Will Calls Register on a Landline Phone While There Is a Dial-Up Connection?

When you have a basic single line for your telephone service, dial-up Internet prevents you from receiving any phone calls at all. You are also unable to make calls without disconnecting from the Internet first. Once you are connected through your dial-up service provider, anyone who calls your phone number will receive a busy signal. You will not even know that you have missed a call unless the person calls back and tells you she received a busy signal earlier.

If you have call waiting on your line, calls work a bit differently when you are using your dial-up Internet connection. After you have dialed in to your service provider, any phone calls you receive will ring through on your phone. However, because data and voice cannot travel over the phone line at the same time via a regular phone line, you will be disconnected from the Internet to allow the call to ring through.

Getting disconnected from the Internet each time a person calls you can be an inconvenience, especially if you receive many calls. However, you can disable the call waiting to prevent calls from ringing through and disconnecting you. Disabling the call waiting makes your phone line act as a basic single line, giving callers the busy signal. To disable call waiting, enter your dial-up access settings and add "*70" before the dial-in number. This will disable your call waiting temporarily for the duration of your connection.

Software, such as PhoneTray Dialup, is available that creates a form of Internet voice-mail service for your dial-up connection. You typically must have call waiting on your phone line to use this software. When a call comes in, instead of disconnecting you from the Internet automatically, the software asks you if you would like to put your connection on hold and answer the call. If not, the person on the other end of the line can leave you a voice mail, and you can return his call later.