Just got Chorus BB in....

mjsmyth

For years I have had BT Broadband, but lost my connection mid July and nothing I did or BT did made a difference. Almost a month later and still no BT Broadband, so I am inthe proces of cancelling everything.

Today I got Chorus BB in. I opted for the 3mb package, similar to what I had with BT.

With BT, I had my router connected into a switch and shared around my house to another PC and an xbox. I enabled DHCP on the router and had nip range of 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.255

Everything was hunky dory,PC's worked, Xbox worked, network printers worked and all devices that needed internet access had it.

I thought (foolishly) that it would simply bea case of connecting up the Chorus cable modem, a Motorola SB5 101E to my laptop, setting the local IP address and enabling DHCP on it. No chance, I can't even access the modem, or at least what i think is the modem as the default gateway i get from ipconfig cannot be pinged and cannot be accessed.

Has anyone here managed to enable dhcp on the Motorola? The Motorola website says the modem can be shared by up to 32 people and says it should be as simple as plugging it into the switch.

Anyone? Any ideas? Its not like i am a newbie at IT, I have worked in IT for many years but this has both myself and another collegue stumped!

Many thanks,
MJ

Moriarty

Afaik the motorola surfboard modem supplied by ntl and chorus is just that - a modem. You'll need to attach an ethernet router to the modem to enable more than one device to be able to use it.

mjsmyth

Fair enough, it was truly wrecking my head! I shall investigate that route and hopefully have some success.

Thanks,
MJ

mjsmyth

I made some progress this morning, seemingly the ip address of the modem is 192.168.100.1, I found that on an NTL posting somewhere!

Anyway, I got into the modem, and turned on DHCP. It says it will give a range from 192.168.100.10 to 42 . Fine says I.

I hook it up to the switch, turn on a few PC's and yes, they can all access the Internet, but........... well none of them are picking up a 192.168.100.* address. They are all picking up addresses in the 89.101.*.* range. I can't see any other PC on the network.

More head scratching...........

mj

Whatsthisabout

Hi

The modem itself is not the DHCP. The 89. IP address you are getting is the public IP address issued to you by Chorus. You will only get one of these at any one time and this is the only one that will get you online.

You need to connect a router which will take this 89 IP address and then use the routers DHCP to distribute 192 IP addresses to you PCs a switch just will not work on the Chorus type service.

Getting an 89 IP address is correct though its just thats only going to get one divice online (i.e. First PC connected or Router)

mjsmyth

Thanks for that, any particular router I should be looking for? Make? Model?

Thanks.

mj

Whatsthisabout

you really dont need anything special. Netgear WGR614 54 Mbps one is the one supplied by ntl/chorus only costs about €50.

Just make sure you get one ok for cable Broadband and make sure you dont get one with a built in Modem because thats over kill and you dont need it.

lucernarian

If the modem has DCHP enabled in it and supports 32 IP addresses, why did the switch not work??

mjsmyth

@ To_be_confirmed
I have no idea why the DHCP on the cable modem did not work. As i said, i enabled it, it was supposed to have a range as I described, but did not work. Very very strange.

@ Whatsthisabout

I have an Eircom DSL Modem / Router, can this be adapted? If so... Do you know the settings?

Failing that, what about this? http://www.dsl-warehouse.co.uk/product.asp?pr=RP614

MJ

mjsmyth

Mods, do you want to lock this thread now? I have my solution. Thanks toall who posted here.

I have to say, in all my years in IT, I had never come accross a cable modem and it just took a while to wrap my head around it.

It would help if Chorus had a link to ntlworld.ie on their website, the tech support from chorus is........ emmm.... yeah well... They are one and the same company now - UPC - so maybe it is about time they started sharing their suport knowledge.

Anyway, once again thanks.

mj

dub45

To_be_confirmed wrote:

If the modem has DCHP enabled in it and supports 32 IP addresses, why did the switch not work??

The website page for the Motorola specifically states that it requires additional networking equipment for this so there is obviously no router functioning built into it.

mjsmyth

@dub45

After looking at the website, I agree with. Unfortunately, the diagrams in the pdf that comes with the router shows the modem plugging directly into a switch / hub and your PC's connect in there. As said, there is also an option to enable DHCP on the modem which confused matters greatly. The manual also said that extra equipment may be necessary to share it on a network, but to contact your cable supplier.

Anyway, problem solved. I connected up a Belkin Wireless G Router with 4 port switch.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=136493

mj

lucernarian

dub45 wrote:

The website page for the Motorola specifically states that it requires additional networking equipment for this so there is obviously no router functioning built into it.

Wait a sec. If it already had DCHP, then all should need is a switch. I would interpret a switch as counting as a piece of "additional networking equipment". The motorola info seems contradictory and having DCHP enabled on the modem apparently does nothing

I would also consider address translation from a cable-assigned IP addy to a 192.168. addy, along with having a DCHP server to be router functions.

mjsmyth

@ To_be_confirmed

That was my thinking... and also the thinking of another collegue. It is a tad contradictory at least.

As for tech support, well they really had no idea what I was talking about.

As I said, it is all up and running now, 2xPC, 2xXbox (running XBMC) and 1xLaptop. Wireless is configured also and signal is good enough to stream Divx accross it.

Just curious, over in the Satellite forum, we have Stickies for many different guides. Would it be in the interest of new users to create a sticky with information on how to share your broadband connection out over a lan? Y'know, maybe one for Magnet, Chorus, Eircom, BT and so on and so forth??

I know it may sound trivial to some, but I have worked in IT for a long time and you can see the trouble I had... Anyway.

mj