[rescue] blue iMac and Verizon DSL

[Bryan Gurney]

On Tue, 23 May 2006 23:44:51 -0400, Steve Sandau <ssandau at gwi.net> wrote:


>> Yeah, that's the good way.  Telcos like PPPoE because it's cheaper and
>> easier for *them*.
>>
> So, it appears that they handle business DSL and home DSL differently.
> What a surprise.
>

Sheesh, Verizon is STILL using PPPoE for the consumers?  I remember having
their service in late 2000, and it was slow and downtime-prone.  In October
2000, something happened that made it impossible to connect for three entire
days (perhaps their PPPoE server went down or something).  At that point I
called them up and cancelled the service, because it was the last straw.
I had purchased a Linksys BEFSR41 to handle the PPPoE authentication because
WinPoET was a bloated and instability-prone piece of software (it probably
still is).  Back then the forums at dslreports.com recommended using either
RASPPPOE or hardware-based bridging with a BEFSR41 or other "broadband
router".

Not that the DHCP setup isn't without problems; shortly after
canning the Verizon DSL, I remember accidentally twiddling a hex digit in
the BEFSR41's WAN MAC address masquerade when I had a CLEC DSL, and I was
locked out.  I had to call the ISP and have them read off the MAC address
that they had configured on their DHCP server.  That was back in the bad
old days, when the ISPs didn't want you connecting more than one computer,
despite the fact that you would only be able to download and upload your
allotted maximum bandwidth (but then ISPs always oversell, so they probably
wanted to make sure that most of their customers were using only 1% of their
alloted bandwidth or less).