“Who knew that Qwest was still around? I sure didn’t.”

You must not live in the southwest, or pay any attention to companies outside your bubble.

“It’s far easier (but not necessarily cheaper) to get a standard modem and buy a wireless router separately. But I suppose that isn’t the point.”

As someone who does tech support and DSL installs, this makes me laugh. It’s not at all easier to put one router inside the other to someone who is not trained in networking (the modem acts as a router). What if the modem and router both use the same subnet and gateway for the LAN? How is the average home user supposed to understand why that won’t work and how to fix it?

“Seriously, don’t buy a wireless modem from the broadband company itself, it’s bad for your health (and it’s stupid to do so). After all, I think this is what really matters in the story, had they gone with just a standard modem and a router from a third party, all this could have been avoided, sorry folks, but it could have.”

Yeah, and either way they have to hire a tech to come out and do it for them. Adding a router is going to increase their costs and cause more potential problems down the road, if something goes wrong. Sure, they could do it themselves, but people can also change their own oil, although most people don’t.

Perhaps they thought it would “just work” like plugging in a Japanese camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0qbP-rIpRg