I love being a "long term" trader. My broker could go down for an hour and that wouldn't be a big deal. My quotes are 30 seconds behind? I couldn't care less.
bebe's technique on checking the TWS is exactly what I use. The purple/pink grid shows the drop of the heartbeat, and the tip of the day shows a complete restart. Otherwise, I chalk up any "drops," which are just delays, to Internet problems (routers having trouble somewhere between me and IB, most likely due to worms or spam).
lost it three times this afternoon here in the southeast - around 1:40pm est lost some coin too but not because of the disconnects - but rather because *I was* on the *wrong* side of the market. Stops were honored though
No problems here with Comcast in California. Try using this and figure out where the connection is stuck: http://www.pingplotter.com/index.html