Much as I would like to turn this into the next “Ring” Cycle, getting a modem is a bigger nuisance than I imagined.
First the modem I ordered from Amazon did not work. Back in the box and back to Amazon it went.
Then I called Verizon on the assumption that they provided my Internet. Wrong. They sold their book of Internet to Frontier Communications, whoever they are. I got hold of Frontier Communications and they could not find our account in their records. I told Jason, the call center peon, that I was ending the call because this wasn’t in the least helpful.
I always think of Eddie Albert’s character, Oliver Wendell Douglas, on the Sixties classic sitcom  Green Acres, when these little collisions with reality occur. I don’t have to climb a pole to use the phone like he did though. Another reason to be glad I have underground utility lines.