"Bill Smith" <xfwsexyg6001@sneakemail.com> wrote in message
news:FJmdncGyPI83uZeiXTWJhA@comcast.com...
You don't need to re-provision the modem when you change routers or router
MAC addresses, nor do you need to contact Comcast (at least not with our
local setup in Northern Colorado, which was part of the
@Home-->TCI-->ATTBI-->Comcast lineage). You do, however, either need to
have an extra router or a router that allows MAC cloning. I think most of
the recent major brand consumer routers allow MAC cloning.
I've actually experimented with the IP changes, although it started
accidentally. I first noticed it when I bought a new wireless router to
replace an older non-wireless one. When I connected the new router, I
noticed that it gave me a new WAN IP address. I switched back to the old
router, and I got back the same IP address that I'd had before. I did that
switch a couple of times, confirming each time that the IP address followed
the router.
Later, I cloned the MAC address in the router to match my primary computer
MAC, and I got yet another IP, which I have had ever since. The MAC cloning
is not required for our setup, since nothing is locked to the computer MAC
(only to the modem MAC/serial number), but I changed it just to make the
router less visible to the external network.
I think (don't remember for sure) that I also tried cloning the MAC address
of the old router into the new router and confirmed that I still got the old
IP address. Those kind of changes are dangerous, however, since you want to
make sure that you use a valid MAC address that you own and can guarantee
will not get connected to the WAN at the same time as another copy of the
same MAC address is being used. I sold the old router to a friend in our
town that was going to also use it on ATTBI/Comcast, so I obviously couldn't
keep using the old MAC address.
After leaving the old router offline for 24-48 hours, I reconnected it and
found that I did NOT get the same IP address that had previously been
assigned to that router, but another one. My assumption was that the old IP
had been reassigned to another user during the intervening period.
An interesting sidelight: After getting one of the new IP addresses, my
router logs (I use WallWatcher to log activity) went crazy for a day or two
with incoming port probes on KaZaa ports. Apparently, the former user of
that IP had been an active file swapper, and I had half the country trying
to get music files off of my system! So there are some downsides to
changing IP addresses....
--
Jim Southard
