I try to connect to the internet using kppp. After openeing the app I click the "connect button and I get the following messages:
"initializing modem" ... (I can hear a very high pitched sound indicating the modem is active)
log window shows "Expecting OK".

However it takes up to a minute for the modem to 'initialize' before it starts dialing-in. It didn't use to do this in my previous installation (this is a re-install after I thoroughly messed up the fs and partition table) and I'm using the same everything (hardware, app versions etc.) I've had a look at the modem settings in kppp, but I don't see anything that looks different.

I've also looked under "System Settings->Network" (in Gnome) and the only setting I'm not sure about is "Enable IPv6 configuration" but it doesn't change anything in the initialization speed

is the modem switched on during boot?
have the modem switched on while the sys is booting,
or,
set the device to /dev/ttysX instead of /dev/modem.

It's switched during boot.
I have tried using it with Knoppix as well and get the same behaviour. In FC3 my modem is tty0 and if I make a link to /dev/modem it's gone after the next reboot. In Knoppix it's /dev/modem, but as I said, with the same behaviour.
In windows it works fine so I think I can exclude hardware problems since I've used the modem with FC3 before and it worked perfectly

Just in case anyone wonders what happened to this problem: I managed to solve it by making the wait time for the dialtone (one of the first optionsin the kppp script setup) longer. It appears the modem didn't get time to properly process the info before it was asked to give some output and so it took a long time to get it working.