My Qwest.net DSL internet was down for 2.5 days.  After an hour on tech support they decided to send me a new DSL modem.  It arrived today, and I hooked it up., and guess what?  Everything worked, but not for the reason you might think.

Back when this all started, I told the tech that my router was complaining about authentication errors, but she brushed that off. In the process though, the installation process for the new device ended up resetting the password for my internet service, so I decided to try the new password with the old modem.  Guess what?  It worked too!

I’m still not sure what happened in the first place. I tried resetting the newly assigned password to my old password, and Qwest said it was too long.

So, now I have two DSL modems, but it looks like I have to return one, or I’ll get charged for the new one.  Which one to send back?  The new one is an Actiontec GT701.  Its actually a full featured router, but Actiontec doesn’t have a good rep for reliability, from what I can tell.  I think I’m keeping my old Cisco 678.