Comcast and Airport problems

thoff · Mar 11, 2005, 02:05 PM

I do Tech support at a few elementary schools and one of the teachers asked me to help her get her home Airport base station up and running with her Comcast service. She has not been able to get it to work and Comcast has basically said they wont come and help because they don't support Macs. I haven't had a chance to go look at it yet, but are any of you using Comcast and Airport? Have you had any problems. I don't yet know if her Airport basestation will successfully network her iMac and her husband's Powerbook. Any ideas of what to look for?

-thoff

deryk · Mar 11, 2005, 02:31 PM

I subscribe to comcast and their technicians set-up the network with my airport express. The comcast web site specifically states that it works with Macs; maybe your teacher spoke with a customer service person who is Mac phobic.

WildCowboy · Mar 11, 2005, 02:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deryk

I subscribe to comcast and their technicians set-up the network with my airport express. The comcast web site specifically states that it works with Macs; maybe your teacher spoke with a customer service person who is Mac phobic.

I also have Comcast and it plays just fine with my Airport Express.

deryk, did they charge you to set up the wireless? I just had the tech set up wired to my laptop. I showed him my Airport Express (he had no idea what it was...this was last summer when they had only come out a month or so before) and said I would hook it up myself later. He said "Good, I'd have to charge you $150 to do it." We had a good laugh about that, and five minutes after he was out the door, I had my wireless set up. It was pretty much just plug-and-play for me...

deryk · Mar 11, 2005, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WildCowboy

I also have Comcast and it plays just fine with my Airport Express.

deryk, did they charge you to set up the wireless? I just had the tech set up wired to my laptop. I showed him my Airport Express (he had no idea what it was...this was last summer when they had only come out a month or so before) and said I would hook it up myself later. He said "Good, I'd have to charge you $150 to do it." We had a good laugh about that, and five minutes after he was out the door, I had my wireless set up. It was pretty much just plug-and-play for me...

No, there was no charge. I was going to use a wired laptop too. I had two guys come out to set-up my service. One was a supervisor and the other was new to his job. I think the supervisor wanted the new techinician to have experience setting up a mac wireless network. They were both surprised that it just worked.

Bro · Mar 11, 2005, 02:42 PM

I use an Airport Extreme base station with comcast just fine. Her iMac and powerbook should have no problem connecting. I would start out with the basics and not assume anything.

-Make sure correct lights are on, on the modem and base station when powered up.
-Make sure the modem is connected to the correct port on the base station.
-Leave security features off until you establish a connection with both computers. (Be sure to enable securitly later).

I've been able to successfully connect a G4 cube, G5 tower, powerbook g3 w/3rd party card and software, and 3 Windows computers to our Airport network.

good luck

Wyvernspirit · Mar 11, 2005, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thoff

I do Tech support at a few elementary schools and one of the teachers asked me to help her get her home Airport base station up and running with her Comcast service. She has not been able to get it to work and Comcast has basically said they wont come and help because they don't support Macs. I haven't had a chance to go look at it yet, but are any of you using Comcast and Airport? Have you had any problems. I don't yet know if her Airport basestation will successfully network her iMac and her husband's Powerbook. Any ideas of what to look for?

-thoff

Comcast does "support" Macs, but they only support their equipment that you need to over pay for (I checked to see if I could use my own equipment, and they basically said no). Comcast is such a ripoff. If I could get something better I would. I have one other choice but I would need to jump through hoop sto get it (not to mention have our apartment rewired which I don't think the landlord would like).

Verizon is supposed to be testing a new service (speeds of 5mb, 15mb, and 200mb all with 2mb upload). My town is smack dab in the middle of two of the towns slated for the test run (Lexington, Belmont) grr! The pricing is supposed to be VERY competitive as the 15mb should cost about what my 4mb cost now. I think the 5 would be great for me and mek my life cheaper. But it would be hard for me to pass up the 15 at the same speed, sweet (even though most of the time the extra speed would be unused most likely).

thoff · Mar 11, 2005, 04:35 PM

Thanks for the quick replies. It's good to know that others have airport and comcast. Sometimes knowing that somethign can be done makes figuring out how to do it all the easier. I'll probably drop by their house sometime in the next week or so. I'll ask more questions if I run into any trouble.

Thad

varmit · 04:52 PM

I think the something that might be wrong is that the Airport Base station doesn't have a Mac's mac address set into it. You know, every NIC card has its own mac address. Can be found in System Preference under Network. Comcast keeps tabs on which computer is on the network, and only allows the computer with the mac address that they have on file onto the internet. The way around, put the mac address into the router, then any computer can go though that router to the internet. She probably didn't put the mac address into the router, Airport Base station, so when she goes to connect, Comcast is saying nope, not the one we have on file. At least this is how it was a couple of years ago when I set up mine.

EDIT: also, make sure that the AB station is setup for DHCP and that the DNS server that it gets is not the same address as the AB. I had this happen with Verizon having the DNS server being 192.168.1.1, the same as the router. I change the router to be 192.168.2.1 and everything started working just fine.

WildCowboy · Mar 11, 2005, 06:49 PM

I don't think they keep a MAC address on file, per se. In my case, the tech set it up wired into my iBook. After he left, I simply switched the Ethernet cable to the Airport Express, power cycled the cable modem, and went through the setup steps for the Airport Express...no hitches at all.

Wyvernspirit · Mar 11, 2005, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WildCowboy

I don't think they keep a MAC address on file, per se. In my case, the tech set it up wired into my iBook. After he left, I simply switched the Ethernet cable to the Airport Express, power cycled the cable modem, and went through the setup steps for the Airport Express...no hitches at all.

