How to reconnect to DataOne when first attempt fails?

[unni]

Hi everybody,
Although this isn't a serious problem, it has been troubling me for quiet sometime. I am using Mandriva 2007 and KDE. I connect to DataOne using the 'Net Applet' utility in my task bar. But, occasionally, when I tell it to connect, it fails. I don't know what's the exact reason. When this happens, I can connect only after rebooting. If I do ps -e|grep ppp, I can see pppd daemon and several pppoes when the connect attempt fails. If I try to kill pppoe with pkill pppoe or killall pppoe or kill, it is just started again. Assuming pppd is starting it, if I try to kill it, KDE logs me out. So, how can I connect in such a situation without rebooting? Also, what's the command that the 'Net Applet' utility is actually running to establish the connection?
Is there any utility similar to 'Network Monitor' in Gnome that would indicate data flow?

[praka123]

for knowing your network status u can use pppstatus utility.I use debian +rp-pppoe .in debian/ubuntu it is like pon dsl-provider and stop with poff.i cant get ur pppoe processes?needs to be only pppd?
for available interfaces up u can try "ifconfig" command.
afaik in fedora aswellas mandriva u can try cmdline-adsl-start and adsls-stop for controlling pppoe.the ppp n/w will be ppp0 most prolly.so try running adsl-setup or pppoe-setup and make two launchers for start and stop on either in the panels or on desktop.cli tools are more reliable yaar!