Is there some way you can borrow a computer that you could run from your location to see if it is the connection that is the problem?

If your phone lines are "noisy," then the phone company needs to do something about them. I was having the same problems you describe (getting knocked off-line all of the time) when I first moved in to this house almost three years ago. The neigbhor said it was a chronic problem in this area, and it took several calls to the phone company to get them to do some trouble-shooting. Now I have DSL and the problem is long gone.

Good luck.

SRS