Wireless LAN Woes on Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.2

Well this isn't a photography issue other than I was having connection issues with my PowerBook G4 1.25GHz Mac. I wasn't able to connect to the internet via Airport after upgrading to 10.5.2. I scoured the interwebs trying to find out what the problem was. I was able to ping other FiOS IP's and the DNS server for my FiOS connection but I wasn't able to actually see the internet. I could access my D-Link router and my DVR on this side of the router but nothing outside my little world.

I called FiOS support and after about 14 minutes I got someone who was able to help me out. We did the normal reboot the router routine which didn't solve anything. Here is what helped me out. We reset my WEP key. For some reason after upgrading to 10.5.2 the OS hosed my WEP key in such a way I was able to ONLY see the internal network. Strange as it sounds this fixed the problem.

I asked the support person why this answer wasn't online and he told me it's only for Mac's and didn't effect lots of users. Well after he told me that he gets calls all the time for this type of problem with Mac's. Seems to me like there is a need for a solution to be posted online so here it is.

Reset your WEP key on your Airport connection to get access to the internet back.