Telewest wireless setup

[John Duncan]

OK, the iMac's arrived, but thus far it is internetless. Does anyone have experience of setting up a wireless router using a Telewest/Pace STB? If I connect my laptop to the ethernet port of the STB and renew the IP, I have internet. But if I plug in my Belkin wireless router, I get zip - I can connect to the router, but no internet access. Any pointers?

 

[professorhat]

Worth checking with your ISP. I know some ISPs have security so that you can only access the internet from an IP provided by their box, thus if you hook in something which is giving your machine a different IP address, they won't let you out onto the net.

 

[John Duncan]

Yes, had considered that it might only let a particular MAC address out (for example), but am not convinced as my new laptop can connect to the internet when it's wired. I think it may have something to do with the IP address of the router not being on the same range of IP addresses, and I might need to configure it manually......

Can you tell I'm a software guy and just don't 'do' networks?

 

[professorhat]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"]I think it may have something to do with the IP address of the router not being on the same range of IP addresses, and I might need to configure it manually......[/quote]

Lol - I know, I do quite a bit of work with them. Yeah, this is effectively what I meant i.e. the ISP only allows traffic out from a certain range of IP addresses (or subnet). Sometimes, they will give whatever machine is connected a static IP and only that one IP address is allowed out on the internet. Only way to test is to get your router to give out addresses in the same range (though make sure they don't conflict) and try again.

 

[Anonymous]

Telewest do (or at least used to) only allow access from specific MAC addresses. It used to automatically register the MAC of the first piece of equipment connected to the cable modem, and from there on out, only that MAC can connect through the modem. In addition, it used to be the case that you could ring them up and register extra MAC addresses with them, thus allowing multiple devices to connect, so you could give this a try.

Probably the easiest option though, is to plug your router into the modem, then plug the laptop (the one which can connect) into the router using the wired connection (don't plug any other computers into the router to start with), then if you go to your routers setup page from the laptop, there is usually an option called "Clone MAC address" or something similar, if you activate this, the router should detect your laptops MAC address, and then alter its own MAC address to be identical to the laptops (you may need to disable any firewall sorftware running on the laptop).

After rebooting all the equipment concerned (including the cable box), the router should be able to connect through the cable modem. If not then there must be some other issue (such as that your router is not set up to automatically obtain an IP or DNS). Forget about wireless set up untill you can first get the router to connect, and your laptop to connect through a wired connection to the router, Once that is done, then you can set up the wireless.

 

[John Duncan]

Helpful thank you, and my next attempt will be pretty much this (now that I got a 2nd ethernet cable at lunchtime). I'm reading that MAC addressing is not a problem any more with Virgin, but will bear it in mind, but am thinking I'll attempt it in stages - wired (done)/wired through router (as you say)/wireless no security/wireless secure.

i realise trying to attempt this without having the laptop logged onto the router at the same time as it being plugged into the STB box was probably futile..........

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"] MAC addressing is not a problem any more with Virgin[/quote]

I suspect that it is getting phased out gradually, however I just tried changing my routers MAC address to its default (not the cloned address from my computer that it normally uses) and restarting all the equipment, and I have found that they must still be filtering MAC addresses on some connections since it wouldn't connect. As soon as I changed the MAC address back again, it connects perfectly.

I am not saying that your problems are deffinitely the MAC filtering issue, but it is quite probable. There are a couple of other things it could be though, so if cloning the MAC doesn't work, then post back here and we can try troubleshooting a few other possibilities.

 

[John Duncan]

Anyway, got the router working (amazing what you can do when you RTFM) and this is being typed on the Mac. Can't get the Vista laptop to connect wirelessly, but hey........

We thank you all........