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May 31, 2009

Comments

2Wire modem _should_ have been able to handle the higher speed. Ah well.

Save this phone number: 1-888-777-9569. After a few of the "punch 1" things, you'll get to Qwest Tier 1 tech support. If the DSL light is blinking, that means your DSL circuit is down, has absolutely nothing to do with your wireless or computers.

How do I know this? I'm tech support for a local ISP that provides ISP services to Qwest DSL customers. I do this for a living....

Jeff, thanks for the info. Yes, I figured that a blinking DSL light shows that the DSL is down. That's why I was eager to tell Qwest about this, as it showed that the dropped connection wasn't my computer's fault -- but a lack of DSL to connect with.

Interesting to me the difference between Qwest DSL and what I have been using for Comcast cable internet the past few years. Occasionally I see neighbors from my laptop with that "2wire" name, indicating that the dsl modem includes an integrated wireless access point. I have also noticed that they are limited to WEP encryption.

For Comcast however, what I did originally was purchase my own Linksys cable modem, and hooked it up to my pc, and then got things running. Then I unhooked the pc, and hooked the cable modem to a Netgear Wireless access point and hooked the pc(s) to the wireless access point. The Netgear Wireless access point has a programmable MAC address, so it can assume the identity of the PC from Comcast's perspective. It would be interesting to hear if you can do the same with DSL, so that one could choose a wireless access point of their own choosing. The Netgear access point also has the more secure WPA wireless encryption. This setup has been running 24/7 without problems since 2003. Only very rare downtime, perhaps once every 6 months that I have noticed.

I would like to upgrade the Netgear AP to one that has secure VPN in capability, so that I can access my home network securely on the road, but so far no AP's from any vendor have stood out as being reliable.

Nw, I had a choice of security schemes when I installed the Motorola modem. I chose WPA. The key sure is long, over 20 characters, so I can't remember it like I could with the previous WEP key. But it sounds like WPA is considerably more secure.

qwest is the best...

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