The last few days I've been doing some research on Rogers network in the Kitchener/Waterloo area (Ontario), but I am sure this concerns all other Rogers subscribers as well as people from other networks that used to be part of the @Home network before it went belly up. But then again all this research is specific to this area AND to my brand of modem only, which is Terayon TeraPro TCM200 (at least that's the name according to Rogers' literature - http://www.rogershelp.com/help/content/trouble/connection/tcm200_1a1.2.shtml) - which also goes by the name of TeraPro S-CDMA Cable Modem on Terayon's website and is the standard modem that Rogers uses here nowadays.Basically, after going to Europe for the last 8 months and after returning here just a month ago I've discovered that after the conversion from @Home to Rogers our links got downgraded from if I remember correctly 2.4mbit download/360kbit upload to 1.5mbit download/192kbit upload, which sucks majorly especially since I work for an internet company and need to transfer vast amount of data UP to the company server, and the 192kbit upload just doesn't cut it... and there are no better connection options in the area unless I go for a commercial link which costs $150+/month and which my company won't pay me... So I've decided to go via the alternative route and try to uncap my upload or at least make it back to the previous point... So that's when I've started tinkering with my modem and collecting data from the internet. As well I've had a visit this week from a Rogers technician about some signal quality degradation issues who told me some very interesting things... Like I've said, I'm not sure if this data is valid for my area only or is it valid for the Greater Toronto and other areas in Ontario “serviced” by Rogers, but I think it should be the same... So here comes...
1) Rogers DOESN'T use SNMP protocol.
2) Even though in its online FAQ Rogers (http://shoprogersfaq.custhelp.com) says that static IP settings are not supported, they actually are. You can set your IP to static if you disable DHCP and manually input the Gateway, Subnet mask and DNS servers' addresses as well as the requested IP (just use your current IP). So basically you DO NOT have to use DHCP if you don't like it.
3)This is what the visiting Rogers technician told me, although I'm still not 100% positive on whether it's true or not... He said that *currently* their system DOESN'T support DOCSIS since the modems they use are NON-DOCSIS COMPLIANT!!!... I tried to make some research about my modem and actually didn't find any confirmation about it being DOCSIS compliant in the official data sheet - http://www.terayon.com/tools/free_form_content/view.html?phase=show&id=989273434&tool_id=38&cat_id=9.1.1.2 or http://www.cableway.co.kr/product/about1-1.htm ... In a few days he or another technician should come back to fix up my line completely (and disconnect the neighbors that were stealing cable and were responsible for the signal quality degradation... THE BASTARDS!) and then I'll use that chance to bug him some more about it and other issues... He seemed pretty knowledgeable about it and the modem specs on Terayon's website seem to prove him right...
4)According to the literature that I've read on the subject, the TeraPro modems have NO MAC ADDRESSES! Instead they use something called ESN, which is an 11-digit number printed above the serial number of the thing under the base of the modem... Example: 7000346-65.12 (this one is fake of course, as I'm not in the habit of giving out personal information on the internet). What you see as the MAC address in winpicfg command under win9x or ipconfig command on win2k/NT is the MAC address of your NETWORK ADAPTER CARD. Just to prove that point I've used CommView, a program available from www.tamos.com and used the “NIC Vendor Identifier” option to check my MAC address, which starts with 00:80:C8. And surely enough, it told me that the vendor is D-Link! Try it yourself if you have any doubts....
