Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

[Trevor300wsm]

My mother has AT&T Internet service in her home. It's worked fine for the past several years. For christmas, one of the gifts I got her was a wireless router so she could use wifi in the living room on her phone and laptop when she wanted to.

At christmas, I hooked the wireless router up and it's worked perfectly fine until yesterday. The problem was her Internet service wasn't working, not the router. So she calls AT&T to see if she needed a new modem box. The CS rep told her that her service had been temporarily interrupted. They asked if she had "something" hooked up to her computer. She said yes, my son bought me a wireless router for Christmas.

They told her that she could not use that router because they didn't support that brand. However, they told her that for a "FEE" they could connect her to someone that could walk her through how to reconnect it and make it work properly OR she could buy a different router that they supported.

So in short, the router will work just fine. It's worked just fine since Christmas eve when I hooked it up. They have done something to lock her service once the router is connected. If she unhooks it, the service works fine on her home desktop. If she wants to pay, they will tell her how to make it work again. Or, she can buy a different router (their router).

This is total bullshit! Can someone please help me figure how to make the router work without paying their "fee" just to tell us how to do it? I've never heard of shit like this before. The router is just a dual setup Belkin from Walmart. Nothing fancy. The computer is a Dell desktop.

 

[gimpy]

Re: Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

Have you tried leaving the modem connected to the router and then resetting the modem?

 

[Trevor300wsm]

Re: Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

Yes, I've tired that. I've reset the modem, reset the modem and the router, powdered down the PC, router, and modem. I've tired just about every combo you can as far as resetting/powering down.

I supposed I could remove the software for the modem and then reinstall to see if that would work.

It seems like they are not letting her connection work when the wireless router is connected, but i do not know how they could do this. The service works fine, until the router is connected.

 

[bachelorjack]

Re: Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

Everything works fine without the router. ---> Problem with the router.

Have you verified the router works? Not that it did work. But that it still does.

Sometimes a port will get fried. A simple rain storm can make this happen.

 

[kydron]

Re: Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

Some ISPs will restrict the types and quantities of devices connecting to their network. They used to do this to limit "sharing" of internet connections via routers or end users swapping the connection between several PCs. This has largely disappeared due to the growth in network enabled devices (and similarly the demand for internet routers) as well as the increase and availability of low cost broadband internet connections to the home.

A common method of determining what devices are connected to the ISPs network equipment is by identifying the device by it's physical hardware address or "MAC" address. This address is a series of letters and/or numbers that represents the hardware's globally unique identity. (Take a look at the bottom of your router, you would most likely find a sticker labeled "MAC" or "Hardware ID" in the format xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx, where 'x' represents a number 0-9 or letter A-F)

An ISP can restrict your the access to their network by detecting and allowing only the MAC address on the network interface of your computer and denying anything else.

I once used COX Cable back in the early 2000's and they required me to register my MAC address with them. After installing a router, I had to update my registration with them in order to restore the internet service. Most ISPs I know of today do not enforce this policy, however I'm sure there are many that still do.

In current times most modern router manufacturers have implemented a feature called "MAC Cloning". With this feature, the router essentially modifies the outbound network traffic by overwriting it's own MAC address to that of one you custom define in the router's settings. This can essentially bypass the security/restrictions the ISP imposes by masquerading the network traffic as originating from the originally registered device (your PC).

For additional information check out this link on about.com

MAC Cloning - About.com

If this is in fact what your ISP is doing, you can do some research on the net to find out if/how you can set your router up to do a MAC address clone.

This may not be the actual cause of your issues as it could be a simple misconfiguration of the router or some other type of device filtering being imposed by the ISP. Regardless, I hope this gives you one possibility to investigate.

 

[Guest]

Re: Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

Most modern ISP provided cable and DSL modems actually also provide routing and NAT firewall services, even if they have only one LAN port.

I've found that it's sometimes much simpler to connect the additional wireless router as a switch, using one of the LAN ports instead of the uniquely labeled WAN port.

Depending on the make an model of the wireless router, you may also want to turn DHCP off and set it up to function solely as an access point.

Other possible issues can result with the wireless router's default IP being in direct conflict with the default IP assigned to the cable/dsl modem.
I generally bypass the software wizard setup and manually configure the device to insure that no such conflicts arise.

 

[The Mechanic]

Re: Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

Every time I have anyone who has this problem, It is a matter or resetting the router, calling the isp and telling them you bought a new computer. They will refresh the ip and you just need to "connect" the router using your web browser by logging into the router and making sure you have your setting correct. Such as username, password and what type of service connection.

 

[Trevor300wsm]

Re: Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

Thanks for the help.

This will get me started.

 

[sylathnie]

Re: Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

What modem do you have from AT&T? Got a part number or a picture?
Same for the the new Belkin router. Part number or picture?

Likely fix:
Record username\password from the software on the computer. (Check the authentication method but it will likely say PPPoe).
DO NOT USE SOFTWARE FROM AT&T FROM THIS POINT FORWARD. Close it and make sure it's not still running.
Unplug computer from modem.
Plug WAN port of the new router into the Ethernet or local port of the modem.
Plug computer into one of the LAN ports on the new router. (Turn off the wireless on the computer if possible.)
Reboot computer(There is a simple command to reset your local IP but a reboot has the same effect.)
Log into the configuration interface of the new router via a web browser. (This is going to get tricky now.)
Configure the WAN interface to use PPPoe and use the credentials that you copied down from the PC.
You may have to save settings and restart the router. (Maybe the PC too.)
You should now have internet access via the PC.

Configure the wireless connection on the router. (I recommend WPA2 or better with TKIP or AES. Make sure your password is greater than 12 characters if possible and no dictionary words! WEP is broken and WPA has a few weaknesses.)
Unplug from the router. Configure your wireless settings on the local computer and start surfing!

Once we have a few part numbers I can give you much more detailed instructions. It wouldn't hurt to know what operating system her computer is too.

Let me know if you need more technical descriptions of any bits. I skipped detail in the hope of being less confusing.

 

[pbogdano]

Re: Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

i bet the jerks are doing this at the mac address level. they are expecting the MAC address of the PC and not the router.

You might be able to "Spoof" the mac address of the pc on the router and therefore.

just a thought

 

[phantasm]

Re: Computer/ISP pros, I need some help.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Pbogdano</div><div class="ubbcode-body">i bet the jerks are doing this at the mac address level. they are expecting the MAC address of the PC and not the router.

You might be able to "Spoof" the mac address of the pc on the router and therefore.

just a thought </div></div>

This is common unfortunately. They' make the first learned MAC sticky, then when you put something else in the path it won't work. Most routers you can buy have a Spoof MAC option so you can configure your pc's MAC on the router and it will work just fine.