Well at present it is working.. guess is for how long.
What I find most troubling is no one can explain why.
I don't think there is such thing in conventional subnetting as a 5 block of addresses.
/29 consists of 8 IPs, 1 net ID, 1 Broadcast and typically 1 GW, 5 usable.
My theory is that Verizon does chop up the /24 in the same fashion- reserving the one IP for the actiontec modem in the typical setup. That address is really the gateway for the subnet. the .1 is the "gateway" for all the actiontec modems on the supernet. look at a Comcast modem. It works the same way. If your assigned a static IP and you choose to use your modem in transparent mode, the gateway is the address of the cable box.
I could be wrong, I just hate not knowing one way or the other. Thanks for the response.
YES I am very hard headed