Your provider has an "ethernet" card at their end. You are virtually renting a physical slot at the ISP's facillity. Therefore, you have no control on adjusting their settings. They also have a log on how much bandwidth you use and speed (helps in troubleshooting). Your speed could be controlled by your ISP, by modifying (and hacking into) their system. OR, it may be a physically controlled by changing a few jumpers or DIP switches, in that case, you have no chance of hacking into their central system.

The 255.255.255.0 is an alternative address that the ISP will tell you to use, if you are having slow or intermittant connections with DSL (Verizon?).

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Here's an idea! My DSL dropped price from $49.99/month to $34.99 when I told them that the Cable Company offered me broadband for for a better price. Then recently, my ISP just announced that it dropped the fee for everyone to $34.99 and my fee to $32.99 !

Now you can do the same, can't you? But instad of choosing a cheaper price, keep paying for your DSL at the normal price, but request an upgrade in speed