Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Tip if router won't connect properly to cable modem: Clone the MAC address

<< < (2/3) > >>

Innuendo:
Fortunately, my ISP is forward-thinking enough that they don't lock service to the MAC of any of my equipment. As a matter of fact, they are forward-thinking enough to realize that most people have more than one device they want to use to connect to the internet so they give all their customers a wireless router if they want one.

lanux128:
my home package provides subscribers with a wireless router/modem with no MAC cloning. at work-place the 'ISP' is a reseller who has to implement these measures as not to over-sell their bandwidth, luckily for us, there are routers with these cloning features.

mwb1100:
I can't believe that the ISP didn't have the solution for you on this.  Any ISP I've dealt with when trying to get problems solved for  friends and family first gets the router out of the picture (direct connect the PC).  Once that's working, they always say to get the MAC address cloned.  Your new ISP needs a bit more experience - with the number of routers in use, I'm pretty sure they'll have this solution in the support script pretty dang quick.

Stoic Joker:
What I was told is that the ISP is more than happy to diagnose connection problems for a computer, but because of the wide variety and configuration options for home routers, they just aren't interested in giving that level of support.-Daleus (February 01, 2008, 08:47 AM)
--- End quote ---
And while that is partially true, the reason behind it is a bit different.

For the ISP's "Computer Diagnostics" all their need is any carcass off the street that is literate, level headed, and has a pleasant phone voice (actually only the first requirement is mandatory...). You see, these days the assumption that calling "Tech Support" will put you in touch with someone smarter than you about product X is complete crap. Maintaining a truly trained staff is expensive, maintained a hoard of trained monkeys on the other hand, is quite affordable, especially if they're contracted with zero benefits.

ISP's won't trouble shoot your router because router trouble shooting requires that you actually do know something.

y0himba:
An even better idea is to power off the cable modem, router, and PC.  Then:

1.  Power on the Cable Modem and wait 30 seconds or until all the lights are back to normal (Synced up).  (If your cable modem doesn't have a power off, unplug it, wait 30 seconds, plug it back in) 
2.  Power on the router and wait until it is also back to normal, about 30 seconds.
3.  Power on the PC.

Reasoning:  The cable modem is trying to assign you a dynamic IP address.  So, we power on the cable modem and allow it to obtain an IP from you provider.  The we power on the router and allow it to set the pipe up between your cable modem and router.  The we start the PC up and let it establish it's pipe.  This way you still have the added security of a separate MAC address.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page