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From: Paul Fuchs on 21 Jul 2010 14:19
I am living in "suburban" Argentina right now. I am in a rental house
that had TV cable physically attached and subscribed to the cable
broadband which offers a 1 Mbps service. Anyway it worked fine for a
couple of weeks, then started to act a little quirky. I was using my
Cisco router and switched to my girlfriend's apple airport router. It
worked fine for a hour and then died. The tech came out and said that
when they installed it, the cable modem was customed synched to some
individual address in the Cisco router, and switching to the Apple is
what caused the problem. He then claims to have customized it to the
Apple which is now functioning OK. Sounds like total BS to me.
Opinions please. Is this plausable?

I am moving in about a month to a house that lies about 1.5 miles past
the phone lines and cable lines. I can get Direct TV there and I think
they offer internet. I also can get a USB dongle from one of the cell
phone companies. My girlfriend and I each have a laptop and an ipod
touch. My question is the following: Is there a router device on the
market where you can plug a USB dongle into it and it will give you wifi
in the house?

TIA



--
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth
becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
From: Tom Harrington on 21 Jul 2010 15:09
In article <1jlzjgu.1rih7y0e3yuacN%pf(a)porkain'tkosher.oink>,
pf(a)porkain'tkosher.oink (Paul Fuchs) wrote:

> I am living in "suburban" Argentina right now. I am in a rental house
> that had TV cable physically attached and subscribed to the cable
> broadband which offers a 1 Mbps service. Anyway it worked fine for a
> couple of weeks, then started to act a little quirky. I was using my
> Cisco router and switched to my girlfriend's apple airport router. It
> worked fine for a hour and then died. The tech came out and said that
> when they installed it, the cable modem was customed synched to some
> individual address in the Cisco router, and switching to the Apple is
> what caused the problem. He then claims to have customized it to the
> Apple which is now functioning OK. Sounds like total BS to me.
> Opinions please. Is this plausable?

All too plausible, unfortunately. The network recognizes the specific
router at your house and won't accept other devices, though the cable
company can update their records to match a new device if they want.
This used to be common with cable modems in the USA, though I think it's
a lot less common now.

> I am moving in about a month to a house that lies about 1.5 miles past
> the phone lines and cable lines. I can get Direct TV there and I think
> they offer internet. I also can get a USB dongle from one of the cell
> phone companies. My girlfriend and I each have a laptop and an ipod
> touch. My question is the following: Is there a router device on the
> market where you can plug a USB dongle into it and it will give you wifi
> in the house?

Not sure what kind of dongle you're talking about. Does the one from the
cell phone company provide WiFi or cell network connection? I would
have guessed the latter except that you mentioned WiFi later.

--
Tom "Tom" Harrington
Independent Mac OS X developer since 2002
http://www.atomicbird.com/
From: Geoffrey S. Mendelson on 21 Jul 2010 15:29
Paul Fuchs wrote:
> I am moving in about a month to a house that lies about 1.5 miles past
> the phone lines and cable lines. I can get Direct TV there and I think
> they offer internet. I also can get a USB dongle from one of the cell
> phone companies. My girlfriend and I each have a laptop and an ipod
> touch. My question is the following: Is there a router device on the
> market where you can plug a USB dongle into it and it will give you wifi
> in the house?

A friend of mine is in the VoIP business and he found an off the shelf
router with a USB port (for a shared printer), that can be loaded with
easily available firmware to use a USB cellular modem stick.

This is the more technical but cheap way to do it.

There are also commercial units that do it, including one that fits in the
palm of your hand, and supports up to 5 nearby computers with WiFi.

There was also a long discussion here or on another comp.sys.mac newsgroup
about using one WiFi device to connect to a paid network, and share it with
other computers.

Things to watch out for a price and service limitations. For example,
one cellular company here has an limited (5gb a month) plan with heavy
over useage charges.

Another has an unlimited plan but if you use more bandwidth than 80% of their
customers, you are limited to the equivalent of about a 56k modem for the
next month. You can also be limited for using forbidden protocols or
applications such as BitTorrent.

