IP address blocking problem

[Roadburner]

Hello Sam,

Monday, September 26, 2005, 12:15:08 AM, you wrote:

Snipped

SP> As an extra precaution you might want to unplug any dsl or cable modem
SP> you use as well as any router.  This may not be necessary as I believe
SP> the only piece of equipment that needs to be offline is whatever MAC
SP> address recieves that particular DHCP lease (someone with more
SP> networking knowledge want to correct me?) however, I know that cable
SP> modems have MAC addresses and DSL modems might (again, someone with more
SP> networking knowledge want to put me straight?) so you never know.
SP> Better to err on the side of caution with this.  If your provider uses
SP> PPPoE I'm not sure how that works or effects it, but I would think given
SP> 72 hours you'd almost be certain to end up with a new IP.  This is how
SP> the dhcpd deamon on a red hat box of mine worked anyway, it had 24 hour
SP> lease times by default.  Another thing you can try is a new network card
SP> or router.  Given a new MAC address, you may recieve a new IP right away
SP> and hence not have to be down for that long.

Last night and this morning, I did some checking around. I am using Comcast
as my ISP. I did a search and found the following site:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,14341419

Basically Comcast uses DHCP leases. The lease is good for 4 days at a time.
I opened up my router last night and sure enough, that is what it showed. I
hit the reset button on the router and it returned that I had a 1 hour
lease. So I shut off the modem and the router.

I tried putting in the other router this morning but couldn't get it to
connect. Same type of router, a Netgear wireless but the slower version so
the menu was the same. After trying to get it going for a while, I had to
give up. When I put the old router back in, I got the same IP back. So
apparently the lease didn't expire or is somehow tied to either the modem,
the router, or me as a customer.

Interesting was a comment I found on the page I listed above. The following
is a quote:

I've been a ATTBI/Comcast sub for 3.5 years. My IP has only changed 3 times.
"Once with a new installed router (MAC change), the second when they switched
me from the ATTBI servers to the Comcast servers, and when I upgraded my
router to a WRT54GS last summer."

Seems to me that a router change may be an answer. I need a new one anyway
since I have one of the very first Netgear routers released. I think I read
some of the newer ones have better encryption features. We were using the
same type Netgear router here at the office but it caused a lot of dropped
connections so we upgraded it to a newer different model. A Linksys. That
stopped the dropped connections.

A second real possibility is the MAC  address of the modem. That may be a
little more complicated to setup. Some additional reading showed that to get
the service to work, Comcast needs the MAC address of the modem.

Hmmmmm, maybe I'll send one more letter out and ask the other re-mailer to
unblock my IP. I Have not heard back from the first yet.

I might give that all go and and do some shopping this afternoon.

Thanks for all your tips. Maybe I'll get lucky.

PS, anybody know how to get off these lists?

-- 
Best regards,
 Roadburner                            mailto:roadburner at comcast.net