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Free Cable Modem From The Shack
Linuxathome writes: "I spent over $100 recently at a local Radio Shack (Columbia, Md.) and they gave me a free RCA cable modem with no strings attached (at least, to the best of my knowledge). Actually, it wasn't quite free, I still had to pay the 5% tax on it. Comcast has some deal with the Shack to push as much hardware as possible in hopes that the consumer will order the cable broadband service. At least I won't have to rent the equipment. I wonder how Comcast can actually make money this way? Especially since the Shack consumer has absolutely no obligation to buy the service. They can't even guarantee the buyer lives in an area where Comcast is providing service. Time to figure if this bad boy acts nice with a linux router." Soon we will be buried in "free" hardware and AOL CDs. Has anyone else encountered this giveaway? Is there any use more clever than signing up for cable Internet service? (And can you examine data which passes through it without violating an implied agreement? ;) )
Here is the REAL Deal. The way it is suppose to work is if you purchase $100 worth of stuff at Radio Shack, they will give you a cable modem free with a 1 year subscription to Comcast Cable Modem service. Now supposedly it is under the constraint that you purchase a 1 year subscription at Radio Shack, but it seems that no one informed Radio Shack that this is how it works. Instead 90% of the Radio Shacks are just giving you the mode free with the purchase of $100.
Origionally a lot of us (meaning Anandteckers), assumed that the management never told the workers at Radio Shack how things work with this deal, but after seeing how widespread this was, the new concensus is that Management goofed. There is a copy of the ACTUAL deal/promo floating around on the net somewhere, but I don't remember offhand and really don't feal like looking it up right now (hey its Christmas weekend).
Good luck to all those who get in on this, like I mentioned its about a 90% chance that you will not have to sign into a 1 year deal. If they ask you to, just go to the other Radio Shack that's 2 miles down the road :)
I fear the merger.. just think... AOL can bring its horrible service over to cable modems... Just think.. they can corner the market, but then again, i could always get 900 cds and just keep usign "free trials". Oh well.. and.. Verizon DSL is a joke.. The morons went 4 months trying to fix my service.. come to find out.. some tech guy turned off our service for no apparent reason.. then it took another month and a half for them to turn it on again.. These people are morons.. I use the internet to aviod talking to idiots.. instead i spent 3 hours a day with tech support telling them that thye should go ahead and turn back on my account..
@Home usually costs most people $40 a month, and this fee includes the leasing of the cable modem. However, if you own a cable modem, you only have to pay $30 a month.
I recently bought a RCA dish and receiver combo for $50 at the local Best Buy. After finding out that I did not have a direct line of sight to the satellite (!@#$@$ tree!!!), I signed up for Digital Cable through MediaOne (recently bought out by AT&T Broadband).
Now it turns out that MediaOne is offering a promotion to dish owners-- Turn in your dish, and get a $200 credit towards digital cable service (about 5 months worth). So for a $50 dish, I get $200 worth of Digital Cable, plus a really fancy cable box that actually works well with my TiVo.
From AT&T Promo E-mail:
Do you have AT&T Road Runner service, but still have that Dish on your house? Well, here's your chance to dump that dish!
If you give up your dish AT&T Broadband will give you $200! Now when you sign up for Digital Cable you'll get a FREE installation and $200 in discount coupons* you can apply toward your monthly cable bill. Plus, we'll haul away your satellite dish and receiver for free! This is a limited time offer, so call us today at 1-877-407-7862.
*Call AT&T Broadband for complete details about service and prices. Certain services are available separately or as part of other levels of service and not all services are available in all areas. You must subscribe to a Digital Cable Package to receive the (4) $50 discount coupons.
You may want to look into Starband, available any where you have a south facing view in north america, and 400kb/s not to shabby, resonably priced too. http://www.starband.com
According to an article from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the US ranks third in high speed connections per capita. First is Germany (with extensive ISDN), and second Canada (where 22% of internet users have cable or ADSL). As a canadian i can believe this. I remember everyone getting cable or DSL back in grade 10 - 11 (i graduated couple years ago). I suspect cable is cheaper here; i pay $26.90 (in american dollars) / month. The US is not the only wired place!
When I signed up for ADSL through BellSouth they gave me the modem outright, as long as I stay with the service 60 days. This really isn't much of a commitment. It's a slick move because it's a much better deal than leasing the modem or requiring a year (like Telocity), but they are probably assuming that once you are blown away by the speed you will not want to be discontinuing the service.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
@home doesn't seem to do port scans anymore now that I added them to my dropped route list. I currently have www, ftp, telnet, dns, half life servers all running off my cable connection.
I'm not sure what company is providing the modem, but the Wiz computer store in NYC is giving out free cable modems too. You have to spend $250 to get one for free.. i'm sketchy on the details as i live near Detroit and just seen the ads on satelite
I recently received a (hand-written) refund check from Comcast and I don't know why. They weren't my cable provider at my old address, and they aren't my provider at my new address. Nothing in the hand-addresses envelope except the check.
Why?
And what would I spend 100 dollars on in Radio Shack?
[shudder]
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
That's not a bad thing. I like the fact folks want to make their money off of ongoing service, rather than up-front setup charges, which always gave me a bad taste in my mouth...
A given brand of cable modem isn't going to act as a magic router device for you; they're designed to talk to specific head-end equipment installed by the cable company (and you won't be getting that free any time soon :-)
BTW: don't listen to the myth that the DSL companies push, that the more people on cable the slower it gets. Fibre typically gets to each neighborhood, and each neithborhood typically gets the equivalent of the switch. How many corporations are successfully sharing high speed internet connectivity with hundreds of people on a 10mbps or 100mbs link successfully. A lot. It's fibre to the neighborhood, and a local high speed LAN for you and your neighbors (but more secure, as the cable modems disallow snooping). The marketing hype from DSL makes me sick. (Although DSL itself is a reasonable solution, too, at least for downloading, regardless of the misinformation.)
