When our DSL was hooked up, we didn't have our modem yet. So when I got the modem in, I had to call the phone company with the modems id/serial number. Why did they want that to be able to set up our acct?
It's called "provisioning".
Cable and xDSL "modems" are actually fairly sophisticated boxes, with their own processors, memory, etc. Your ISP (cable or phone company) offers several levels of service (tiers). Each tier has its own parameters associated with it -- average up/down speed caps, burst rates, priorities, etc. Information your modem needs to function.
Your ISP put your modem's id into their provisioning database. That way, when your modem initializes (part of the power-up sequence), the ISP's head-end (the router to which your modem talks directly) was able to determine who you are and which set of parameters to feed to you.
In the future, if you upgrade your service, they'll simply re-associate your modem's id to a different parameter file then "push" it out to you.
HTH, - Dan.
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