E> I don't know how much of the recent comments are directed to me, or E> which were responding to Richard. I was just chiming in with a general comment on Charter's tech support, and how I was pleasently surprised how easy it was to get my NAT router changed without having to talk to a tech at all. E> This here:
Make sure that you update the MAC address with charter, and that they actually update it. I've had a few problems where they haven't even though they said they did.
E> Yes! That happened to me, and the modem had to be re-registered two or E> three times. It depends on the tech you talk to. My modem was incorrectly E> or incompletely registered here by the install tach on the day the service E> was hooked up. The internet generally worked as it should anyway, but E> during times when there were connectivity problems here (see below), in E> phone calls to tech support, every once in a while the tech would tell me E> "I" had the wrong MAC address, that I was running an unauthorized modem, E> etc.. Then I would have to explain why that seemed to be, and they would E> try again to get that corrected. E> My history here: E> Charter here needs a DOCSYS3-compliant modem. I was running a Motorola E> SB6120, which worked fine for 27 months. This has several nice diagnostic E> pages, accessed at 192.168.100.1, including logs which give details of any E> exceptions and error messages. E> Connectivity problems in summer of 2010 were caused by new lines (coax) E> from the pole to the box. I was able to prove to the provider that the E> intermittant problems were not in my setup, but outside. There were several E> issues, which they gradually seemed to fix. One had to do with connectivity E> interruptions on the days following a big rainstorm. The connectors in the E> new lines (at the pole) had not been weatherproofed, which they did. Line E> techs eventually checked and improved the weatherproofing throughout the E> whole neighborhood. E> Note that I have no other services (such as TV) which run on the incoming E> line. Also note: I have no extra connectors in the coax running between the E> box and my modem. E> The sick modem I experienced here a few weeks ago may have simply been due E> to a failing power supply (wall wart) running the modem. Somehow that had E> never occurred to me. I could have tested that by replacing it with an E> equivalent new power supply. E> Meanwhile 2 Charter techs had diagnosed my modem as 'dying', shook their E> heads when they learned it was 2+ years old, replaced it with one of E> theirs, and left. This is a Cisco, which sounded reasonable to me. But E> there is only one page available to customers, at 192.168.100.1 and this E> only shows that the modem is connected, a few power levels, SNR, how many E> channels are running. Further diagnostic pages can be accessed through a E> password, but the usual logins and passwords don't work. E> My ultimate solution is to get another modem which I will own and have E> provisioned when I set it up. The one I'm planning to get is the Motorola E> SB 6121, their replacement for the 6120, which they no longer manufacture. E> A further note on the SB6120, in case anyone gets one on ebay or whatever: E> These are very sensitive to incoming power levels. If the signal is too E> "hot", such as 15 dBmV, they start throwing errors. These power levels seem E> to vary according to temperature and humidity. Once I installed a 3db E> attenuator pad between the incoming coax and my modem, the power levels E> the modem experienced came down to 10 or 12 dBmV, which allowed the modem E> to operate without interruption for many months at a time. E> I haven't heard if the SB6121 has the same sensitivity to hot power levels E> or not. I'm still reading reviews and forum posts about this unit. I can E> report on it once I get one in here and running. It will be nice to be able E> to see the diagnostics pages and service logs again. E> Liz E> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E> _______________________________________________ E> Wlug mailing list E> Wlug@mail.wlug.org E> http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug