Handler story (not mine)--

There is an elderly couple from my church that have subscribed to the <name deleted> Satellite service for a number of years.  <name deleted> has decided to drop their satellite service and go to an internet <name deleted> service instead.
So they notified all of their customers that they are turning off the satellite at the end of the month so a box is being mailed to them with easy instructions on how to connect it to their existing Internet service.... Easy, anyone can do it.. (Right).  Anyway, the elderly couple got the box in the mail on Monday and attempted to connect it.  The instructions were poor at best but they gave it a try.  When they couldn't get it to work they called me and I went over last night to help them out.  Easy instructions right?  How long could it take?  I got there and attempted to connection the gateway/router/cable modem/whatever you want to call it box to the existing wireless network in their house.  I scanned for the network and wa-la came right up with the network....  put in the WPA key and it started the connect and came back with unable to connect, dhcp failed.  I checked a couple of other things then called <name deleted> tech support. After waiting on hold for quite some time I was finally connected to a technician.  I explained that I was attempting to connect the system and when I put in the WPA key it attempted to connect and then came back with the DHCP failure. 

You are not going to believe what I was told.  Yep, you got it, sorry you need to change your network to WEP.  Our system only recognizes WEP.    I could not believe what I was hearing.  I informed him that the change was not going to happen on their network, explained to him why, and then explained to them how totally irresponsible they were being.  He said that he totally agreed, however, the company that they are purchasing the hardware from does not know how to do anything but WEP.  He said that they were working on figuring it out, but it isn't going to happen for a while. He said that he has only had a couple people that complained about the WEP thing and that they did change their security so that they could watch <name deleted>. He stated for the most part no one complains. And my response was.... do you suppose it is not because they don't care but rather that they don't know/understand. He said... yeah, you could be right.

And we wonder why we have so many issues on the net.

 I'm out for the night, Adrien is here to take over..  Enjoy the podcast in the meantime!

Joel Esler

http://www.joelesler.net