The modem upon which we had to use this string was making a fax tone (beeps) on connection attempts. The &F took care of that. It was also in a place where 56K connections were not possible, so it was choking on the 56flex (this is an x2/V.90 modem) and V.90 tones. Change the "V34" above to "V90" and the "28800"s above to valid V.90 connect speeds for faster connections on better quality phone lines.