Comcast and Linksys Router BS

I awoke today to start working (well job hunting and side business). I depend on multiple devices going out on my Comcast cable address. Well, today it was not working. I tried the usual power cycle things. Called in, got a snotty girl that had me turn everything off (no real reason for this) and plug into my PC directly. After doing so, it worked on my PC. I was like Hmmm, guess I was wrong and I apologized.

I plugged into the router after hanging up. Nothing. Didn't work. I called back not satisfied. He walked me through a few things that didn't work. I said thank you and I would figure it out. Well first off, I changed out the cable, that was not it. I could connect to other machines on the network and the server. That was not it. So I plugged it into my machine directly again and restarted.

After getting a connection I did a search for Comcast and LinkSys. This link came up. Aparently Comcast found a way to thwart users that are not using Comcast router equipment. After following the instructions of cloning my MAC address, everything worked well. Here is the kicker, I asked repeatedily on the phone if anything had changed. "No sir, nothing here." I won't be too indignant, read the EULA and you will know why. Here are the instructions:

1. Plug your computer directly into the cable modem.
2. Use "ipconfig /release" and "ipconfig /renew" from the windows command prompt to get a new IP address from the cable modem.
3. Unplug your computer from the cable modem.
4. Plug your computer into the router, leaving the router unplugged from the cable modem.
5. Use ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew to get an IP address from the router.
6. Enter the router's configuration with your web browser.
7. Tell the router to Clone your Mac Address. wait a few seconds.
8. Plug the router into the cable modem.
9. In the web interface, tell the router to ask for a new IP address from the cable modem. (This is the "DHCP Renew" Button) The cable modem should think that you are the PC that just spoke with it and will let your router work again. You might have to ask it to renew a couple times.

~Jeffrey