Don't it make you want to pull your hair out?

Sometime yesterday, our internet connection quit working.

I tried a couple of things and had a party to go so I waited until this morning to call Comcast.

I took my laptop upstair next to the desktop. Neither could get a connection. I called Comcast and she had me hook up the laptop directly to the modem. Here's where I thought something had to have changed at Comcast.

My laptop did not connect.

She said, "Wait, with new equipment, I need to reset your modem." Ok, wait a couple minutes and my laptop connect. She said, "The problem is not with the connection. You need to contact your router support." I said, "I need a new router?" She said, "No, you need to contact your router support."

I heard "new router" anyway. But there was a reason she was telling me to contact my router support.

So I go buy a new NetGear router. It's a NetGear RangeMax Wireless Router. OK, please note the name of the product. We bought it at Best Buy.

I start to install it according to the directions, which were lacking to say the least. I get an internet connection to the desktop. Continuing on the "Installation For Dummies" path, I suddenly got an error. Restarted everything from the beginning. Nope. Then I went for the advanced path.

NetGear connected to their website, which sucks for support while you're setting up. I tried a couple of things, looked like I might be getting through, but didn't let me secure the network.

I start up the laptop, it finds the "unsecured" network. Fine. Then try to go to the internet through the laptop and no internet connection.

Then I call NetGear support.

I put off calling any type of computer support because they take forever and you end up with someone who has English as a second (and poor) language. It's more than frustrating as they run through their script. I had to ask him to repeat his questions numerous times and he finally said, "I need you to test the physical connection." I knew he was going to waste another hour of my time having me shut off modems and routers and computers when I already knew I had a "physical" connection. I was getting internet through the router, physically connected to the pc and modem. I finally just said, "Never mind, Never mind." and I hang up the phone.

I'm frustrated. I HATE having to do this stuff. I huff off downstairs and I complain to Bob, who's watching the Indy 500 Victory Banquet.

I go out to the garage to grab a drink and our home phone rings. No one calls on it anymore.

I pick up the "hard-wired" garage phone and I hear the same foreign voice. He said we got cut off. I forgot I called from the home phone and he must have redialed. I told him I did not want to waste my time when I knew I had a physical connection.

Then he was frustrated and told me that my brand new NetGear RangeMax Wireless Router was NOT a router, it was "an Access Point". What? He repeated it several times.

Now I was "physically connected" to the stupid phone in the garage. I cannot comprehend how he is telling me the wireless router I just bought is not a router. I yelled in the house to Bob to bring me the "wireless" phone. I took the phone and head upstairs and this guy keeps telling me I needed to buy a router to make the "Access Point" wireless router work. After reading off the box to him and tell him I just bought it from Best Buy AS a router he still tells me it's not a router.

Whatever.

I call up Best Buy's Geek Squad. I explain to the guy what the NetGear guy just said. He's perplexed, I'm sure, just like I was. He asks to put me on hold for a minute, comes back and said, "Well, when I asked my co-workers, they laughed."

I laughed.

Ok, Best Buy assures me the NetGear Wireless Router is a wireless router. But they can't help me other than saying it's not my internet connection and they can send a Geek Squad guy for $79 or $119 or $179 depending upon what I need. I decline even though I know I'll be frustrated most of the night.

So after Googling for 20 minutes or so I come across something called a MAC address on the pc. I don't have a MAC, so at first I think it doesn't apply. Then I read a couple solutions from normal geeks and it's a little confusing for some of us. I finally find enough information to read that sometimes the internet provider has implemented a security of one MAC address. THAT is why she reset it when I started the direct connection.

So the setting on the router had an obscure option of Default MAC address of the router or inherit the PC address. THAT's what I needed to do.

Ok, how many of those "techie" support lines had some knowledge of that? I wonder if that isn't what the Comcast support lady was saying, but why can't they just help you instead of sending you through a maze for hours hunting on your own.

Well, I guess maybe the NetGear guy wouldn't know it given that he thought my wireless router was not a router.