connectivity test loop?

I have a basic script to watching mailbox for new emails with
cygwin/getmail, that works OK, BUT, occasionally, ADSL goes down,
generally, it comes back promptly, though, not always

as a crude workaround, I looped the script to itself as so, that works,
but, if ADSL is down for longer time, it just loops endlessly and
unnecessarily:

 $ cat sms
 #! /bin/sh
 cd /home/voytek
 LOG="/home/voytek/sms-record.log"
 echo `date` "started" >> "$LOG"
 cd getmail
 ./getmail -i folder
 echo `date` "ended" >> "$LOG"
 /home/voytek/sms

how can I make some basic connectivity test (against the mail server) to
delay getmail until connectivity exists ?


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