5) Now this is the WIERDEST thing yet that I have to tell you... I have two machines at my house, one is an old k6-2 that I don't use at all and the other one is my new Athlon... The new machine has the D-Link network card on it (that I bought myself a few years back), while the old machine has a Soho adapter that was supplied with the @Home kit... Anyways, the point is that I use only one machine at a time to go online, and when connected EACH ONE of the machines has *somewhat* of a STATIC IP address that the machine receives when connected (and YES, I am using DHCP on both machines!). I say *Somewhat* because the IP address changed only once on the Athlon machine, about two weeks ago and stayed the same since. And yes, I reboot my machine daily and after every reboot it retrieves the SAME IP address. I even tried powering down the modem numerous times to see what will happen, but the IP stays the same. Anyway, the weird part is that BOTH of the machines have DIFFERENT IPs, that stay *static* on both of them (i.e.: 24.103.14.34 on Athlon and 24.103.14.210 on the k6-2 machine. oh, and those aren't the real IP addresses of course, I've just used them for example
), even though I use the same connection/modem for them. I am sure this has something to do with me using different network cards for each machine (since the TeraPro cable modem has no MAC address, it uses the MAC addresses of the cards, and they differ of course), but how and why this happens is beyond me. So does it mean that the cable modem's ESN number isn't important to Rogers and all it needs is a different network card to give you a new IP? I'm lost here...
So now we come to the conclusions... According to what I've found out, if it's indeed 100% true, Rogers is NOT DOCSIS compliant, DOESN'T support SNMP and can actually be used to have a static IP. The TeraPro modems have no MAC addresses and your connection and IP seem to rely on the MAC address of the actual network card.
As well, I've tried to find the IP address of my modem so I could try and do something about uncapping, but all methods to do it that I've found until now on the web are only for DOCSIS compliant modems and for SNMP enabled connections, hence I've failed to do that. When the modem establishes a connection with main server upon powering up, the ARP requests and responses it sends look like this (note: actual IP and MAC addresses were erased/modified because I am ultra paranoid about some Rogers guy catching me while writing this or some script kiddie launching a DDOS attack against my poor CAPPED connection
, but no entries were erased/entered manually):
Packet #1, Direction: Out, Time:19:24:04.982, Size: 42
Ethernet II
Destination MAC: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
Source MAC: 00:80:C8:xx:xx:xx
Ethertype: 0x0806 (2054) - ARP
ARP
Hardware: 0x0001 (1) - Ethernet
Protocol: 0x0800 (2048) - IP
Hardware address length: 0x06 (6)
Protocol address length: 0x04 (4)
Operation: 0x0001 (1) - ARP Request
Sender MAC address: 00:80:C8:xx:xx:xx
Sender IP address: 24.103.xxx.xx
Target MAC address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Target IP address: 24.103.14.210
Packet #2, Direction: In, Time:19:24:05.032, Size: 60
Ethernet II
Destination MAC: 00:80:C8:xx:xx:xx
Source MAC: 00:00
7:xx:xx:xx
Ethertype: 0x0806 (2054) - ARP
ARP
Hardware: 0x0001 (1) - Ethernet
Protocol: 0x0800 (2048) - IP
Hardware address length: 0x06 (6)
Protocol address length: 0x04 (4)
Operation: 0x0002 (2) - ARP Response
Sender MAC address: 00:00
7:xx:xx:xx
Sender IP address: 24.103.14.210
Target MAC address: 00:80:C8:xx:xx:xx
Target IP address: 24.103.xxx.xx
No mention of internal modem IP address either... So I think it's safe to come to the conclusion that it's non-existent as well...
Just for the heck of it, I've tried to use FUCKUPC to uncap my modem since it was designed for non-DOCSIS compliant modems as well, but it didn't work (not like I expected it to, but had to give it a try at least). And yeah, I already removed the trojan that came with it
.
So I guess my question to all the networking gurus out there will be: “Do you think there's a way/chance to uncap my upstream?”. I really hope someone bothered to read all this and actually UNDERSTAND it and I hope that I can expect an answer... Also, I hope this info will be helpful for other Rogers customers and would give them a database for trying to remove the REALLY outrageous cap that Rogers has imposed on us. If you have any bright ideas, feel free to leave them here or send them to my e-mail address... Also if you have any knowledge of networking and would like to work on this problem together, I'd be more than willing to help... Two heads are always work better than one
.
I'll keep you posted if I find anything new, but for now, peace out,
Tech.