Cable broadband provider wants to charge for each IP address?!

[joeski]

No DSL available in my neighborhood and the only broadband option is cable modem thru my cable TV provider. But, they want to charge additional $6.95/month for each PC in the house that goes online. If I put a router in and go wireless to multiple PCs in the house would the cable guys know I have more than one PC connecting to the internet?

 

[AFB]

They won't. Get a router and save your money. It also gives you extra security.

 

[joeski]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[gordanfreeman]

yep thats what routers are for. outside it looks like only 1 IP

 

[wseyller]

you could put a hundred computers behind a firewall and they would never know.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: wseyller
you could put a hundred computers behind a firewall and they would never know.

oh yes they would.

Whether or not they'd care is another matter altogether [no]

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: wseyller
you could put a hundred computers behind a firewall and they would never know.

oh yes they would.

Whether or not they'd care is another matter altogether [no]

very true.

 

[wseyller]

How would they know unless they hacked through your firewall or came to your house and seen a hundred computers.

 

[alexXx]

they wouldn't. There is no way to know anything about your network through your router from the outside world. Don't listen to these people.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: alexXx
There is no way to know anything about your network through your router from the outside world.

From the Dictionary the definition of the word Pattern. ?A composite of traits or features characteristic of an individual or a group: one's pattern of behavior?.

If you sniff and analyze the PATTERN of the traffic that is Generated by a Network, it yields a different PATTERN than the traffic coming out of a single computer.

That does not mean that the ISPs are wasting their time sniffing every Connection. However if you give them a "Good reason" they might do so.

In most cases most ISPs do not care if you use a Router, they just would not support it.

:light:

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: alexXx
they wouldn't. There is no way to know anything about your network through your router from the outside world. Don't listen to these people.

WTF man...read a fvking book before you post such nonsense.

 

[alexXx]

i realise that the traffic pattern would generally be different for a network behind a router and single connection, but that would not be concrete evidence. Even if they wanted to charge you of it, the evidence that you are using multiple PCs would be very weak.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: alexXx
i realise that the traffic pattern would generally be different for a network behind a router and single connection, but that would not be concrete evidence. Even if they wanted to charge you of it, the evidence that you are using multiple PCs would be very weak.

How much evidence do you think they need to just shut off your connection? I'm guessing that if you read the ToS it would be close to nil.

And I think there would be enough evidence to convince a judge they're right.

 

[gordanfreeman]

yes it is probably very likely the isp would be able to figure out you have more than one PC running behind a router if they wanted to. however i would bet most would not care as long as it didnt interfere with their business. just because you have 10 computers behind the router, does not mean you will be sucking 10x the bandwidth. usually isp's will guarentee up to a certain amount of bandwidth and then cap you if you go over. so 10 computers or one it most likely would not affect the isp. really the only thing you may have to worry about during normal use would be the isp not supporting/helping to troubleshoot any problems you may have invovling the router (altho some will do that even)

 

[wseyller]

I once installed a linksys router a couple months after I obtain my cable service, but my internet would not work after installing the router. I had to call my ISP to have them change a MAC address to allow my internet to work.

 

[SpunkyJones]

Originally posted by: wseyller
I once installed a linksys router a couple months after I obtain my cable service, but my internet would not work after installing the router. I had to call my ISP to have them change a MAC address to allow my internet to work.

That doesn't quite make sense to me, are you sure you just didn't need to power cycle the modem after installing the router?

 

[wseyller]

Well what happen is I bought this router at a computer shop from a friend. The modem was originally connected to one computer directly to the nic. I installed the router and configured it plus three computer to be on the internet. None would connect to the internet, but a network was working between the three. I disconnected the modem from the router and connected it to one computers nic without power cycling anything and the internet worked. I called my friend that sold me the router and told him my situation and he said that mediacomm my provider would have to change a mac address. So I call Mediacomm I told the tech what my friend told me and the tech told me that was exactly right. That tech changed some settings while we were on the phone, which I assumed was a mac address, then presto my internet was working on all computers. I my knowledge isn't much advance on networking and internet protocols, but that's what happened.

 

[Oaf357]

You can specitfy the MAC address of your cable modem in your router usually.

 

[gordanfreeman]

sounds to me the isp regulates who can connect to the service via mac addresses... my school network does that. to get on the network we have to register our mac address w/ the school before they will allow service to that address. what likely happened is when they installed cable they registered the mac address of the computer you have had hooked up directly to the modem. that allowed that computer to get service. when you installed the router, the router has a different mac address so it didnt work. some routers have mac address cloning which theoretically should fix the problem. otherwise what you did works too-call the isp up and have them register the new address for your router.