Troubleshooting U-verse Fiber

I have an ALT optic box which apparently converts the fiber coming into my home into Ethernet.

i have a  5268AC FXN gateway box.

the Ethernet cable out if the alt optic goes to a very small passive box with an Ethernet jack (in) and a hardwired Ethernet cable.

that cable goes hardwired to a second passive box as a hardwired connection. (What is this box!) it has 2 Ethernet jacks.  In trouble shooting, I disconnected them both and I’m not sure which connection goes where. I’m pretty sure one went into the ONT input Ethernet jack on the back of the gateway.  I’m not sure where the other cable went. What is this box? It looks like a passive Ethernet “spitter” for lack of a better word. There is a hardwired “in” and 2 Ethernet “outs”.  Why do I need this box? Does it matter which out port goes to the ONT in of the gateway?

the first 2 lights in my ALT optic are both solid green. The other 2 lights are off. That’s power and PON are green, alarm and data are always off.

Now to the big problem. When I power up the gateway, the green power Light flashes 2 short times on and a longer pause off. Power light NEVER goes solid green. it matters not if I have anything connected to it or not. Anything connected to the gateway or not. So it would appear that this gateway is dead? But is there a way to reset it?  I tried the reset hold for 10 seconds and nothing happens.

tech support is mailing me a new gateway.  It’s important to note that I’ve had this service for over 3 years. The internet hasn’t ever been out longer that it took me to reboot the gateway. I’ve had a lot more power failures than internet outages. Before I started having problems yesterday, no physical changes were made to the hardware / Ethernet cable environments. So it’s safe to say that the system was working and no changes were made on my end.

when I finally got through to tech support yesterday after having to reboot many times during the day to regain TV and Internet, they ended up telling my that there was an outage affecting me. But rebooting my gateway cleared up my issue for a couple of hours.  Then the gateway went to that flashing power state. Did it just happen to die after years of working during a coincidental outage?  Sounds fishy.

So early this morning I called again and there was no record of an outage the previous day. And after a bunch of useless hoop running, they decided to mail me a new gateway.

when the new gateway arrives, I want to make sure I hook it back up correctly since I disconnected things without noting which cable goes where.  And that’s why I want to know what those 2 passive boxes are and if I need them or if they can be bypassed. 

any and all insight would be helpful.

Xxxxxxxx.        Xxxxxxxxxx