They do. After getting a new computer I needed to call them. Also trying to use more then one comp on their "basic" system is a nono. However, if you have your eouter "ghost" your MAC address everything works fine.

Drewswa77 · Mar 11, 2005, 08:48 PM

I have comcast and had trouble getting my to macs to connect at the same time. My powermac is wired to the router. my ibook is wireless to my airport express which also then goes to the router. I had to set them all(both computers and two airport express's) as the same ip address to get them to work at the same time. Maybe there was an easier way to do this but this worked for me and has been fin for about a month now.

thoff · Mar 19, 2005, 04:54 PM

We were able to get everything up and running. Thank you all for your help.

Ambrose Chapel · Mar 20, 2005, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thoff

We were able to get everything up and running. Thank you all for your help.

what did you do to resolve the problem?

e-coli · Jul 20, 2005, 10:28 AM

Hi peeps,

Need to know if I need to pay for that ridiculous Comcast "home-networking" buuuuuuuuulspit to get more than one computer connected to the internet using AE Base Station.

Thx in advance.

grapes911 · Jul 20, 2005, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by e-coli

Hi peeps,

Need to know if I need to pay for that ridiculous Comcast "home-networking" buuuuuuuuulspit to get more than one computer connected to the internet using AE Base Station.

Thx in advance.

Nope, you can do it yourself by using the AE Base Station or any router.

e-coli · Jul 20, 2005, 10:35 AM

thanks bro

Mar 11, 2005, 02:05 PM	#1
thoff macrumors newbie Join Date: Feb 2005	Comcast and Airport problems I do Tech support at a few elementary schools and one of the teachers asked me to help her get her home Airport base station up and running with her Comcast service. She has not been able to get it to work and Comcast has basically said they wont come and help because they don't support Macs. I haven't had a chance to go look at it yet, but are any of you using Comcast and Airport? Have you had any problems. I don't yet know if her Airport basestation will successfully network her iMac and her husband's Powerbook. Any ideas of what to look for? -thoff

Mar 11, 2005, 02:31 PM	#2
deryk macrumors regular Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Denver	hmm . . . that's odd I subscribe to comcast and their technicians set-up the network with my airport express. The comcast web site specifically states that it works with Macs; maybe your teacher spoke with a customer service person who is Mac phobic.

Mar 11, 2005, 04:35 PM	#7
thoff Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Feb 2005	thanks Thanks for the quick replies. It's good to know that others have airport and comcast. Sometimes knowing that somethign can be done makes figuring out how to do it all the easier. I'll probably drop by their house sometime in the next week or so. I'll ask more questions if I run into any trouble. Thad

Mar 11, 2005, 04:47 PM	#8
varmit macrumors 68000 Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: NJ	I think the something that might be wrong is that the Airport Base station doesn't have a Mac's mac address set into it. You know, every NIC card has its own mac address. Can be found in System Preference under Network. Comcast keeps tabs on which computer is on the network, and only allows the computer with the mac address that they have on file onto the internet. The way around, put the mac address into the router, then any computer can go though that router to the internet. She probably didn't put the mac address into the router, Airport Base station, so when she goes to connect, Comcast is saying nope, not the one we have on file. At least this is how it was a couple of years ago when I set up mine. EDIT: also, make sure that the AB station is setup for DHCP and that the DNS server that it gets is not the same address as the AB. I had this happen with Verizon having the DNS server being 192.168.1.1, the same as the router. I change the router to be 192.168.2.1 and everything started working just fine. __________________ Powerbook 1.67Ghz G4 - 1 Gig RAM Mac Mini 1.83Ghz Core 2 Duo - 2 Gigs RAM 60 Gig iPod - 4th generation http://ducktapeandglue.com Last edited by varmit : Mar 11, 2005 at 04:52 PM.

Mar 11, 2005, 08:48 PM	#11
Drewswa77 macrumors member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Boise, ID	My expirience I have comcast and had trouble getting my to macs to connect at the same time. My powermac is wired to the router. my ibook is wireless to my airport express which also then goes to the router. I had to set them all(both computers and two airport express's) as the same ip address to get them to work at the same time. Maybe there was an easier way to do this but this worked for me and has been fin for about a month now.

Mar 11, 2005, 02:42 PM	#5
Bro macrumors newbie Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: CA	I use an Airport Extreme base station with comcast just fine. Her iMac and powerbook should have no problem connecting. I would start out with the basics and not assume anything. -Make sure correct lights are on, on the modem and base station when powered up. -Make sure the modem is connected to the correct port on the base station. -Leave security features off until you establish a connection with both computers. (Be sure to enable securitly later). I've been able to successfully connect a G4 cube, G5 tower, powerbook g3 w/3rd party card and software, and 3 Windows computers to our Airport network. good luck

Mar 11, 2005, 06:49 PM	#9
WildCowboy macrumors god Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: nowhere near the infinite loop anymore	I don't think they keep a MAC address on file, per se. In my case, the tech set it up wired into my iBook. After he left, I simply switched the Ethernet cable to the Airport Express, power cycled the cable modem, and went through the setup steps for the Airport Express...no hitches at all.

Mar 19, 2005, 04:54 PM	#12
thoff Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Feb 2005	Thank You We were able to get everything up and running. Thank you all for your help.

Jul 20, 2005, 10:28 AM	#14
e-coli macrumors 65816 Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Brooklyn	Networking Hi peeps, Need to know if I need to pay for that ridiculous Comcast "home-networking" buuuuuuuuulspit to get more than one computer connected to the internet using AE Base Station. Thx in advance.

Jul 20, 2005, 10:35 AM	#16
e-coli macrumors 65816 Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Brooklyn	thanks bro

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