-me-
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Klowner, we rehashed the Satellite access for about 500 comments worth about 3 weeks ago right here on Slashdot. If you search for the articles that I posted on it, it's got most all the details you could ever want. Click on me and email me if you want to talk specifics.
:-)
:)
Hey, that -IS- one example. At least, probably of the brand of canned corn this guy tried with his Cue Cat. It's incredible difficult to sell something to someone (even if it's free) if they can't see a use for it. Actually, come to think of it, I've used mine a few times to avoid having to use a search engine to search for recipes!! It works pretty well for stuff like that.
I do love having the satellite hookup at the store, and having a customer come in and ask about the CueCat, and I ask them if they have anything in their pockets with a barcode on it. Like a pack of cigarettes, or bubblegum, or whatnot. Page loads instantly. Customer's jaw drops, if they've never seen anything faster than 56k.
It's beautiful
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
You can still use the AOL service if you have a cable modem. It is cheaper if you don't pay AOL for their dialup accounts. This means that they are moving toward offering a content rich site, thus they don't care who uses the dialup side.
Of course the deal with Time Warner, allows them to move from providing low speed internet access to high bandwidth, content rich media with a well known and loyal subscriber base.
I am not one of them, but their business model with the merger, is far from unstable.
The DSL service would have to be active, and there is a noticeable hiss on a phone line that has DSL with no filters. There is a noticeable hiss even _with_ the filters installed !
In other words, I don't think this is possible.
Center bodied, omni-minded.
know just what you mean .... What position are you in which store or district number? I'm a sales ass @ 9481 in 0866
Have a free cadle mobem!
ISDN is high speed? Har de har har! What a laugh! ISDN is yesterday's idea of high speed. Like a 64K leased line, already! Bwa ha ha!
I am an @home user, and when I first read this, I was skeptical on the fine print. First, I don't trust Radio Shack. Second, I don't trust "free" hardware. I have had a shitload of problems in the past with my cable modem service, in fact, just today, they changed my IP address. That caused my routing tables to become completely fubar. But back to the subject. I was told a free installation, and 3 months free modem rental, at least with Charter@Home. They charged me $60 for my "free" install, and they never gave me free modem rental. Now, I have friends who work for Radio Shack, and I will talk to him about it, everything has strings attached to it, or the modem is a POS, and they are just trying to get rid of it.
How much for head?!?!
Cable is split between everyone in your neighborhood. I learned this when I was got a cable modem, and my friend next door got one too. So, even if you got a second line, you would be pulling bandwith off your other modem. I now am the only one in my neighborhood with a cable modem, and I am somewhat pleased with the service. Read my other post about the shit expierience with @home. But, just stick with your one modem, Danny. The only way I recomend doing that, is to get a DSL, and Cable, and use those as your primary net connection. That is an experiment that I have been wanting to try for a long ass time, just don't have the hardware, or money for that matter.
How much for head?!?!
Actually, Perl, the satellite is -way- slow to get you started. The latency (ping time) is a MINIMUM 450ms, and it's usually worse. But you're absolutely right, after the connection gets hooked, it's awesome. CyberPatrol does add some overhead to that.. but it sure beats having a public kiosk with full open access. *laugh*
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
cablevision is offering the same deal at the wiz, spend $100 and get hte modem free, but i believ you have to pay the $29.95 montly fee
yeah, I know exactly what you mean there, BN. I've got 5 100MBps lines and 1 10Mbps line connected via a 33.6 also. Fortunatly only two computers are ever in use at a time. :)
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Great, you're promoting theft. I bet your parents are very proud of you.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Dear god The phone company knows I call 1 900 numbers I bet there calling playboy right now and saying this guys horny send him subscription info. And I don't thinkg you even know what your talking about there is code for every platform for the cuecat stuff...
Oops....you'll know what I'm talkin about in a bit.
I have dsl and I've never noticed a hiss with the filters, you might have the filters on backwards( you won't believe how many people do this) and they might be defective, they aren't exactly going for the goodstuff with these filters you know
Oops....you'll know what I'm talkin about in a bit.
My Comcast deal segments out I think its 9 bucks for the rental of the modem, if I choose to purchase mine ($350!!!) than that will be taken off my bill... I don't see me buying a modem any time soon, since after finally getting the modem installed, more and more people are bringing my bandwith down. I think its time to consider buisness class DSL with some CIR's.
AF-Design, web development.
Is there a CueCat attached to it?
"This must be a Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
hmm. Now I understand why everyone not in the midwest talks trash about RS. Gilat has been called starband since before it became available, and has nothing to do with @Home. And if you go through our press releases (this was announced like -everywhere-) we're working with @Home to provide cable modems across the US. But so far it's just testing on the east coast.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
i heard that VA is giving away FREE vi or emacs editors. vi! emacs! no more tubesnakes, mom!! free cable modems?? sounds like a plot! get katz on this moffo AZAP!!
It says somewhere in the @home agreement that the modem is included (leased) in the monthly fee. Although it does say that the agreement can be changed at any time without notice.. But anyway they have never sold cable modems, or at least they haven't offered them to me. Ill call them. (though daddy needs a new sound system anyway)
on the subject of speed with a cable modem, im an getting tired of seeing "cable modem booster" you can tweak windows reg settings, of course the windows registry is a tweak, but you can not un capped your modem. Its not capped, the router is. so if you see it don't d/l it. its rather amusing that people would widly distibute something that dosent work. Wait a minute coming back to windows 98 :P shoot the only stable os they made was dos, and from what i know they bought that. And added apple's gui to it.
i've got comcast and they've been promising cable modem service "soon" for the last YEAR, with no change in status .. i'm dying here on my dial up .. too far in the boonies of manassas for DSL too .. ackkk *expires while waiting for /. to load*
i could live a little longer in this prison
You mean a pokey-network, or did a fast-Ethernet wireless equivalent appear recently? I just can't deal with limited bandwidth when it's my own network. Enough of that at work.
Hay thar.
