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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 :)
Is there a CueCat attached to it?
"This must be a Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
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.
Nothing says "High Fidelity" like Realistic. True audiophiles like myself are always shopping at The Shack to purchase the latest in equalizers and DSP devices to provide the warmth that you can't get anymore now that everything has gone digital. It is absolutely absurd to go out and buy some stripped down box for $1,500 when you can have all the latest in 5 channel simulated theatre and multiple hall settings.
I've got this friend who spent close to 2 G's on some Nadcomm thing that he was all proud of. I went over to his house to check the thing out and he pops the cover with a flourish. I take a look and... there isn't a damn thing in it! Couple tiny boards and like three freaking wires connecting it all together! Compare this to my Optimus reciever (yeah, it's a bit snooty for my tastes, too) which is so packed with electronic goodness that you couldn't squeeze a paper clip into the thing and only cost me $299!
Anyway, I hide my skepticism and tell him to fire it up. Guess what? He can't because the freakin' thing doesn't have an amplifier and the one he wants is out of stock! Two thousand dollars and it doesn't even fucking do anything!
So the next week I went back to The Shack and bought a project box, a coupla RCA plugs, some A/B toggles, and a dual gang pot. I throw it all together and show my friend my sweet contraption that does the same thing as his but not only cost less than $100, it doesn't even need to be plugged in! I figure he'd feel like a fool and take his box back for a refund, but he just looked at me and shook his head like I was some kind of moron. I just don't get it...
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.
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.
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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:
The only other thing you need is a cable company.
The problem is two-fold. First, these modems are broadband devices that transmit and receive at different sets of frequencies. The downstream signal is transmitted from the cable head-end and received by the modem at relatively high frequencies (above 550MHz, up past most analog broadcast channels). However, the modems transmit at relatively low frequencies (down at 5-42MHz, below the analog broadcast channels). Worse yet, the modems use different modulation techniques for transmitting and receiving. Even if modem 2 could "hear" what modem 1 was transmitting spectrum-wise, it couldn't understand it anyway.
Second, the modems rely very heavily on control software at the cable head-end. This software, in addition to doing the usual high-level configuration like authenticating users and assigning IP addresses, also does low-level configuration, like telling a cable modem what channel it should transmit on, what time slot it can transmit in, and so on.
The bottom line is that the technology was cleverly and carefully developed to make the client technology as cheap and simple as possible. All the intelligence and complexity is in the head-end.
Getting two cable modems to talk without the cable company is exactly like getting two cell phones to talk without the phone company.