insane cable co?

[Stealer]

Hi all,

I just moved to a city located outside of Sacramento CA. I ordered a cable modem from the local cable co and they came out and hooked it up ASAP. After they left a brought out my Linksys wireless router so I can share my cable modem with my other 3 computers including 1 laptop. I then found out that the cable co does not allow ANY routers on their system. Sure enough when I plugged in my router my cable modem did not work. After doing a lot of research I found out that I can clone my MAC address to fool the cable modem into thinking that my router is really my main computer. So everything works great now. Has anybody heard of cable companies not allowing router on their system. Now get this, When I called them up to ask how I am expected to set up my home network they said I could use a plain old hub and then they would charge my an additional $18.95 a month for each additional computer in my house. They must by on drugs or something if they think people are going to stand for that. I am still considering switching to DSL when it becomes available in a few months. Is there any clear benefit of DSL over a cable modem?
I really don't want to give this crazy cable co. any more business than I have to.

Thanks
Stephen

 

[Snickle]

"Has anybody heard of cable companies not allowing router on their system. Now get this, When I called them up to ask how I am expected to set up my home network they said I could use a plain old hub and then they would charge my an additional $18.95 a month for each additional computer in my house."

I think if you check the fine print, they may be selling 'band-width' and they've established a per computer rate accordingly. Wireless in my area does the same, we don't have cable modem or DSL.

 

[rburke]

Yes, I've heard of Cable Companies making you pay for extra computers. But, really there only way to protect from routers are either some form of authentication(PPPoE, CHAP, PAP...) or to only assign IP's to known MAC addresses. I think that most Cables Co. have started to accept the fact of residential routers (Linksys, SMC, 3Com, etc.), ut they have not accepted Wireless, and for good reason. There have been several instances recently where neighbors have been "stealing" bandwidth via wireless routers, and pirating software, movies, etc. And who does it go back to??? the person paying the bill... So I know at least Time Warner Cable has sent some notices to people they know use Wireless networks and told them to shut them down.... The moral of the story is that residential routers are really a necessity in today's world where you can pick up an internet-ready computer for $100, plus most people who get cable internet have multiple computers anyway and the cable companies have relized this... except for wireless....

Burke

 

[ANFPS26]

Comcast allows routers on their system. They charge $6.95 per month for each computer if you use a hub and they provide seperate IP addresses for each computer. They don't charge if you use a router. They just point out that they don't support using a router if there is anything wrong. I remember when cable TV used to charge for each TV that you had and they finally gave up on that. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....."

 

[LKAlbert]

The cable companies do not support it, but that only means you will have to get support from the router manufacturer. I have not found any installation that does not work. The router gets its IP address from the cable company and then assigns a non-routable IP address to computers inside of the the lan via DHCP. Therefore, even if multiple people on your lan are accessing simultaneously, the Cable Co only sees one unit.

Do not be intimidated by their shinanigans.

 

[XuhQshinR]

As a cable tech I will tell you that LKAlbert is correct. The use of a router on your system may not be supported by your cable company but you can use one and the cable company more than likely will never know unless you call support and tell them. You set up your router as your main computer (it should have it's own MAC address) and setup your lan with internal IP's and for the the WAN set it up using the same setings you would for your main PC. As far as bandwidth usage goes sharing one cable modem on even 10 PC's is not going to eat up any more bandwidth than using one as the Uplink and Downlink limits are still the same with one PC or 100 PC's over the same modem. Example: You can not squeeze 125 GPM of water that you can flow through an 1 1/2" fire hose through a 5/8" garden hose. See the point? Using a standard hub would let the cable company charge you for multiple IP's (one for each additional computer) however this is a waist of your $ as most use DHCP so your ip address's all would most likely change after a set period of time rendering setting up an FTP or Mail server almost useless. They used to offer "Static" when we were @HOME but went to the DHCP with changes every 4 days. So save your money and buy a good router. Everyone has their preference I like Netgear (solid performance with a 5 year warranty) but many use Linksys as well. Hope this helped.

Your friendly Neighborhood Cable/BB tech.
XuhQshinR@hotmail.com