The following describes the type of dilemma we have all experienced at one time or another: that of trying to get one technology to work with another technology. The zone in which those technologies actually connect is a no-man's land that you must invariably traverse alone.

For example, if you install an HP CD-Burner on a Compaq Computer, and it doesn't work, do you call HP or Compaq? It depends on whom you ask. HP says to call Compaq. Compaq says to call HP. This is just a rhetorical question not based on real experience— you could substitute any name for Compaq or HP.

A real-life experience worth repeating did recently find me in this no-man's land (or maybe no-woman's land) between my Internet Service Provider and the System Administrators at work, leaving the responsibility for making them work together solely up to me.

So I say: Internet providers of the world, take heed! Cable modem and digital subscriber lines are encroaching upon your territory. They offer the addictive combination of quick access and constant connections. After using Cable or DSL for Internet connections, it is very hard to go back to the miseries of dial-up.

But at least for a while, you have a niche market: the traveling user who has cable/DSL at home. Hotels are beginning to offer the business traveler T1 lines for fast, reliable access. But the hotels that offer such are few and far between, and if they exist in areas where I travel, the room costs lie outside the price range that my company will pay.

Our family is one of those "early adopters" who installed a network and signed up for cable modem. We're quite happy with our service. It's not without glitches, but the RoadRunner guys are both earnest and honest, try hard to fix what gets broke, and even warn us in advance when they are doing maintenance so that if they break something, we'll know what's going on.

They did initiate a dial-up service several months ago. I immediately signed up, but was unable get in due to the buggy password authentication routine. I waited a couple of months but never heard anything more about it. Recently I e-mailed customer service asking why. I received a prompt reply from Daniel D. Kerr with the following message: "Right now, the older product has been dropped for the exact reasons you saw with having problems connecting. RR is looking at another vendor and is trying to get the support set up for that product. I hope to have something shortly that we can begin testing here and then release to the customer base. That's the tough thing about a beta test. We didn't know what issues would pop up until we had customers on it, but there was the risk of the project being canceled (which it was.)"

I have a long-standing dial-in account with ATTGlobal.net (formerly IBM.net) so I wasn't in any particular hurry to switch to another service. Until now.

I would have discontinued my ATTGlobal.net account a long time ago if it weren't for three benefits: first, I use it for Internet shopping so all the junk mail goes there. Second, at $4.95 a month, it's cheap and reliable. Most important, I can still use it when I travel, since my cable modem doesn't have a cable that will stretch to Seattle or Minneapolis.

Until recently I used a Gateway laptop on the road. Running Windows 98 with a Pentium 120 processor, it was slow, but I don't get that much mail on the road, and I'm not much in the mood for anything but a quick e-mail check after a 14-hour work day.

Recently my company issued me a Dell laptop running Windows NT Workstation. When I first got the Dell, a conflict between network card and modem card kept me from using the modem at all, so I continued to carry the Gateway for communications purposes.

When my system administrators got the modem working on the Dell, I thought I could retire the Gateway until I tried using my ATTGlobal dialer. I could hear the modem working. It sounded like a modem should when dialing in and connecting.

But during password authentication, I kept getting an "Error 000057" message. After three such messages, I used my cable-connected machine to log onto the ATTGlobal Web site and did a search on "Error 000057." The site gave me the useful explanation "Unhandled Event." Period. No "See also." No "This means that... " No "Take two aspirins and call me in the morning... "

Since my modem had never behaved to begin with, I took this to mean more modem problems. When I was pretty sure the modem was working correctly, I assumed an incompatibility between Windows NT and the ATTGlobal dialer program (I still think it a small miracle that anything works with Windows NT.)

For days I fiddled with the system settings, read the documentation on the ATTGlobal site, and tried to patch together what I knew about Windows NT, modems and dialers. I came up with a blank.

When all else failed, I tried to log on using my trusty old Gateway. It failed, too. Not the same error message, but during the same event: password authentication. Thus began my relationship with ATTGlobal customer service.

Hoping to avoid hours on hold, I sent an e-mail describing the problem in detail and asking for help. After eight days, I still had no reply except for an automated message logging an incident report.

I gave up and called ATTGlobal.net. To my surprise, they answered quite promptly and after about 20 minutes, we had my Gateway laptop working again. Since it was about 6 p.m., and since I got through so quickly, I told customer service I'd call back the next day to work on the Dell laptop.

The next day, I called back and again got a prompt response. Since my Dell laptop is administered by the System Administrators at work, the customer service representative suggested that I only write down the settings that needed to be made or changed, then discuss them with my SA before making the changes.

The SA and I made the required changes the next day. I reinstalled the Global Dialer in hopes that it would correct any dialer setup problems. A day later I stayed home to test the dialer on my Dell laptop.

Holding my breath, I dialed and waited. "Error 000057." On my third phone call to ATTGlobal.net I waited about 30 minutes to talk to a Customer Service Representative. The representative told me to make further changes, which I made as he talked. But I had to hang up to test them, since I no longer have a second phone line in my office, and he was unwilling to call me back on my cell phone. I dialed again.

"Error 000057." I borrowed my son's cordless phone and called again. Another wait: 20 minutes (I bet they ID the repeat callers and when they come up in the queue, it's a signal to take a coffee break.) Another Customer Service Rep walked me through a few more changes. I was able to test them right under his nose. No matter what he did, old 000057 remained with us. The Rep said he had done all he could and told me he was referring me to the next level of Customer Service. He took my number and told me that they would call me back. It took me eight days to realize they were not going to call back.

I e-mailed a second problem report, using some very frustrated language. A couple of days later, I received an e-mailed reply suggesting that I check WSP Client in Control Panel and disable the WinSock Proxy Client. After I un-checked one checkbox and rebooted, my dialer sprang to life.

I wish I could say my story is happily over, but that is just another step toward progress. The whole purpose in having a dialup account is to save my company long distance expenses by dialing a local number via my ISP, then using the connection to get into my company network. This is called Virtual Private Networking using the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (VPN/PPTP). The System Administrators and I have not quite established compatibility between my ISP and our network, so we're still tweaking.

Until we're successful, I have several options available to me, none of which I like.

1. Dump ATTGlobal.net and go with an ISP with demonstrated compatibility at four times the price.
2. Limp along with what I've got till RoadRunner has a dial-up service, hope they don't charge an arm and a leg for it, and hope that their dial-up is compatible with my network and VPN.
3. Dump ATTGlobal.net and pay the long distance charges for direct dialing my network, hoping that the charges won't add up to as much as an ISP's monthly service charge.
4. Don't connect with the network when I travel. Hope no one needs me.