Quote:
His guess was this: My Alcatel modem was denying the address confirmation that the Central had given out to the receiver.


The Alcatel modem thinks that it is authoritative for that subnet, so if it sees a DHCP DISCOVER or DHCP REQUEST for an address that it didn't hand out, it sends a DHCP NAK -- meaning "you can't have that address".

The Central's (delayed, deliberately) DHCP ACK for the address doesn't arrive in time, so the Receiver doesn't get to use that address.
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-- roger