wvdial starts p-p protocol neatly but...
 

... when I start mozilla, or any other browser, they respond like there's no connection to the internet. Why? Obviously, wvdial starts the connection and it runs properly, modem LEDs show that clearly as well as the wvdial's output, but somehow the browsers cannot use the running connection. Why? I'm using RH 9.0.

Also... when I connect through the Network Device Control, it also beautifully connects to the net, and now the browsers can even use the connection, but it is deadly slow, arround 1KB/s. Why? I removed all of the firewall restrictions.

When I use KPPP to connect to the internet, the connection is faster, arround 4.5 KB/s. But... my modem is actually external terminal adapter for ISDN line and it's one-channel speed should be arround 7KB/s, or 64000 kb/s. It seems that KPPP does not recognize the existence of modems with speed of 64000 kb/s, since there's no such choice among available modem speeds, and even when I manually change the modem speed in kppprc file to the correct value of 64000 kb/s, it still calls pppd with speed parameter set to 57600. Funny, isn't it? (BTW, the modem does not respond properly if I set it's speed to 115200 kb/s which is the next available KPPP's choice after the 57600)

And finally, when I connect through the older version of Red Hat that is still installed on one of my disks as a souvenir from the good old times when everything worked smoothly, and I'm talking about the 7.1 version, there's no any trace of the problems described above (except the one with KPPP, but I never used it anyway). In RH 7.1 everything works fine and the downloading speed is always arround 7.0 KB/s as it should be.

And finally finally...
I'm a little disappointed with these connection problems in the newest version of Red Hat. Although I'm pretty old user of Red Hat (since the 5.3 version), I'm not very experienced with setting up the connection manually, simply because I've never had any problem setting it up automatically with the available tools, and therefore I'm putting this topic in the newbie's section. So please, be kind and help me. Thank You (at least for reading to the very end of the message).

Although none has replied, maybe someone would be interested that I solved the problem by simply putting the incorrect value of modem speed to 115200 kb/s. Now, the downloading speed is as it should be, that is 64000 kb/s :).

However, it works only when I connect through Red Hat's Network Device Control program that you can find among System Tools in the main menu. It does not work with KPPP.

So, if you also have too slow connection, try playing with various modem speeds, even if they drastically differ from the speed declared by the modem manufacturer.

Although now I have the internet connection with the expected speed, I'm still courious why the system cannot use the connection when I create it by wvdial. I'll just repeat that the connection starts and runs according to wvdial's output and modem lights. Yet, the browsers act like there's none internet connection. I configured manually wvdial exactly the same way like I used to configure it in RH 7.1. But in RH 7.1 the browsers recognize the ongoing connection created by wvdial and in RH 9.0 they don't.