My dad just spent over 100 dollars at the wiz and got a free 3com cable modem. All he has to do now is pay for the service, no strings attached or anything. I wish they had that when I got my cable modem. I was one of the first in my area to get one and I have to rent mine.
What else would be needed to make 2 or more of these modems talk to each other (besides some 75 ohm coax and F connectors)?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Time-Warner is my TV and internet cable provider.
You were wondering why the buyout?
If you're burried in those crappy CD's that AOL and various other ISP's send out, there are some fun things to do with them: 1) Mount them on a wall backwards, so the shiny part shows. This makes for some really sweet lighting effects. 2) Take them, along with your favorite shotgun and go skeet shooting. 3) Throw them at the wall like a frisbee and watch them shatter. It's a good stress reliever.
If cable does not get slower when more people are on it they why does the cable modem I use at the office (Colleyville, TX) get slower when school gets out and on days with no school? This does not happen on my personal cable modem nor does it happen on my DSL line 1500/128 (Euless, TX). About corps sharing a 100 mbs link, of corse they have great speed with a lot of people on it! They are NOT downloading from napster or porn sites!!!
that the :cuecat wasn't made by radioslut, but it was made by digital:convergence...
:)
radioslut just shacked up a deal to distribute them
it's not like you guys are hating wired magizine too right? topic should be free cable modem- Body = buy $100 worth of junk at radioshack, get a free modem, then return it!
Runnin' On Empty
This is assuming that christmas is a christian holiday. The fact of the matter is that most cultures around the world have feastivities around the winder solstice. The comming of the shortest day of the year means that the days are starting to get longer, and there is hope for spring. The christian church adopted the old pagen European customs, and changed the significance of the meaning of this holiday to repressent the birth of christ. The christian church had done this to many aspects of pagen European culture. To win over converts, the church found that adopting the more enjoyable aspects of pre-christian Europe was very effective.
As an aside, the devil that is part of christian mythology was actually adapted from the god of festivity from the original pagan mythology.
It should be noted that I am a Canadian athiest who celebrates the winter festivities. I don't believe christmas has anything to do with christ.
Do not flame back about the first six letters of the word christmas, it was the christian church who coined the word. I am sure the various european cultures had their own word for the winter festival for 1000s of years before the christian church came to power around the fall of the Roman empire in the 5th century AD (476AD is commonly cited in the history books)
And remember, today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Just because the cable is split means nothing. It's still capped at 500k/s down and about 150k/s upstream.. and there is a lot more bandwidth out there than that, no?
Ran into problems with a RCA cable modem/router just several days ago. Couldn't even get a link light with a Watchguard SOHO firewall. The ISP refused to help with the problem. Might want to make certain that the ISP will support the "free" hardware you get in case you run into problems. (To finally solve the problem we installed a different cable modem/router and had to set it to the duplex and speed of the port on the firewall).
When do us aussies get free cable modems and decently priced high speed access? Optus@Home has some fucked up "Quality policy" type thing. They used to be good but are slowly going down the toilet. Tel$tra will pretty much always be crap :)
Maybe you're missing the key point here... the cable modem is free, if it breaks I can go back to leasing. It's not as if I can't spend $100 at Radio Shack and come away with stuff I want/need.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Hell, ill do it !!!.
I could use a new cable modem.
Im probably going to buy myself
a digital camera anyways.
M$ stock dropped in 1/2 since last year. If you are a MCSE, you will be broke.
There are no other options I'm aware of with @home in my area.
Anyone have any information on this? I'd sure like to knock a bit off the $50 a month I'm paying for cable modem service.
________
Add a large order of rydeline to that order.
That wouldn't be the way to go at all. Buy the Linksys WPC11 wireless cards. They're only $150 if you have a laptop and $150 + $49 for the PCI carrier if you have a desktop. 802.11B is the future, son. It's a nice fast network and not too costly either. (By the way, the carrier doesn't work in Linux yet, but they're working on the drivers.)
Yule.
came to power around the fall of the Roman empire in the 5th century AD (476AD is commonly cited in the history books)
The Council of Nicea. After Constantine Christianitized what was left of the Roman empire, the council set about selecting the official Christian writings. This is the first point in history at which Christianity would have been recognizable as such to a modern Christian. Some of the ideas suppressed at Nicea were quite bizarre by modern standards. Read up on Gnosticism sometime :-)
The Yule festival was co-opted much later, during campaigns to Christianize the northern barbarians.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Beware the service agreement....Charter Pipeline PROHIBITS connecting a "server" to their cable internet service. My firewall log shows they do regular port scans to enforce it too.
Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
Cable modems and DSL modems are going the way of the cell phone- Who the hell ever BUYS their cell phone outright anymore?? The cost is absorbed in the fee. The same thing is happening with DSS satellite receivers- If you agree to pay for a whole year's subscription up front, you get the equipment and installation for free. If you purchase the equipment and install it yourself and pay by the month, the subscription for the service after one year is NOT ONE PENNY cheaper.
Actually, it wasn't quite free, I still had to pay the 5% tax on it
Wouldn't 5% sales tax on free still be free? =)
Your monopoly ain't no worse off than our monopoly. In my locale, Cox Cable bought out AT&T after AT&T bought out TCI after TCI bought out Cablevision, all within a three year period. (Tell me our bill ain't screwed up.) Well, I recently signed up for @home, add their $40/mo to our having digital settop boxes at $35/mo X 2, and I have a cable bill of $110.
Speaking of free aol and free hardware. I just started getting a new free mailing from aol... a cd in a DVD case. I'm sure you can by them somewhere, but thanks AOL for sending me a case... your cd is in the trash.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Just as a helpful hint, you can order Starband satellite internet access directly from Starband. It costs $600 for the equipment, requires Windows 98 or 2000 because it is USB, not ethernet, and is $70 a month. They also say that they will install it within four weeks.
~moofbong
If 'con' is the opposite of 'pro', what is the opposite of 'progress'?
