[rescue] blue iMac and Verizon DSL

[Steve Sandau]

Phil Stracchino wrote:
> Steve Sandau wrote:
> 
>>I just received a 333MHz blue iMac from someone on a local Freecycle 
>>list. She was giving it away because Verizon told her that it didn't run 
>>a new enough operating system to be compatible.
> 
> [...]
> 
>>Can anyone enlighten me as to what is up with this Verizon deal?
> 
> 
> Simple.  Verizon DSL "tech support" are drooling imbeciles.  With the
> exception of the one time the first DSL bridge (well, actually, it'as a
> router that I've configured as a bridge) they sent us failed, we have
> yet to have a Verizon DSL outage that wasn't Verizon's fault, and we
> have yet to have a Verizon DSL outage in which Verizon DSL tech support
> did not, during the course of figuring out that the problem was on their
> side of the local loop, manage to blow away our authentication
> information and have to totally reset it.  (On at least one of those
> occasions, I actually *told them* what was wrong.  Naturally, they
> didn't believe me.)
> 

Sad, but believable from my tech support experience with various 
different providers. They do all pretty much assume we are idiots. (And, 
I suppose, some of us are...)

But what is this WinPoET and MacPoET stuff? Is this PPOE with a 
different name? Is it necessary? If a router gets around it, how?

Sorry for my cluelessness here, but the only DSL connection I have 
experience with worked just like any other DHCP connection: configure 
the machine for DHCP and plug it in.

Steve