No carrier detected although modem detects ring

hello! i'd be really grateful if any of you can offer some advice regarding this problem of mine. each time i try to dial up another computer using a phone dialer program, i receive this message " no carrier detected. please check your cable". what does it mean by checking my cable? what kind of cable must i use? is it a different one compared to the one i usually use for internet connection? i tried using hyperterminal to check my connection but the same message was received. the phone rings at the other end but when picked up by the computer, no data could be sent or received. it's as though a connection couldn't be made. why is that so since the computer could answer the call? thank you so much for your attention. i really appreciate this. do reply me as soon as possible.

Humm, it's been a LONG time since I've used a modem and you don't give any specific details about your setup, but I'll give it a stab anyways...

I would guess the receiving computer is not setup to "answer" the phone. Since you made no mention of using any software on the receiving computer, I'm going to assume there isn't any. In addition, I'm going to assume the remote computer is using a completly different phone line because you can't "call" another computer using only one phone line.

The first thing you need to do it set up the modem on the receiving computer to answer an incoming call. To do this, you can use software that will set the modem to answer and connect to the other computer. PCanywhere is a popular product that does this very well. If you don't have software that will set it up, then the only other way to get the modem to answer the phone would be to do it manually by issuing the modem a command.

Sending a command to a modem is very easy. Open Hyper Terminal and create a direct connection to the modem via the com port used by the modem and set up Hyper Terminal to use vt100 emulation. When an incoming call arrives, you should see in the terminal window "ring". when you see this type in the command "ATA" (without quotes). This will tell the modem to "answer" the call and create a connection.

It is possible to issue a series of commands to a modem using a command string that will set the modem up answer the phone automaticly. Most modems are Hayes compatable but before I go into any other details about setting command strings, I would prefer to know what brand and model the modem is.