ate allergic to noise (AIX3.1)

[Applied Magnetics]

My phone line is noisy, as evidenced by occasional garble on the
screen.  That's my problem and it is being solved.  However, the
asynchronous terminal emulator program (ate) has a tendency to choke.
I can type ^V to get back to the menu, but if I try to, e.g. hang up,
ate freezes for good.  Hayes SmartModem on /dev/tty00, 3002.
A VT-100 terminal on the same modem shows the noise, but doesn't freeze.

Is this normal ?  Phone lines are never completely noise-free.
Am I stuck forever with a small probablity of locking ?

  --Pierre Asselin, R&D, Applied Magnetics Corp.  I speak for me.