Verizon, round N
Mar. 11th, 2009 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioDealing with Verizon has gotten less excruciating since I acquired the direct-dial number of someone in tier-3 tech support who seems to have a clue. We are definitely into the second-order problems now.
Muhammad (who I spoke with last week) did not approve of our modem, so he sent us a new combined modem/router (including wireless). It came today; if any paper it shipped with had included the modem's user name and password, I might not have needed to call for help in setting it up. The internet side of this is fine.
So far we have been unable to get the wireless to work with either Mac in the house (the only wireless devices we have). With WEP turned on, the password is simply not accepted. If we turn WEP off and go to MAC authentication instead, neither machine can see the network. If we turn off all security everything works fine, but we're not interested in doing that.
Right now our solution is to leave the wireless turned off unless we actively need it, but that's a short-term solution. To his credit, Muhammad said he would research this and call me back tomorrow. (I think he will; he also called earlier today to confirm the modem had arrived.) Muhammad isn't a Mac user (he called back to say "what OS?" and when I said "10.4" he asked if that was sufficient ID), so we'll see what happens. So far what Google is telling me is that other people with iBooks have had this problem.
Wireless is new to me (I've used other people's networks but never administered one). I thought it pretty much just worked out of the box these days, but I guess not.
Muhammad (who I spoke with last week) did not approve of our modem, so he sent us a new combined modem/router (including wireless). It came today; if any paper it shipped with had included the modem's user name and password, I might not have needed to call for help in setting it up. The internet side of this is fine.
So far we have been unable to get the wireless to work with either Mac in the house (the only wireless devices we have). With WEP turned on, the password is simply not accepted. If we turn WEP off and go to MAC authentication instead, neither machine can see the network. If we turn off all security everything works fine, but we're not interested in doing that.
Right now our solution is to leave the wireless turned off unless we actively need it, but that's a short-term solution. To his credit, Muhammad said he would research this and call me back tomorrow. (I think he will; he also called earlier today to confirm the modem had arrived.) Muhammad isn't a Mac user (he called back to say "what OS?" and when I said "10.4" he asked if that was sufficient ID), so we'll see what happens. So far what Google is telling me is that other people with iBooks have had this problem.
Wireless is new to me (I've used other people's networks but never administered one). I thought it pretty much just worked out of the box these days, but I guess not.
you're probably okay
Date: 2009-03-12 12:03 pm (UTC)If it's an option, jump straight to WPA2. WPA has its own (admittedly simpler) minor incompatibilities and security issues.
For what it's worth, both WEP and MAC authentication can be trivially bypassed by an experienced hacker, but they do still work because they make your access point slightly harder to use than your neighbor's wide-open "Linksys" AP. It's the "I don't need to outrun the bear. I only need to outrun you." (http://boyslife.org/jokes/6953/you-cant-outrun-a-bear/) school of security.