Radio Shack is just reversing the deal. It should be: Radio Shack is giving their customers a "$100 Cool Things Card". This will be given Free to customers who purchase Comcast Cable High-speed Internet service (Comcast @Home - modem and self install). The customers cannot use the $100 card towards the buy-down of the modem. The "Cool Things Card" is a gift card that can be used to buy other merchandise at Radio Shack.
Then what the hell are you doing on Slashdot then???
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
At The Wiz, you have to commit to two years of Optimum Online service AND spend $100 on other stuff to get the cable modem for free. This modem is supposedly "no strings attached," which means that you could potentially sell it for less than the Wiz is charging to someone in the New York area.
Of course, knowing Cablevision's mindset on cable ("no access for you!") they would probably shut this down in a heartbeat. It took a lot of coaxing to make them let me set up my cable modem with Linux last year, when they were only doing in-home installs.
For more information, click here.
the only problem with the msn kiosks is the cyber patrol software, there's a bit of a delay when first going to a domain while it checks and sees if it's kosher... kinda makes the satelite seem a bit slow at first, had a customer comment that his dialup was faster, once he got going though he was hooked =)
:)
Now if they just didn't have to buy the NMQ system
Here's another perspective:
I've had DSL service from two different providers. With one of them, I owned the DSL modem and with the other (my current provider) I lease the hardware, and I'm much happier with leasing.
The reason is that this DSL stuff isn't 100% reliable, at least in my area, and it really sucks to call tech support just to have them tell you that everything looks fine on their end and so the problem must be your hardware and would you please just call them back when you've replaced your modem. And yes, they'd be more than happy to transfer you to their warranty replacement department. What? Your modem is more than 90 days old? Well, in that case they'd be happy to transfer you to sales.
Nope, I much prefer my new provider because they own and are responsible for the whole shootin' match, right up to the ethernet cable that plugs into my router. If anything goes wrong, they send someone out to fix it. Or at least they say that's what they'll do, because there's never been a problem.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You may be able to get IDSL. It costs more than ADSL or cable, and is much slower (144K), but it's worlds better than dialup. It works at 30,000 ft. or more from the central office, so you can get it in lots of places that are far beyond ADSL distance limits.
(I was unable to get ADSL, and the cable modems here are "one-way".)
Oh, for shame. Why do you insist on paying full retail?
go to price watch for WPC11 starting at $120 + 8 s/h
or for 802.11b starting at $118 + 6 s/h
or for 802.11b pci starting at $160 + 6 s/h
enjoy!
TangoChaz
--------------------
TangoChaz
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Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools because the
hehe, mines free. 8mb/s down 768k/s up. And I haven't even tweaked the head end yet. Since I'm one of the only people in my neighborhood who has cable, I should be able to get close the the maximum for my modem which is 30 down and 8 up.
For free.
---GEEK CODE---
Ver: 3.12
GCS/S d- s++: a-- C++++ UBCL+++ P+ L++
W+++ PS+ Y+ R+ b+++ h+(++) r++ y+
Actually, some of the 'cable modem booster' registry tweaks do make a difference... at least they did under Windows 98SE on my box. I did the tweaks listed at speedguide.net in their Cable and DSL Tweaks section and was able to get a 30% increase in throughput. (based on actual tests) Most noticable at 3am... but hey, I'm on then alot.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
http://www.tandy.com/companyinfo/Internet_Html_Pag es/footer.asp?URL=RSH-2000-036G.htm
-- This Space Intentionally Left Blank --
What would I want at Radio Shack for $100? :-)
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Not true, I'm using @home and have to lease my cable modem ($15/month). I think it depends on your local provider.
Today in Newsday, New York's local cable provider (Optimum Online) ran a full-page ad in which it proclaimed that its cable modems would make AOL run faster. Imagine that -- using AOL as a selling point, catering to the uneducated masses who think that AOL _is_ the Internet. Of course, in the small print, they mention that AOL will still cost you at least $9.95 per month, and that Cablevision doesn't manage AOL. Of course, that combination of brilliant marketing will mean that there are now two points of failure for Joe Home User connecting to AOL, not to mention a lot of Cablevision billing reps flooded with calls from users wondering why their AOL now costs more than twice as much as it used to.
For more information, click here.
Seriously, I am a freshman in college with no marketable skills- and what was my job last summer? You guessed it; "Radio Shack Sales Associate". What a bunch of dorks! My manager was a year older than me, and my regional manager seemed to have something wrong with him. When I left that place, I said "The hell with you guys, the next time you see me is when you're selling something I designed!"
But what's the point of this post? Radio shack has long since degraded into the lowest common denominator of shiny crap that goes beep. There's a REASON why the salese people don't know anything. It's a high turnover rate, and a rapid shot of apathy that comes out of nowhere. Don't judge the damned.
AOL is offering DSL in some areas, i dont have the specifics but this site does
--Semi-----------------------
|semi@nix.org
|#resistance irc.otherside.com
ln -s
Well, I don't live in the US, but I do have cable. I live in Austria, and there are other cable services in the UK (I believe), Sweden, etc. So you're over-generalizing a bit, it's not *just* the US
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
Interesting. How does that work? Does the router recognize a MAC address on the modem which it then checks against a database of authorized numbers?
My information comes from a field employee (he opens boxes and installs filters) and, from experiences with employees of other public utilities (some of them the ones that move scary, dangerous things to your house like gas and electricity), I totally believe that there is a high level of misinformation and foolishness at that level.
Here is my idea to be evil (tm) Buy a $120 remote control car - get the cable modem - return the remote control car Or Return the modem ? I wonder if I can use it in conjunction with my surfboard or if it has provider limitations (I have cox here) - hmm - any URLs to Radioshack that say where this offer is happenin?
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Now, I wish someone at Radio Shack could give me the answer to the question of whether you can either a) buy Cat2 cable (whatever that is) or if you can, in fact connect less than the number of cats than the cable is rated for, such as 2 cats on a cat3 cable or 4 cats on a cat5 cable. If this is the case, maybe we could use Cat6 cable and be ready if we want to connect 6 cats together. ;)
I guess you could always ask the government for the tax refund :)
AC comments get piped to
I remember reading a few stories of people hooking up DSL equipment to their lines without subscribing for it(borrowed/ebayed a DSL modem, and what not), and suddenly finding other people in Network Neighborhood.
