Howard2k

I was helping a buddy with his home network the other day and we did the usual reboot the router and DSL modem combo and still he could not get access.

I know that he had transitioned his DSL access from his corporate account to his personal account so I figured perhaps they had disabled his account or whatever. I checked the logs on his router and the PPPoE session was not being established.

So I call Bell (the local DSL provider here) and speak to the guy on the phone and sure enough he gets out the script. "PPPoE from the routers will often not work with their DSL Switches so we need to remove the router from the equation." Funnily enough he didn't know what a DSLAM was.

So I connect the PC to the DSL Modem and don't get an Ethernet connection on the DSL Modem. But I was browsing the router configuration previously so clearly the Ethernet cable works. Despite his protests that obviously it does not.

So I tell him "I'll force the duplex setting to half and the speed to 10Mb/s and see if that works". He then says a confused sounding "ok..." and let's me do it. Then he says "So exactly what did you need to do outside your apartment?"

This guy was confusing duplex in networking terms with duplex in apartment terms. And he does tech support! For networking products!!

So I asked him if he'd ever heard of the 802.3 Ethernet standards. Nope, no idea.

How do these people get jobs!! Incredible.

All I needed him to do was reset a PPPoE account password but the guy was clueless.

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