dialup error: TCP/IP reported error 718

After upgrading NT to Win2000, one of my dial-up connections doesn’t work anymore. On the dial-up dialog box, I get:

“Verifying user name and password…
Registering your computer on the network…
Checking network protocol connections…
TCP/IP reported error 718: THe connection timed out waiting for a valid response from the remote computer.
”
The error seems to come after some timeout.

RAS error code list on MS KnowledgeBase article Q163111 mentions:
718 PPP timeout.

some possibilities?:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q181546
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q219353

any solutions welcome.