Anyone got more detail on it? This was like 3 years ago.
I wonder if the same thing will happen with these freebie modems.
Now that we have a free cable modem hows about a story on 100$ electrical projects we can do with radio shack parts?
Soon we will be buried in "free" hardware and AOL CDs.
At least you can use free hardware for door stoppers, expensive-looking paperweights, and - if you can throw together a Van Der Graff generator with a couple of stainless steel bowls and a very big rubber band - graphic demonstrations to your boss of why he shouldn't carry unbagged DIMMs across the office carpets on dry winter days.
After you've done your static demonstration, perhaps all the little status LEDs on the unit will blink even without cable or UTP connections. Then, your little expensive-looking paperweight has been bestowed with LBL-factor.
("LBL" = "Little Blinking Light", (c)1993 Lawrence Wade.)
LBL-Factor is, of course, incredibly useful; it keeps people from playing with all the techical-looking stuff on your desk, and it makes one appear smarter than the combined calculating ability of the collection of neurons in one's cranium. This increases your worth to your employer because your projects are no longer interrupted by upstart 23-year-old mechanical engineers who think that they're computer literate and therefore touch the pile of hardware scattered all over your desk, as well as making your boss feel that he's getting a better deal for your services than he actually is. (This, of course, means that he's basically resigned to the fact that he's gonna have to give you a big fat raise soon.)
Thus far, these potential benefits have been tested and demonstrated with an old Anderson-Jacobsen 2400 baud leased-line modem; all this is undoubtedly possible from a little cable modem, especially if it has a cryptic brand name prominently displayed on the front of the case (as cable modems around here tend to have).
Is there any use more clever than signing up for cable Internet service?See above.
If you can get a couple of these, with a little creative hacking (and a good reflow soldering system) you might be able to make a long-distance coax network bridge.
Then, you could hit the ARRL's website, grab the schematics for a good 2kW RF linear amplifer and plans for a nice efficient antenna, and give yourself wireless networkability... and big FCC fines. :)
(And can you examine data which passes through it without violating an implied agreement?Sure! Plug it into your computer, toss it at a cable connection, install the drivers and a packet sniffer, and watch the entire contents of your hard disk being updated to the cable company for "market research" purposes.
<sigh>
It's probably unhealthy that I become more paranoid when I'm tired.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Enough whining about RadioShack's stupidity and lack of cable modem service where you live. Can anyone actually provide any useful information on this cable modem? Specifically, what model is it? The really old DCM105? The slightly newer DCM 205? Or the new DCM225 or DCM226? That's what I want to know! My little rural town of 600 people is getting cable modem service, but we have to buy our own hardware.
CyberDave
Actually, I just did do a plaster-busting job and rewired a good chunk of the house I'm living at. It's not all that hard, really. We put in 6 cat5 jacks, 4 coax, and 2 phones. Total price, including the patch panel was around $400 US.
It's really not that hard, if three nerds can do it to a 1950's era row house.
Two things: First, why would you shop at Radio Shack? Whenever I go there (mostly to pick up obscure audio cables), they always hassle me, trying to get my address. I went in yesterday to get an attenuating male-to-male minijack cable, and the bastard at the counter asked me what it was for... I was taken aback, he acted like if I didn't tell him what my intended use was, he wouldn't sell it to me. Maybe it's because I gave him the address to the White House when he asked...
Second thing: As a 'broadband engineer' with a few years experiance with cable modem systems, I would say don't plan on getting ANY data passing through the modem without paying for service. Depending on the type of modem (what type is it?), and the protocol it uses (DOCSIS or proprietary), it shouldn't pass any traffic at all (if they have a halfway decent system set up). Most proprietary solutions (COM21 products, comPORT and ComCONTROLLER in particular) enter each modem in by MAC address of the modem's RF network hardware before the modem will even aquire. Other DOCSIS solutions require the MAC address to be entered in the DHCP lists so that the modem can download its operating software (firmware). Without the cable company having your MAC address, and having you set at a QoS level, your modem won't aquire at all, and if it does, it won't pass any traffic at all. Most cable modem networks (well, at least the ones that weren't configured by special ed kids -- most of them were, now that I think of it...) have packet forwarding filters on each modem -- basically, your modem is sheilded from the rest of the modems on the RF network, and you cant pass any TCP/IP packets to them at all. No packet sniffing for you kiddies.
In short: if you plug the modem in, it won't link up to the cable modem network, and you'll be wasting your time.
:)
jason
But the shack isn't exactly a chain store is it? I've always been under the impression that each shack location was independently owned and operated...hence why every shack's return policy is different and why different shacks offer different deals and stuff. Has this changed lately or am i thinking of Schlotzsky's Deli?
If by up you mean down, and by clever you mean stupid, then yes.
This post is brought to you by the letters T and A, and the number 69
DSL, as you however, can go two different ways. I currently have Verizon (JUNK!) but I have only one other ISP offering DSL in my area. The other ISP, however, only resells Verizon service. Some DSL providers have co-located servers at the telco and do not depend on the local telco's network. This is probably the better situation, especially if your local telco is Verizon. Unlike the telco, they most likely won't also be a monopoly so good service is the only thing that will keep their customers. I will probably get a cable modem when it becomes available in my area, but either way, you are getting Time Warner or AT&T in the end. Ever wonder why the cable co so reluctant to offer service or tech support? It's pretty much a loss leader for them to keep people off of satelite, they make very little money at all on cable internet service.
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
I always thought you just made hotter corn from canned corn...
Did it tell you how to make moon shine or something? Cornbread?
Come on, don't leave us hanging like that! :)
You can get the same effect if you want into Circuit City, Office Depot, or other simillar stores and ask questions about computers.
