a spare C5500XK fiber modem router

The power at my house blinked off briefly yesterday afternoon. It wasn't just me, because I immediately heard yelling from the house next door. Power returned within a second or three, but my internet service did not resume.

I used my smartphone's cellular network to make a hotspot for my desktop computer, and I connected to a webpage chat with QuantumFiber. They couldn't fix it remotely and scheduled a tech to visit me this morning. The tech was late, which is unfortunate, since I couldn't connect to the work vpn on my hotspot, so I lost some work hours this morning. I expect to recoup that loss by working on Thursday morning instead.

The tech left the house a time or two. One time I thought they said they were going to the "FSAI", whatever that is. Ultimately, they couldn't fix it either. They replaced my modem, which I discovered because they left behind the old one. (I had a photo of its MAC in case it would help me with troubleshooting with QuantumFiber.)

So what open source firmware are the cool kids using these days for their routers? There are more options now than I remember from just a few years ago. I suppose each of them must have a list somewhere of what devices they support. I just need it to work on the C5500XK SmartNID. If I could get this one working, then it would be a great immediate drop-in replacement for whatever the next problem is. Of course, if some hardware failed inside this device, then I just have a doorstop with a pretty flashing blue light.