Expert: Miguel Cedron-Ron Date: 4/6/2007 Subject: Call alert
Question I'm using only one telephone line for surfing the net. My problem is how will I know that I have an incoming call.My telephone is not caller id supported. Is there other device to let me know that I have an incoming call. Thanks.
Answer I understand that you don't have caller ID. Anyhow, in this case, it would not help you much. Depending on what other features you do have on your line is what you can and can not do. If you have regular Call Waiting on your line, you may notice, depending on your ISP (internet provider) and what kind of modem you are using, that your internet connection drops when you get a call waiting call. This is assuming you are not blocking Call Waiting by having your computer dial *70 before the access # for your ISP.
You could opt to add one of the "Internet Call Waiting" services... How it works is, you add a feature on your line called Call Forwarding Busy Line and whenever your line is busy, your call will be forwarded to the service and you would get notification on your computer. Else, you could do something similar but have your phone company forward the call to a cell phone.
Last but not least, you could get a high speed data service from your phone or cable company. If you go with cable, you could drop your phone service all together, assuming you don't need it any longer (use your cellphone) or switch your telephone service to a VoIP provider such as Vonage, etc. You would probably end up paying just a little more than what you are paying now days for a phone line and dial-up service, and dependent on the area, end up with an always on, 50+ times faster connection.
