[BillThyCat]

I keep mine dialed up by keeping my push account on. If you don't have a push mail account you can set a free one up at live.mail2web.com.
Since it's always looking for new mail it keeps the inet connection live yet keeps it idle so that phone still works as a phone.

This is probably the easist way to do it without having to modify the registry.

Are you running a custom rom? or the stock rom?

BTC