ADSL provider X has a partnership with router maker A and offers their routers at a discounted price along with every new ADSL connection.
One of our clients buys a connection from provider X, but decides to buy router B (from us) instead.
Our technician goes to client to set-up the ADSL and the network. Router B doesn’t work. He figured out that the unit is damaged, so the tech tried with a second router of the same brand. It didn’t work either. The tech tried with a router of brand C too. Still no luck.
Our technician decided that there was a problem with the ADSL line, so he called provider’s X tech support. They told him that there was no problem with the line and to use router A. Our tech tries router A and it works! Routers B and C still do not work.
Our tech found that really fishy. So he did something really clever. He called the provider’s tech support again and told them that the line is still not working even with router A. They said that they will try to fix it. After a while, all three routers were working.
How is it possible to make ADSL work with only a certain brand of router? Is it illegal?
My vague understanding of the technology is that it’s rather like the situation with cell phones - there are different variants of the signals and command sets involved.
Possibly, when the tech did that little sneaky bit, the provider polled the line and the device responded with its capabilities and the provider simply adjusted things to suit it.
Nobody’s calling foul over Sprint phones not working on the Verizon network, so I can’t see how this could be considered fraudulent.
Seems to me that there are a variety of handshaking/recognition protocols and the ADSL device and the ISP have to use compatible protocols or there is no-go.
I’m having similar dificulties getting an xbox to work with a D-Link ADSL router that is replacing a Speedtouch supplied by the ISP.
I have cable but I think it works the same way. The modem has a signature (“MAC Address”) which must be registered with the ISP to work properly. The modem and the ISP’s servers first perform a sort of handshaking to make sure you are a legitimate costumer.
Not quite - ADSL is tied to a physical phone line with a unique address - ie: a phone number. There isn’t any authentication going on at the hardware level with a DSL modem. A few months ago, my DSL modem conked out and I was able to swap it out and be back in business without ever telling my ISP about it.
Cable is a essentially an address-less cloud. You can plug a cable modem into any cable TV outlet on any house in the city and have it work. This requires the device itself to have a unique identifier so it can be associated with your account, and MAC numbers suit this purpose nicely.
Haggle with the DSL provider. I did so. They had a tech do a run out to where I live, and set me up with DSL. They paid me to do this. And threw in a free modem to boot. NEVER hesitate to haggle on an acquistion.
I guess they could do it by blocking MAC addresses.
A MAC address consists of 12 hexadecimal digits. The first six are the manufacturer identifier and the other six are the network adapter identifier. Suppose you only want Siemens modems to communicate with your network and block all the rest. You can allow connection to anything that starts with 00-01-E3 (from this handy list) and reject anything else.
That’s not really true - I forget much of the really technical stuff we learnt when I was supporting cable modems, (this looks right) but your cable modem probably won’t work much beyond the block that you live on. The cable modem does have a MAC though - causes all sorts of problems if it somehow ends up assigned to two people at once.
They were probably not blocking MAC addresses after all. The technician told me that the DSL indicator was off in routers B and C, like plugging the routers in a plain old telephone line.
I’ve had DSL through SBC for about five years with an Alcatel 1000 DSL modem. I always assumed I’d need to get another modem from SBC if and when it dies. But it sounds like I can just buy my own, and in looking at the Netgear website, they have a single box that combines a DSL modem/router/firewall/wireless access point. Can I just buy this box and connect it to my DSL connection, or do I need to talk to SBC?