Cable Modem and Lock Question

[Xanathar]

I cant remember for the life of me, But if you hook up a cable modem (Docsis) to a Docsis compliant system which does not have the modem configured, will you get a Lock? I forget if the security is just access, or if it will deny the modem a lock. For your information I just want to check to see if cable is available in an area which the cable co says no, but half a mile away they say yes, but the same area they say no to cable modems supports digital cable, so Its probably just not updated in their system but they still wont place an order "just to see if it works" without charging. Its simple to go to compusa, grab a docsis modem and see if I get a lock thou.