The main thing about @Home is that not all @Home is created equally. The cable company has a lot of freedom to do different things. In Indiana (where I live, with AT&T@Home) part of your monthly fee pays for the modem and you can get a $5 discount or something by using your own modem. In Virginia (where my parents have now moved, with Cox@Home) you must pay for the modem. AT&T charges $5.95 (IIRC) for additional IPs with the max being 6 total or something. Cox charges $6.95 and does not allow more than 4 total computers. In addition they charged a $10 "setup fee" for the IP. So I basically paid them $10 so I can continue paying them $6.95 every month. What the "setup fee" is for I don't know. I know it is an automated process to add the hostname and IP to the DNS server since it works immediately. However, DNS lookups did not immediately return the address and a reverse lookup on the IP returned someone elses hostname (presumably someone who had cancled service). It does now however work correctly (it's been a couple days). Its possible that they actually have someone update the DNS server manually which would explain the delay, or maybe they just don't restart it for a while.
Currently AT&T (and Cox from what I am seeing on my dads computer) use static addresses but also support DHCP. Most installers in my area of Indiana always type in static because the DHCP server tended to go down constantly. Ask a low-level tech from @Home about static and they fucking freak out because "we will be switching to dynamic addressing in the near future". Says the same thing when you order additional IPs that you need to set your hostname and use DHCP and that its bad to configure them statically. In all reality there are so many customers with static addresses that it would be an absolute support nightmare to switch. In addition, I have heard that AT&T could give a shit about static but that it is @Home that wants to go dynamic. That is way through the grapevine but I believe it because @Home's DHCP servers go down so often in my area in particular that its cheaper for AT&T if everything is setup static because it is less support calls.
Should the configuration be wiped it will be necessary to type in the correct hostname and/or type in the IP number/netmask/gateway/dns servers anyway so there is no advantage to going with dynamic addressing UNLESS they would just randomly assign IPs to any computer that asked for one via DHCP. In that case the support costs would go way down because basically as long as the DHCP server works and the computer simply has a DHCP client it will get an address and work. The disadvantage is that your IP would then be truly dynamic and changeable which I don't like. I prefer to pay my $5 or whatever and have a real static IP. OTOH, many DSL providers do a hybrid of this system. That is, they will give out random IPs to any computer that asks for one but you may also purchase static IPs for $5 a pop. In my opinion, that is what I wish AT&T would do, it seems like the most fair system.
As for the other DHCP server (the one that gives the modem its address) I seriously doubt that it works any differently and most likely you couldn't just plug a new modem in and expect it to work.
Lots of places have been giving you the hardware free... or leasing it free with a free setup. I got RCN Cable Modem service a year ago. It was free setup, free leased modem, $40 a month, no contract, when I signed up. Granted there were a couple months that were hell as they grew their network, but things seem to be running smoothly now. I'm guessing that they've probably set the cable modem up so that it will only work with their network.
By the way, I very much agree with the other posts here that prefer leased hardware over owned hardware. I'm on my 3rd cable modem (the Hybrid modems are kinda flakey). Each time I've had major problems, it was traced to a flakey modem. Swapouts aren't too painful. Buying a new modem is.
Kinda Offtopic Note: Oh yeah... and if you're using a cable modem, make sure all your cable lines are clean (no staples or nails through em) and that all your splitters give less of a signal loss to the cable modem side of the wire. The better the signal, the better your performance.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Well, I don't live in the US, but I do have cable. I live in Austria, and there are other cable services in the UK (I believe), Sweden, etc. So you're over-generalizing a bit, it's not *just* the US ...
UK, Sweden, Canada, Nederlands, Australia...
T'is the Christmas festive season, and you gotta count yer blessings, man !
THose of us who are NOT fortunate enough to live in the States, don't even get to DREAM OF cable modem at all !
In fact, there is NO CABLE-anything where I live, and I'm stuck with the SUPER-ARCHAID 52K dialup to get on the Net.
Man, you guys get all the fun stuffs, and we got NOTHING !
Now.... if there's a way to get someone in the States who have SURPLUSS cable modem to SHARE their fortunes with those of us who NEED 'em, but can't get them anywhere in the country of our residence
I dunno 'bout the other places, but in many place I've been through, even if you've got cable hooked up, there's still a lot of hurdles to go through before one can locate a cable modem that would work with the service provided. Urrrggghh... how come when it comes to the one who provide the utlities (such as power, water, gas, cable, etc.) how come they are almost universally BAD ?!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
ghoti.... or fish rather.... Are you into linguistics by any chance?
--
Help us build a better map!
Perhaps the Shack this guy went to is a franchise, and not corporate? I work in a San Diego Shack, and we push MSN dial up and DSL, using Northpoint hardware (Northpoint being owned by the Shack now), and MSN satellite broadband using that unpronounceable @Home service, Gillat I think. Hell, If we were giving away Cable modems, i might have taken one myself, to rid myself of the monthly rental fee from Cox....
On a RedHat 7.0 style system (also 6.2 IIRC), set the DHCP_HOSTNAME variable in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-INTERFACE file to the desired hostname. In Windows you set the computers name to the desired hostname, also you may want to enable DNS and set the correct hostname and domain as well. For example, hostname "c780677-a", domain "[cityname]1.[2letterstateabbrev].home.com". Also set the workgroup to "@HOME".
/sbin/ifup.
/etc/network/interfaces, FYI for anyone interested.
Is that DHCP_HOSTNAME a documented setting? I never could find that myself and added it manually to
On Debian (which I use now for my cable router), it's in
So you're in Euless eh? I live in Hurst and I have not noticed any cable slowdowns in my neighborhood. I am probably one of the few that have cable modem in my area though. There is one thing I'm wondering - Why do you have both cable and dsl? You did say "This does not happen on my personal cable modem nor does it happen on my DSL line..." Man, I thought I was die hard! hee hee. Hell, more power to you!
This is all really interesting. (but probably ot)
Strange that @Home doesn't enforce a more rigid system - this must be a nightmare for them.
