[P1] Cable Modem and Airport

[Charles Pearce]

On Jan 29, 2004, at 10:25 AM, Paul Bernhardt wrote:

> That would be correct... I am interested in any and all advice on all 
> aspects of the road I'm preparing to walk. What are the common 
> problems you see?
>
> I am anticipating that I'll have to treat the Airport's MAC address as 
> the "computer" for the Cable Modem, and it will distribute information 
> to the other machines.
>
> Paul

Here's the setup I have at home:
World (Cox Cable)<---->Cable-modem<--->wireless router 
(D-Link)<---->Desktop G4.

The <---> indicates wire. To the wireless router connects 2 or 3 
computers, depending on whether my iBook is home or not. The other two 
computers connected to the wireless router are both eMacs with an 
Airport Extreme card in each. My iBook just has standard Airport. I 
went wireless first because of the iBook, but then we moved and I 
didn't want to have to run wires all through the house (been there, 
done that, hate it). So far, the wireless solution has been seamless. 
Occasionally (like every couple of months) I've had to reset the router 
by turning it off and then back on, but that's been the only issue. We 
had a power failure the other day due to ice and when everything came 
back on, the eMacs connected right to the router. Since even 802.11b is 
faster than cable modems, I've never noticed any kind of speed 
degradation on the wireless machines.

If you're not sure how this works, it goes like this: The modem gets an 
IP from the ISP's DHCP server. Usually this is NOT a static IP, 
although the lease is often long. The cable modem reports its MAC 
address to the ISP (I had to take the modem to the office so they could 
scan it in). The router acts as its own DHCP server and dishes out 
dynamic IPs to whatever device comes up on  it. My G4 is connected to 
it by ethernet cable and is hardly ever off, so it generally gets the 
first IP in the range. As other devices connect to the router, it gives 
them IPs. The range is  generally four or five numbers. The router, 
itself, has an IP that you use in a browser to connect to it in order 
to configure it. It took me less than a half-hour to configure it  the 
first time out of the box. To set up the computers (either wired or 
wireless), use the TCP/IP pane and tell it to accept dynamic IPs from a 
DHCP server. That's pretty much all there is to it. Might even work on 
a Dell (or whatever that other thing was).

Hope this verbose response helps.
Charles Pearce <charlesp at ksu.edu>