Constantly disconnected, is it the modem?

Question

In the last month or so, my modem has been disconnecting every 3 to 7 minutes, sometimes I can stay connected up to 20 minutes, once in a great while it will remain connected over an hour. About every 6 attempts, I get a 'can't connect to server, check your settings' error, at which time I immediately try again and it connects. The error is usually, "the modem has unexpectedly hung up".
My question is, is it my modem, or have the phone lines in my area reached such a dismal state that I can't stay connected? Even though the phone connection seems clear for voice, I also have problems sending faxes (external fax) and get 'poor line condition' errors - which has been going on for years.
Back in the days when web pages were designed for 56k modems, I could back the modem down to 32k. Nowadays it takes days for a page to load at that speed. I am getting desperate. I am 16 miles from any broadband source, and cell phone coverage is more off than on, so broadband is not an option for me. I have it at work, so I know what I'm missing - wish it was the other way 'round.

Answer 1

Dial up phone service is the absolute worst media for data communications. The copper wire between you and the central office (CO) probably is run on joint use poles. That means that power cables are within ten feet of the phone cable and will induce AC into it. The twists per inch are less that CAT 3.
How old is the cable? What type of sheath does it have? Is it grounded properly? Did a splicer put a splicing connector in his mouth and get saliva on it causing the wire to act like a low band AM antenna? Do you have rodents that like to sharpen their teeth on the cable?
All of the above is just betewwn you and the local CO. What type of switch does the CO use? Solid state, crossbar or step by step? Crossbar and step by step will cause line noise every time a connection is made or broken.
You mentioned that you're 16 miles from the nearest dsl source. This means that you're probably going over a carrier system to get to the closest modem pool. What kind of carrier is used? When your call goes over a carrier is voice compression used? What level; 32K, 24K, 16K, 8K?
On top of everything else you will never take the same path through the public switched network. Sometimes it'll work great, sometimes you're toast.
The telcos will not guarantee any data transmission over the voice network. In fact they don't want you doing data because it completly wrecks their Centium Call Second (ccs) calculations.