TELEPHONE COMPANY CALL WAITING


  Note:  I believe "Touch Tone" and "Call Waiting" to be registered service
         marks that belong to the telephone company or AT&T, and they are
         used here as such to the best of my ability.  "Procomm", "Procomm
         PLUS", and "Datastorm" are also registered trademarks of Datastorm
         Technologies.  All are used with the utmost respect and humility,
         and only for the purpose of making these comments comprehensible.
         Further, what works for me may not work for you, and I accept no
         responsibility one way or the other.  Now on to what I hope will
         be the helpful material.


We are frequently asked on the Datastorm Forum on CompuServe what to do about
the telephone company Call Waiting service.  If you are connected with Procomm
and have Call Waiting service, the signalling from the telephone company that
you have a waiting call will disrupt your data communications, most often
causing a complete disconnect, or at best a garbling of communications.

Take heart!  To explain this takes longer than to do it.

Your local Telephone Directory in the front information section under Custom
Calling Services should explain how to cancel Call Waiting.  In most cases
you can dial "*70" from a Touch Tone phone ("1170" from a pulse phone) to
cancel Call Waiting for the duration of *that* call.  Normally the telephone
company porovides some sort of acknowledgement that the calcellation has been
received and is now effective.  This acknowledgement may take the form of a
"beep-beep", or a new dial tone after a bried pause, or both.  Note that this
cancellation is for the duration of *that* call, and once you hangup the
cancellation of Call Waiting is no longer effective.  The call you wish to
place with Call Waiting disabled must be completed before the telephone is
hung up.

Before proceeding farther it is suggested that you manually dial a number on
your telephone with this prefix to disable Call Waiting so that you know:

             If it works from your telephone,
             What the telephone company acknowledgement is,
             The timing of the acknowledgement sequence.

Then check your modem manual.  Does your modem honor the "W" (wait for new
dialtone) command?  Does your modem honor the "," (the comma as a pause in
the dialing sequence)?  Does you modem actually accept and properly send the
"*" character?  Not all do so, so it is better to check now.

To set up any Version of Procomm or Procomm PLUS to cancel Call Waiting for
the duration of that particular call, the Call Waiting service must be
discontinued in the modem dialing string of that call.  The modem setup for
all Versions permits you to insert a modem Dialing command.

     In Procomm 2.4.x this is at the Modem Setup Item 2) Dialing command.

     In Procomm PLUS Version 1 this is at Modem Options Item B- Dialing
          command.

     In Procomm PLUS Version 2 (and Procomm LITE) this is at Modem Command
          Options Item B- Dialing command.

     In the forthcoming Procomm PLUS for Windows I am sure you will be
           able to find it in the modem setup.

Those of you with Touch Tone service will probably find that this is set to
"ATDT" (without the quotes).  Those of you with pulse dial service will find
this most likely is set to "ATDP" (without the quotes).  The examples here
assume Touch Tone service using "ATDT" (without the quotes).  We will also
assume that your telephone company uses "*70" (without the quotes) as the
command to cancel Call Waiting for the duration of that call.

Depending on the Call Waiting sequence commands, acknowledgement, and timing
used by *your* telephone company, we can change this modem dialing command to
send the codes to cancel Call Waiting on every call made by Procomm or
Procomm PLUS (except those where you make use of the TRANSMIT command in a
script to transmit the dialing sequence) by changing this Dialing command.

If your telephonme company acknowledges the *70 you dialed manually above
with the usal "beep-beep" and an immediate new dial tone, you can change the
"ATDT" to "ATDT*70," (without the quotes).  The *70 is dialled and the comma
adds a two second pause for the acknowledgement and the new dial tone, and
then the modem continues with its dialing of the number and waits for a
connection.  This works in most cases.

If the response of the telephone company before you get a fresh dial tone
exceeds two seconds, then you may have to add an additional comma to get
a four second pause.

If the response of the telephone company is really erratic in length, then
you might try replacing the comma(s) with a W modem command, which tells
the modem to wait for a new dial tone before continuing with dialing.

Some combination of these should do the trick for you.  You will have to
tailor it for *your* telephone, since not all of them react in exactly the
same way.  Remember you can always experiment by doing the dialing from the
terminal screen of Procomm or Procomm PLUS to see what works properly, by
entering, as an example: "ATDT*70,5551212" (without the quotes).  If this
works properly for you, then the "ATDT*70," (without the quotes) can be used
to replace the "ATDT" (without the quotes) now used as your modem Dialing
command.

If you are using scripts which make use of the TRANSMIT command to send
the telephone number, you can change these scripts to use TRANSMIT
"ATDT*70,555etcetera" instead of TRANSMIT "ATDT555etcetera".  For users of
Procomm PLUS Version 2, and the forthcoming Windows Version, remember that
after changing your script you must recompile the script in order to make
the changes effective.

For those who are interested, a word about the modem "," comma command.
The length of the pause provided by the "," in a modem is normally 
controlled by the setting of the modem S8 Register, and the default is
usually 2 seconds.  If you have changed the setting of your modem S8
Register to a different time, then you must adjust the strings above.

After answering hundreds of questions on the Datastorm Forum I can't help
but add that you should become knowledgeable in the use of your modem, and
understand its commands.  Although Procomm is the brains of your
installation, the modem is the heart.  It does the pumping of characters to
and from your computer, and you must comprehend it and manage it properly
to get the best results.

If, after checking your local telephone directory and company and consulting
your modem manual you are still having problems, Post your question on the
Datastorm Forum with as complete information as possible on modem type,
Procomm Version number, etc., and you'll get good help rather quickly.

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