This is a valid question and we feel the answer is also valid. Forbin has a policy regarding the process by which involuntary session disconnects are handled. This is our policy. First of all, Forbin equipment disconnects a user session automatically when one of the following two situations happens:

1) 15 minutes passes with no activity

This includes file transfer activity and/or keyboard activity. The reason for this disconnection is, if a user unintentionally stays connected and leaves the computer, they won't be subject to huge long distance bills if they don't have a local connection. It also frees up the modem/port/line so others can connect. This is typically an unintentional activity and seldom causes any problems or complaints.

2) Five Hours of Continuous Usage (regardless of activity)

Forbin has a policy against line camping. Line camping is the activity whereby a user stays connected to the network even though there is no actual usage occurring. This is usually accomplished by the camper running a program that causes some phony activity to make the server think that real activity is occurring. Typically, the offending user has a program trigger the server at about 10 minute intervals. This keeps it under the 15 minute no activity disconnect.

Very few users (other than campers) stay connected more than two hours per session. In order to prevent line camping, our equipment auto-disconnects a dial-up, non-dedicated user at 5 hours regardless of activity. It's a service and an economic issue. Our users tell us they need four hour limits.  We decided to make it five and monitor closely.   Here are the two issues.

Economics

A dial-up DIGITAL business phone line costs about $68 per month. We charge $19.95/mo. for a heavy usage account. Note that this is heavy usage, not dedicated. Dedicated accounts have no disconnections, their own phone number and a specific port for connections. A static IP address is also available. They are also priced significantly higher. For purposes of this discussion, assume we receive $20/month for the dial-up subscription. If we have a subscriber to modem ratio of 7:1, we would receive $140/month revenue and pay the phone company $68/month for the line. Nice profit! Not quite. That leaves $72 to pay for the following:

Terminal server, modem, CSU/DSU, 56Kb or T1 circuit, upstream Internet Provider #1,   upstream T1 connections, racks, e-mail, servers, DNS servers, backups for those, tape drives, advertising, insurance, salaries, benefits, overhead, travel, dealer fees, license fees, etc., etc, etc. Unfortunately, the list goes on and on. You get the idea. We're trying to make money and provide not just good service, but absolutely excellent service.

Heavy Usage

We term Heavy Usage to be 250 hours per month at a maximum.  Beyond that, it is considered near-Dedicated Usage.  250 hours to a business is about 12.5 hours/business day ... ample usage for a business without a dedicated network connection.  For a home user, it is about 8 hours per day if it is used every day.  Some companies have a get-a-life policy.  If you NEED Internet Access for more monthly hours than this, we have plans to meet those needs.  We just can't provide a line for full time, dedicated use, at the normal monthly rate of $19.95/mo.

Service

Pretend that we have 280 customers in a community and we have 40 modems to service them (7:1 ratio). This is a reasonable ratio that will nearly eliminate busy signals. If only 10% of our customers break the line camping policy, 28 lines would be tied up all of the time. That would leave 12 lines to handle the remaining 252 customers. Their ratio just went from 7:1 to a whopping 21:1. With that ratio, all you would get is busy signals and be very unhappy. The 28 campers would be tickled pink. They have access all of the time, zero busies and only pay $19.95/month for dedicated access.  Sounds very similar to AOL (America On-Line), doesn't it?

Why do people camp? Convenience and cheating. We have campers who login and leave the house/office. Then, when they come back, they are connected and don't have to click to dial. We have campers who do it just to make us mad. They do. It affects our service to you. That makes us mad.  This is also why we limit our Heavy Usage account to 250 hours per month without a warning letter being sent to the user, about Dedicated Usage.

Ok, so that is why we have a No Camping Policy. What do we do to offenders that get disconnected at 5 hours and have automatic redialers re-connect again for five hours? We don't renew their accounts when they expire. We actually want them to go to our competition. It will make our competitor's service and economics terrible and will make our service and economics better. It's pretty simple. We drive away our customers and we win! We're doing this to protect your service and our profitability. If we lose a good customer, that's bad. If we lose a camper, that's good for both of us.

Here Are Some Tips

If you know you are going to download a large file, disconnect and reconnect before you start the download. That will open a fresh five hour window. If five hours isn't enough, you probably need a faster modem. If that isn't in the budget, drop a note to support@forbin.net and we'll download the file for you and put it on our FTP server.  There you can retrieve it MUCH faster over the Forbin local network than across the Internet.

Another possible solution is to use Go Zilla! This is a shareware program that can be downloaded at http://www.gozilla.com. This will allow you to resume broken downloads.

Beyond that, you really need a business account to avoid the five hour disconnect.

Here is another tip. If you are a camper, please stop. We'll disconnect you and cancel your account. We want to. If you quit camping, we'll provide you with excellent service. You are affecting several thousands of our customers. Our software will detect you and you'll get a notice of intent to discontinue service. If you really need to be connected all of the time, you need a dedicated account. If you can't afford it, you need to either get by with less or earn more money to pay for the dedicated account. Perhaps you don't charge your customers enough money. Provide better service and collect more money, but please, don't take advantage of our customers.

Our customers deserve excellent service.