Your cellular company may also have terms and conditions that give them the
right to make you pay off your contract but provide no service, if you use
one of these devices and are "caught".

Just as a metric, I used to use around a 1.5 gigabytes a day on my landlines,
between sharing "the internet" with 4 people, watching TV, listening to
streaming audio, VoIP, etc, plus another 2-3 gig a week of 5 computers
downloading various updates, new software, etc. (one XP, one W7, two
Linux and a Mac).

Since I bought a device that plays 1080P videos on my TV set, I probably
download 5-10gb a day on heavy days. (5gb is 3 1 hour 720P TV programs).

I expect that someone in the US who watches all of their TV in hi-def from
Hulu and similar sites, and rents a move or two from Netflix, Amazon, etc,
uses a lot more than that. A 1080P move can easily be 10gig or more.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm(a)mendelson.com N3OWJ/4X1GM
To help restaurants, as part of the "stimulus package", everyone must order
dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-)
From: Wayne C. Morris on 21 Jul 2010 22:53
In article <1jlzjgu.1rih7y0e3yuacN%pf(a)porkain'tkosher.oink>,
pf(a)porkain'tkosher.oink (Paul Fuchs) wrote:

> ... I was using my Cisco router and switched to my girlfriend's apple airport
> router. It worked fine for a hour and then died. The tech came out and said
> that when they installed it, the cable modem was customed synched to some
> individual address in the Cisco router, and switching to the Apple is what
> caused the problem. He then claims to have customized it to the Apple which
> is now functioning OK. Sounds like total BS to me. Opinions please. Is this
> plausable?

Absolutely. When the cable modem is installed, it keys itself to the MAC
address of the first computer or router you connect to it, and refuses to
recognize any other device unless it's reset. I'm not sure whether this is
intended to discourage customers from constantly switching computers, or to
discourage theft of the cable modem.

Most home routers have a configuration option to change the MAC address of its
WAN port, usually by "cloning" your computer's MAC address. This fools the
cable modem into thinking it's connected directly to the computer instead of the
router. I don't know if Apple's Airports have this feature, but I'd be
surprised if they don't.
From: Paul Fuchs on 22 Jul 2010 20:56
Tom Harrington <tph(a)pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net> wrote:

> In article <1jlzjgu.1rih7y0e3yuacN%pf(a)porkain'tkosher.oink>,
> pf(a)porkain'tkosher.oink (Paul Fuchs) wrote:
>
> > I am living in "suburban" Argentina right now. I am in a rental house
> > that had TV cable physically attached and subscribed to the cable
> > broadband which offers a 1 Mbps service. Anyway it worked fine for a
> > couple of weeks, then started to act a little quirky. I was using my
> > Cisco router and switched to my girlfriend's apple airport router. It
> > worked fine for a hour and then died. The tech came out and said that
> > when they installed it, the cable modem was customed synched to some
> > individual address in the Cisco router, and switching to the Apple is
> > what caused the problem. He then claims to have customized it to the
> > Apple which is now functioning OK. Sounds like total BS to me.
> > Opinions please. Is this plausable?
>
> All too plausible, unfortunately. The network recognizes the specific
> router at your house and won't accept other devices, though the cable
> company can update their records to match a new device if they want.
> This used to be common with cable modems in the USA, though I think it's
> a lot less common now.
>
> > I am moving in about a month to a house that lies about 1.5 miles past
> > the phone lines and cable lines. I can get Direct TV there and I think
> > they offer internet. I also can get a USB dongle from one of the cell
> > phone companies. My girlfriend and I each have a laptop and an ipod
> > touch. My question is the following: Is there a router device on the
> > market where you can plug a USB dongle into it and it will give you wifi
> > in the house?
>
> Not sure what kind of dongle you're talking about. Does the one from the
> cell phone company provide WiFi or cell network connection? I would
> have guessed the latter except that you mentioned WiFi later.

Well, I hsven't got into it too deeply, and then there is the language
barrier. My Spanish is pretty rudimentary. I just know that they are
offerred by the cell phone companies here and they plug into the USB
port of your computer. And it works where ever the cell phones work.
--
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth
becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
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