Hi Trades,
Interesting story !!
A few quick points.
Most all modems are now going wireless or wireless/wired combo.
- My new Verizon is a combo - wired/wireless with modem and router in one box. I have everything
hard wired, and want to find out if I can turn off the wireless transmitter. Don't know that I can.

Make sure you don't use a portable phone on the 2 Ghz. frequency - will kill it.
- If you have a neighbor that does that could get you at times. Some have a fair range.
- There are some new wireless routers that use both frequency bands for extended range. Then you have to use a different type of portable phone that operates in the 1 Ghz band (I think) and I can't recall what they are called, but readily available these days.

Cable vs. Telco DSL:
If everything is up to snuff, both are fine. Most problems are with the local company and the associated hardware they use as you noted in your post.

One thing about Cable though (that the Cable company NEVER mentions) is that you can have throughput problems (speed - mainly down link) due to the way the Ethernet link is implemented on the cable. It is a shared connection, the more users strung out on your section of cable, the more traffic (you may see this around 5 to 7 pm). That is not an issue with DSL.

Still don't have fxstreet working. I had concluded that they were having problems as it would all of a sudden start working again ??? I'll sort it out eventually.

Interesting. Dx just zoomed back up to 80.620 in the it took to type this.
Lee