People writing up true, average things they experienced.
Just tell them “I’m not interested”. These people aren’t trained to know how you want to set your network up, they’re trained to sell basic shit to serve basic needs to basic people.
All I see here is “instead of telling them I’m not interested, I had to flex my intellectual superiority because my life is fucking empty”
No wonder she was rude to you, she’s not paid enough to put up with your brand of bullshit.
The seller was male. It is hard for me to tell them I am uninterested in their product. If someone comes knocking on my door, I try to listen to what they have to say.
And I legitimately would have been interested in using Verizon, if I could separate the devices into two.
It might have ended up sounding like I was an asshole, but that was not my intention.
You can separate the devices. Buy your own modem, call customer service, register the MAC address. Verizon, Comcast, and most other telcos have procedures in place for doing this. They don’t do it by default, because that shit is daunting and confusing for regular people that just want to check their mail.
Can you get their modem to not be an access point? That is my biggest annoyance with modern modems you rent. They become access points which allow anyone to connect to their network.
Edit - I just realized you said buy a modem. I probably wouldn't buy one. They are too expensive. I'd want the separation of modem and router with just a rented modem.
No, you can’t. I agree that it’s annoying, but it not made for you or I.
If these are questions you don’t already have the answers to, though, you need to do some research before you commit to a self-managed LAN. Find out what modems are compatible with your ISP, the basics of pfSense/OpenSense, invest in a cheap machine to run one of the two, find out what it needs to perform its role, such as multiple network interfaces, and invest in a cheap network dumb switch and AP.