I call things what they are, a radio, a router, a power supply (poe I will call a power supply because thats really all it is) I dont want to be any part of the dumbing down of america. The biggest problem I find is with customer service reps who are too stupid to accurately relay a description of a device to a consumer. Ill correct a customer who wants to call anything that doesnt do modem work. If they dont have dial up, then they will rarely interact with anything modemish from heir perspective. It doesnt benefit me directly, but I correct them in the hopes that one day before they die some tech will be talking to them and tell them to power cycle their router and the customer will simply disconnect the power supply and reconnect it. After a long pause the poor bastard tech will be like "arent you going to ask me where the modem is?"
On Thu, Nov 19, 2015 at 4:34 AM, Adam Moffett <[email protected]> wrote: > My feeling is modem, switch, hub, and router get used interchangeably. > When they say one of those words, all you know for sure is that it's a box > with blinky lights and you have to play 20 questions. "What's this 'hub' > look like? What color? Any words written on it? Oh it's black and says > Cisco broadband router, ok gotchya." > > Like Bill, I always said the modem was outside. At my current job they've > established a precedent of calling the PoE the modem as Nate suggested. > Both approaches work, but calling the PoE injector a modem makes me cringe > internally every time I hear it. > > > > On 11/19/2015 12:44 AM, Ken Hohhof wrote: > >> What is this fascination people have with "modem"? They think they have a >> modem, need a modem, reboot their modem, look at the lights on their modem. >> Modem, modem, modem. I'd say the term comes up in 50% of all the calls we >> get. >> >> I even had a customer call today because they were retiring their old >> desktop computer, and wanted to know what to do so their phones, tablets >> and laptops would still get Internet. Answer of course is nothing, just >> unplug the old beast and get rid of it. But "everyone" told them they >> needed to get a modem. So they went to Best Buy, where the kid tells them >> yes that's correct, you need a modem, and sold them one. You need to take >> out that "power over Ethernet injector" and replace it with a "modem". WTF? >> >> "Modem" seems like "broadband". People use the term like it means >> something to them, but if you ask OK what is a modem, what does it do, they >> haven’t a clue. But they know they have one, or need to get one. I >> explain that a modem is a modulator-demodulator, like when you want to send >> one type of signal across a path designed for a different type of signal. >> Like Internet across a phone line. But our service is designed to carry >> digital data, so we don’t need a modem. >> >> Router on the other hand seems to a term people shy away from. Like it >> sounds obscene or something. Which I guess if this were Australia, and you >> pronounced it "rooter", would make sense. But the concept seems >> straightforward, you have a bunch of devices and the Internet, and the >> router is responsible for routing the traffic to the right place. It’s a >> router, it routes stuff. Why is that so hard to understand, yet everybody >> is comfortable talking about their modem? >> >> > -- If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as part of yourself you have already failed as part of the team.
