Why not look for your old modem on ebay and change it out yourself!!! On Jan 17, 2013, at 4:14 PM, Lee Larson wrote:
> This is a long message telling of my Internet adventures over the last few > days. > > It all started early last week when one of the droids from Insight called to > say they planned to install a new cable modem in our house to support the > changes being made to our telephone service. We buy the Insight triple > play—cable, broadband and telephone—and the new modem would support the > latter two, giving our phone service more features. > > The conversation went something like this: > > > Me: I have a pretty good modem already that works well with my home network. > > Droid: The modem we plan to install is also a fine modem. > > Me: Is it possible for me to continue using my modem for the broadband and > use yours for the telephone. > > Droid: I'll be sure to send a installer a note telling him you want to do > that. > > Me: You're sure? The last modem I got from you guys was a piece of shit. > > Droid: Of course! We do this all the time. He'll be there between 1:00 and > 3:00 on Tuesday. > > > My house network is a little more complicated than usual. A corner of the > basement is my version of a wiring closet. Over the years, a dozen or so > Ethernet wires have been pulled to just about every room of the house and > they all start at a patch panel in the wiring corner. The corner has a > fifteen port switch, Linux server, NAS drive, UPS and the cable modem. > > The topology is a little more complicated because my Airport Extreme router > sits on the first floor, in a more central location to give strong WiFi. So, > the Insight cable comes into the basement modem and the Ethernet side of the > modem runs up to the Airport one floor above. Then the Ethernet output of the > Airport runs back down the basement to the switch. The Airport serves WiFi as > well as being the firewall and the DHCP server. > > As you can see, the modem is nothing more than a bridge between Insight's > network and my LAN. I want it to do nothing but pass TCP packets back and > forth. > > Tuesday rolled around and I came home early so I'd be there when the > installer arrived. He pulled into the driveway at 1:00 sharp, and I ushered > him down to the wiring corner. The first thing he said was "WiFi won't work > very good from down here." I told him about the Airport upstairs and how the > system was set up. > > "They told me I could keep using my original modem," I said. > "Who told you that?" he asked. > "The guy on the phone who set up the appointment," I replied. > "The guy was wrong," he said. "We never do that." > > He said "This modem has WiFi and a router built in, you know." I told him > that nobody had told me, but I'd just as soon turn both of them off. > > "Don't know if you can," he said. I asked "Why not?" He said "Well, the modem > doesn't have a manual or anything with it. I've never tried, but I've heard > you can get the manual off the Internet." > > He unplugged my modem, plugged his in, made sure the phone was working, got > the right lights to start blinking and tested the modem's output by plugging > my laptop into it. > > "You're good to go here. The modem's working fine," he said. > > Full of hubris, I said that I could probably get it to work with my system. I > signed the papers and let him go on to his next victim. > > The modem is an impressive looking box with lots of lights and a four-port > Ethernet switch on the back. It's an Arris TM826G set up especially for > Time/Warner. It has a router, a firewall and WiFi built in. > > The LAN wasn't working, but my laptop was still plugged into the modem and I > used it to find the manuals. Sure enough, the Arris Web site had two manuals. > One was the consumer manual for the Complete Idiot® and the second had the > instructions to configure the router and WiFi via the Web interface. It > looked pretty easy because the router has a setting called "Bridge > Mode"—exactly what I wanted. > > I set it to bridge mode, made up a long and twisty password and plugged it > into my LAN. Everything worked! Amazing! > > Now I wanted to rearrange the boxes in the wiring corner because the new > modem is quite a bit larger than the old one. I unplugged the new modem, > shifted the boxes and plugged it back in. The modem came up just fine, but > none of the devices on the LAN could see the Internet. > > I logged back into the modem and had a look around. Bridge mode was turned > off. I turned it back on and everything worked, On a hunch, I restarted the > modem. Bridge mode was turned off. It seems that every time the modem is > restarted, it resets a few features back to their defaults. > > Time/Warner has "tweaked" the modem's firmware to have the following > "features" that now work differently than the documentation says they should. > Here are the ones I've noticed so far. > > • Bridge mode resets itself on a power cycle. > > • The built-in router won't let you set static IP numbers in its DHCP server > using the MAC numbers. If you try, it just returns an error. > > • It seems to insist on using a 192.168.0.x address space instead of the > 192.168.100.x that I've been using. > > • It won't remember non-Insight DNS settings after a power cycle. > > • It won't handshake properly with DynDNS. > > • The built in firewall will (sometimes??) forget custom configurations on a > power cycle. > > I talked to an Insight rep on the phone last evening and asked him if there > was a list of Time/Warner "features" for the modem. He doesn't know of one. > > There is an Insight administrative interface for the modem, but it has a > secret password that changes every day. (I kid you not.) Insight can get into > the modem through this "secret" back door to change some of the settings. The > person I talked to on the phone offered to have this done to permanently > lobotomize it, so it will run in nothing but bridge mode. I think I'll take > him up on the offer. > > Is this the opening salvo of what can be expected from the Time/Warner > takeover of Insight? > > > PS/ The modem does move data just as fast as the previous one. I’m getting > 24.3 Mb/s down and 1.44 Mb/s up when connected to the machine in my office. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > MacGroup mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup _______________________________________________ MacGroup mailing list [email protected] http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
