David H. Lipman said:
I am on FiOS and there is no modem.
I'm sorry David, I meant
router. They install an Actiontec router with an ONT connection and Verizon branding. I have a friend in Baltimore with Verizon FiOS, and he hates the Actiontec router that they installed. Of course, he might not have so much trouble if his grandmother hadn't insisted that it be installed next to the microwave (he connects to it over WiFi from upstairs).
Anyway, on the subject of Actiontec, their hardware isn't bad. I used to have an Actiontec DSL modem, and it worked better than the service provider's modem, however it also had a built-in NAT which meant that I was behind the NAT on my modem
and the NAT on my router. Disabling the NAT in that Actiontec was not easy, and it did not respect port forwarding rules. I did eventually figure out how to set it to function in 'bridge' mode (which disabled its NAT, DHCP, and routing capabilities) so that my router was being assigned an IP address directly by my ISP, so that resolved that issue at least, however it still had higher latency than Zoom's Bridge Modem which worked out of the box with pretty much any ISP without needing configuration (which I would believe is still a unique feature). For average web browsing and watching videos, that Actiontec modem worked just fine. For gaming, however, it was not a good modem (admittedly it was an improvement over the ISP's modem, however that Zoom modem made the Actiontec look terrible).