Cable Modems

edited October 2015 in Hardware
Thanks to a stuff-up with Telstra (biggest telco in Australia) I have more cable modems than ever.

Essentially the story goes in dot points:
* Telstra was notified of me moving to a new house next month
* Telstra tells me that the NBN is available at the new property (NBN is a current government initiative to provide FTTN and/or FTTH to replace the old copper wires around the country)
* I was advised that the NBN connection requires a new modem
* On the same day a service order was raised for the new place, my current cable connection was remotely disconnected later in the evening
* Calling them up, the Philippine call centre ended up arranging another service order for my existing place instead of being able to remotely reconnect
* Yesterday a technician came over, didn't understand why he had to come over as it was clearly all plugged in and had been set up already
* He ended up plugging in a new cable modem, and the internet has been going again and will only be used for a few weeks
* I get a parcel on the same day from Telstra, with yet another new cable modem which ended up being the same model as the guy pulled out of his van

In summary I have now 3 Netgear cable modems and getting yet another one next month for fibre.

Not having this many in the past, is it worth attempting to bridge them in the new place (i.e. just use it a router/Wi-Fi access point connected to the fibre modem)?

Comments

  • Depends if you have access to the web configuration to the modems. Here in the states if you lease a modem from a ISP its locked tight and only works for the ISP's needs.

    Oh, last night I watched a video about the NBN from the EEVBlog.
  • I hadn't seen that video before. I generally find in Australia, ISPs don't offer leasing for modems. That being said, I'm not sure with regards to business customers. You either pay upfront, or it's part of the costs associated with your 12 or 24 month plan, which may have a termination fee if you cancel early.

    Although the label on the modem has been slightly customised (i.e. has labels affixed to state the default wi-fi name, MAC address, etc. to assist with self installation and so on for the average Joe), the firmware itself is essentially plain vanilla Netgear except for a logo in the corner of the web config page. The pages allow a fair bit of customisation, so I should be okay on that front.
  • You should be able to simply disable DHCP and hardcode the LAN IP to something accessible in your bridged network. No special bridge setting needs to be activated in the modem. Just hook your LAN up to one of the Ethernet ports and you are good to go.
  • At most just google the model and add bridge and see if some one has tossed together a how to guide.
  • I've got 3 Charter issued Motorola Surfboard cable modems.
  • I'm happy to say I have no ISP provided equipment in my house. The modem I use is my own.
  • Thanks to a stuff-up with Telstra (biggest telco in Australia) I have more cable modems than ever.
    In summary I have now 3 Netgear cable modems and getting yet another one next month for fibre.

    Do the netgear have Remote Assistance on them? the one I have got has it.
  • Jtyle6 wrote:
    Do the netgear have Remote Assistance on them? the one I have got has it.

    Yes, though mine have never looked the same as your screenshot. Not sure how that would help in this instance, as I wouldn't be accessing the config settings from out of home.

    The configuration part is possible - just wondered if anyone here does it/worth the effort/difference in signal strength etc.

    It will be interesting to do a speed comparison with the NBN fibre. Currently I pull around 36 Mbps over cable.
  • Jtyle6 wrote:
    Do the netgear have Remote Assistance on them? the one I have got has it.

    Yes, though mine have never looked the same as your screenshot. Not sure how that would help in this instance, as I wouldn't be accessing the config settings from out of home.

    The configuration part is possible - just wondered if anyone here does it/worth the effort/difference in signal strength etc.

    It will be interesting to do a speed comparison with the NBN fibre. Currently I pull around 36 Mbps over cable.


    You can bridge them together? But I've never played with that modem.
  • Bridging is always going to be slower than using the built-in hardware forwarding.

    Your fiber is likely to have an overall better performance than cable. You may see some better instantaneous speeds on one vs the other but trust me, the infrastructure difference alone is worth the switch to fiber.
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