In my area IP addresses are meant to be permanent (reserved from the DHCP server) but as I've said above I think the reservations are very suspect. It's pretty much irrelevant anyway since lease times are 7 days so the IP is pretty much permanent.
I wonder if bandwidths are different in different areas too?
My RCA Digital Cablemodem works fine with:
Single machine (win9x, winNT, win2k, linux), or
Linux as NAT router to hub, or
Win2k with WinRoute as NAT router to hub, or
Dedicated linux-based VPN-tunneling NAT router to switch.
I'm sure other schemes will do just fine for you.
[
I haven't had to pay for my @Home cable modem since getting the service 2 years ago. Right at the start they offered the cable modem with a "free rental" and every bill stated "Cable modem : Limited free rental ($10 reg)" yet this continues to go on.
..there is this disturbing little amber-colored light on my cable modem labled "EMAIL"
:P
In general, my cable modem is pretty good, although sometimes it'll powercycle itself. Thank you, @home
Of course, being from Radio Shack, I'd be very wary in the first place.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Yep works here in Towson, MD too! Just got mine before this article went up. Encouraged a few friends to get one too! What a great deal!
When I signed up for DSL from Verizon they gave me the DSL modem and the ethernet card for free* that is you get the modem for free so long as you stay with them for a year...which is still a good deal
AT&T came out and gave me a SURFboard modem instead and I have not had any problems since. In fact, the cable guy admitted that the RCA modems were pieces of junk and he openly wondered why they were even still giving them out.
I have a feeling Radio Shack scored some RCA modems real cheap.
This reminds me of the whole :CueCat fiasco. Let's see how long until these things are cracked.
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Username taken, please choose another one.
Does anybody know if dsl/cable is worrying AOL? I cant help but wonder that if dsl/cable became huge, if everybody traded up in bandwidth, in the next few years would AOL be toast?
Sneakemail is to spam filters what an ounce of prevention is to a pound of cure.
Yeah, when I was getting my cable modem, I looked into how much the price was with leasing and with buying it outright. Hands down, leasing is better. Considering my father has gone through three cable modems in the last three years he's had the service, owning your own hardware is just going to end up costing you a lot more, even if you keep the cable service (or DSL, or whatever) long enough to pay off the initial investment and start seeing savings.
Disclaimer: I work at Circuit City in the Computer Department.
Circuit City also has this deal with Comcast. You buy a $230 kit which includes the modem and a "welcome kit" with software. Then there is a $230 rebate. I think this only applies to new subscribers however. I believe with the rebates, you have to submit your first month's bill.
I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with a 26400 dialup and I hate it.
:)
I went into Radio Shack a couple months ago and asked about their MSN Broadband with the small dish. The guy there told me it was only available in St.Louis. I promptly asked how satellite(sp?)access could be limited to a single state when its up in space. He said "OH, I thought you meant DSL."
I also asked what a CueCat was (I already knew about them, I just wanted one without getting funny looks). The guy explained it for about 5 minutes. "YOU GOT CANNED CORN? you Put this ON the can of corn, and you can SEE, what you can MAKE, with CANNED CORN!"
ah I love radio shack
I have Comcast @Home and an RCA modem that I rent for $10/mo. I went to the Shack to see if I could get the free modem with a $100 purchase (Wilmington, DE) but they said only in PA for now. My RCA modem is DOCSIS type and is uses a lot of power. The transformer is rated 35W and it runs warm. I hear that the newer modems use much less power.
In Rock Island, IL (USA) my girlfriend has cable modem service through AT&T/@home and it's $19.99 per month, there was no set up fee, and no fee for the cable modem. Even more impressive was the fact the installation was scheduled in one day, and took about 2 minutes. Everything works perfectly, and it's nice and speedy. Most other people I know from other places and providers have had lots of trouble.
He said, "You'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you helped assemble the first NT supercomputer," and I cringed.
it would just be easier, dont ask how, it just would be
this sig is funny. laugh.
-kaitos
Okay, here is how it works:
Your modem has a MAC address (two actually). The MAC address identifies the modem for use with DHCP. The DHCP server gives the modem a 10.x.x.x address and it is online (there is a whole bunch of other stuff involved, but essentially that is how it works). The modem must be provisioned to some account to work. There may be a way to provision a modem to a non-existant account but it would have to be a very inside job at @Home (in Colorado most likely).
The modem essentially functions as a bridge between the ethernet interface and the RF interface. Although they are two different protocols on the physical level, they both speak TCP/IP so I believe it would be most correct to call it a bridge. The MAC address of the ethernet interface on the modem (which is like never used) is always one more than the MAC address of the RF interface. You would be most concerned about the MAC address of the ethernet interface if you were screwing with your ARP cache I suppose, otherwise you really don't need to care about it.
Now, assuming your modem is connected as described above, then you essentially have an ethernet network like any other. Your computer has a hostname usually beginning with the letter C (hence called the Charlie number by some techs). There is then a 5-7 digit (usually 6) number identifying the subscriber. There is then a dash and a letter identifying the computer. So something like c780677-a (which is actually my hostname). My second IP address that I ordered is c780677-b. Your DHCP client contacts the DHCP server, gives it the hostname, and gets an IP address (standard DHCP procedure). They do not use your ethernet cards MAC address like most other DHCP/BOOTP setups because you may want to change network cards.
So, assuming what you said was true, then the only thing you would be able to do is connect multiple computers to one cable modem without paying for additional IP addresses. Actually, that would be a pretty sweet deal. Grab another box, set it's hostname to the same as yours but with a -B and see what happens. If you get the address without paying for it, more power to ya.
On a RedHat 7.0 style system (also 6.2 IIRC), set the DHCP_HOSTNAME variable in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-INTERFACE file to the desired hostname. In Windows you set the computers name to the desired hostname, also you may want to enable DNS and set the correct hostname and domain as well. For example, hostname "c780677-a", domain "[cityname]1.[2letterstateabbrev].home.com". Also set the workgroup to "@HOME".
I think that is probably everything you ever wanted to know about cable modems.
