Two Modems with Comcast

[beamer908]

I'm relatively new to networking in general. I browsed the forum and the internet in general for an answer to this question to no avail. Here we go...

I would like to put another cable modem in my house. I currently pay for comcast high-speed and one of their modems. I just received another modem for free from my dad who works for Scientific Atlanta. I already have a wireless router attached to the first modem. One of my computers is really far away, and I don't really want to buy an access point or run cat5 if I don't have to. A comcast tech that came to my house said that all I had to do was get another IP address for this second modem for an additional $5/month on top of my cable bill.

Is this true? I've heard different things. If it's not true, what the heck would you do with another IP address *OTHER* than hook it up to another modem.

Excuse my newness and perhaps my lack of knowledge.

Thanks,
B

 

[mindspin]

Hi Beamer,

It seems to me the Comcast guy didn't really understand your problem. Also he is bound to rules, here in Holland when you contract an ISP and have your modem/router installed, your officially not allowed to connect more than one computer to the internet connection. But offcourse, everyone does it though... He thinks you want to have BOTH computers directly accesible through the internet. But im guessing you just want a home network and connect to the internet through your router.

What is the distance between the computers? If very long and if you have more than 2 computers, I would suggest you to get some access points. Hope I helped you out!

Good Luck!

 

[RealBlackStuff]

The answer is Yes, you can.
See this forum-post, look for Louis the Comcast Tech.
http://forums.cable-modem.net/index.php?action=vthread&forum=1&topic=13

 

[LNCPapa]

I believe Comcast has slightly different rules depending on location. I called my local comcast people here about a similar situation - I would have to pay $6/mo extra. The new modem won't even allow me out until they add the MAC address to their database. I learned that the hard way when I decided to swap out the cable modem they gave me with another one I bought. Also, our IP addresses are not static - I have to pay $89/mo to get mine static instead of the $59/mo I pay now so I just use dydns to get around that. I have heard totally different stories online from other Comcast customers in different states. When the rules are passed down from high up the Comcast chain I'm sure different people interpret these policies in different ways, hence the confusion/differences.

 

[StormBringer]

There are several ways to deal with Comcast depending on location. The first being to unplug the modem for 5 mins before installing the router(works for most routers and most comcast locations) The second being to "spoof" the MAC address of the last system that was successfully using the modem to connect to comcast(works in those areas where comcast holds the mac address in their database) The third way is to call them and tell them you need the address reset because you changed the NIC(this is sometimes required if spoofing doesn't work, this is true of some older routers and some cases where comcast somehow knows the address is being spoofed)
I'm sure there are other ways around it but those are the methods I have successfully used to help customers in different parts of the country to get their routers connected.