "Idle-time before hanging up". Put this to a silly time(I have four hours!) and Bob's your whatsit

2. Your ISP also checks your connection but usually only on specific parts of the connection (pros call them TCP/IP ports) Most dial up modem routers the ISP's use look only at web or mail traffic (ports 80, 25 and 110) but not the port used for downloading (FTP or port 21) so if you do not use the web ot browse or anything else -down goes the line.

A neat trick here is to use your mail program. I do not know the program you use but this works for most. Look for the frequency that the mail program checks the ISP for new mail. Set it to automatically check for mail every seven or eight minutes. The ISP normally looks for traffic up or down line every ten minutes, The mail program checks every eight minutes so it "resets the clock".

Check that your browser hasn't got a connection manager too(look in tools,internet options with Internet explorer.)

If none of the above works the are some good shareware tools to monitor your connection state. Do a Google search on them...

Good luck

PaulC