My router has a one year warranty. I’m in year two of having FIOS for my Internet and phone service. No replacement router for me. The support technician said that I could use any ethernet router with the service. It didn’t need to be a Verizon router unless I have Verizon TV over FIOS. I don’t, so the extra Linksys router that I had in the closet would work out great. Except it didn’t. I googled “Verizon FIOS Linksys router” and found a lot of information that indeed the Linksys router would work with my FIOS, but the stupid thing wouldn’t sync. I figured that this router was also broken. That was next to impossible. The Linksys worked when I put it away a couple years ago. It should work.

Another call to Verizon to see if I was doing something wrong. Jason, the Verizon FIOS tech gave me the answer that the first tech didn’t and the Google search didn’t as well.

When you change the router from any one to another with the Verizon FIOS service you have to ask Verizon to do a “DHCP release”. That was the magic word that I needed to ask for. I plugged in the Linksys router, Jason did some configuration magic, and voila! I have Internet access again.

I hope that I put the right keywords so that someone else with this problem can find the article.