Well, I might say I was pleased to finally get my "linmodem" driver working yesterday under Fedora Core 3.

On the other hand I am now a little perplexed to find that once connected, the web browsers and email clients do not recognise that a connection has been made.

I have tested with firewall up and down, but the same result.
All modem tests complete successfully at the command level.
The modem is definitely connecting and login is complete.
It is just that the Application layer doesn't see the Network layer.

Has anyone else had a similar experience ?

The solution just has to be staring me in the face, I know, but it is like not being able to see the wood for the trees.