Power cycling is caused when the network sends out a flash rom update to the modems. They store a specialized bootp file on them that can be changed. The power cycle is the reboot after the update.
Let's see here... >1) ALL cable companies have protected terratories, no other company can attempt to compete in an existing service area with the existing cable co. That's bullshit. I install cable modems for AT&T/@Home here in Dallas. I regularly see Coserve and AT&T (formerly TCI) with customer pedestals in the same neighborhood. People out here have a choice in some areas. BUT if you go with Coserve, a cable modem is NOT an option. That blows, but usually there's an AT&T pedestal nearby with an open port on it.
However, what you say about the low margins on cable modem service is true. The cable companies usually offset this small margin by providing lots of digital services. A good percentage of people getting cable modems installed have digital phones over cable as well as cable tv service. 3 services, a $100 bill per month... it gets pretty sweet for the cable company.
Yeah, I've seen that stuff about hostnames before. It's not being used in these parts. My hostname is in English and it's one that I chose. Nobody from Cogeco touched my box. The box connected to the 'net is Windows 2000 and it's workgroup name is definitely not "@HOME".
Also, additional IPs are free in these parts. They actually make you PAY for extra IPs??
Additionally Cogeco@Home has a couple of IP numbers reserved for me (according to my user info at the web site) which do not relate at all to the IP that I am using.
It sounds to me like Cogeco in SW Ontario is a little off-spec. I don't think their DHCP servers are doing the same things that yours are. When I hooked up a few months back I had read the Cable-Modem-HOWTO and I called tech support to ask about the hostname thing. The young lady on the phone was less cluefully-challenged than usual and told me not to worry about it, as their DHCP servers were not validating host names and likely would not in the forseeable future.
I don't think the Cogeco people are very smart.
Sorry for the lack of info, but a coworker once mentioned that two cable modems can talk to each other directly, without anything between, just connected via cable. He also mentioned that someone had used this idea to provide cheap internet access.
Is there really a point to doing this? Just get yourself some network cards with some copper or fiber cable - you'll get alot further and it'll cost you alot less...
My only problem with the linux router is that ipchains in linux 2.2.X doesnt remasq packets, so its kindof hard to get starcraft to work right without an ugly patch that breaks serveral other aspects of ipchains (security).
I am not familiar with bsd, and dont have the time to look into it, so i'll wait until 2.4 is out to upgrade that. (fingers still crossed for late december)
Word to the wise: save the box they shipped your telocity hub to you with: if you ever end your service with them, they will ask for the original shipping container back. Too bad for me Ive already lost it. (Hope they wont pound my credit card for a stupid box+foam container if i quit them)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My local cable commission has given Comcast a monopoly over cable internet. Period. End of story. Other ISP's need not apply.
For 99% of the people out there, the boxes are no good without comcast's service. The phone company, and later, cell phone companies, gave away free phones. This is not exactly earth shattering news. It is easy to do this, especially when you have a monopoly on cable-internet.
As a side note. Comcasts internet service is through @Home. They do NOT allow you to run servers (including VPN, HTTP, e-mail, etc) and they do regular port scanning to make sure you comply.
Fortunately, in my area DSL is an option with a choice of providers.
A search on ebay reveals that RCA cable modems are all going for over a hundred. Sure, some of them have no bids right now, but who knows. You could also try other auctions sites if Ebay is flooded with them. Spend a hundred on electronics and get a modem that you sell for a hundred. Math looks good to me :)
Can I get two of these and set them up to communicate with each other through the CATV wiring?
And what about interference to the cable company. It's not like there's a service to interrupt. My cable company doesn't currently offer cable modem service and never will since we're in the back hills of Wyoming.
Be careful trying to run one of these under linux. you might be violating someones Intellectual Property. Because it is illegal to use the stuff you own.
Stupid Cheap Guitars
I don't think so... Spend $100 in radio shack, ebay free cable modem for $60. Yup, that about sums it up right there...
I currently use Optimum Online cable service. I have a 3COM cable modem, hooked up to a linksys router that has a 10/100 LAN port that hooks up into a 100mbit 3COM Office Connect Hub. Obviously, this setup is to share the bandwidth between two computers. Just say that the cable modem from Radio Shack is compatible with my cable service (DOCSIS/DOCSYS?), is it really possible to hook up the two cable modems and get more bandwidth? If so, how? I am trying to read the posts but some of it is latin to me. Also... if it is not possible to hook up two cable modems to the same coax line from the cable company, is it possible to order a second cable line to come into the house, then pay monthly service on that line, and hook up a cable modem to that line, and then combine the two cable modems bandwidth? (Load balancing perhaps?). Thanks. -Danny
I checked Radio Shack's in Nashville Tenn---they are not aware of an promotion. Anyone that has gotten a free cable modem (that works with At Home's service) at a Radio Shack please ask if telephone orders are eligible and supply phone number of that store. Thanks alot
I just got cable modem service with Cablevision and had no trouble at all--with no? configuration. As I recall, I just plugged everything in and had yast search for the ethernet card and it worked no problem. I think that Suse might be easier to configure than other distro's though...
Why would you need cable modems for this?
I wonder how soon it will be that we start seeing offers like this brought up in "Your Rights Online" because some company claims that since they "gave" you a piece of hardware for free that they still "own" it and that you can only use it in ways that they approve of, a la UCITA or EULAs.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
How long until we see the "Top 101 things to do with all those pesky AOL cable modems"?
:cable :modem
I'd rather be a unix freak than a freaky eunuch
Ewige Blumenkraft!
Here in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, Cogeco@Home have some issues with validating legitimate users.
:) Maybe we're the ones buying them on eBay...
It appears that normal @Home practice is to have a specific host name mapped to an IP address, meaning that their DHCP servers don't provide IPs to unknown hosts. Cogeco employees have told me that this system is not being used in our area with the upshot that if you've got the right filters for your cable line you are untraceably connected.
This is second hand information(I pay for my @home service), so caveat emptor. But I'll bet that those free cable modems would be pretty handy in these parts