Charter blocking Linksys & Belkin routers (Fixed)

[Matt9876]

This has been a week (May27-Jun1,2010) long and costly ($99) event where nothing would work properly with my Linksys wireless N router this made my MagicJack 100% useless.

Charter has found a way to block or seriously disrupt a routers operation (new Belkin N router was going on and off like a blinker) for the assumed reason of selling their leased routers at $5 per month,After multiple calls that was the only solution they offered.


I have just found out today this kind of thing is going on with several ISP providers,If you have a fast connection (speed test) with a direct connection to the modem and very slow with a router/wireless you and your MJ is a victim of your ISP.

Makes me wonder how many people have trashed or gave up on the MJ for this very hidden reason,If you search Google you will find a ton of information on how an ISP only wants a single machine connected directly to the modem unless you lease the router equipment from them.

[VaHam]

This has been a week (May27-Jun1,2010) long and costly ($99) event where nothing would work properly with my Linksys wireless N router this made my MagicJack 100% useless.

Charter has found a way to block or seriously disrupt a routers operation (new Belkin N router was going on and off like a blinker) for the assumed reason of selling their leased routers at $5 per month,After multiple calls that was the only solution they offered.

The Fix:This was done with a Windows7 laptop computer and new Belkin router.

1. Connect laptop computer to cable modem directly with Ethernet cable,make sure you can surf the Internet properly,go into the connection properties for the LAN connection and look for IPV4 gateway,DHCP server,DNS server numbers,write down the DNS server number and the one below it.

2. Connect laptop to router and log into setup screen(http://router or http://192.168.2.1 Belkin router)

3. Under Internet WAN settings set connection type to dynamic and leave host name blank,set DNS numbers to the ones you wrote down in step #1,Under MAC address setting clone your laptops mac address into the router.

This makes the router appear to be a computer from Charters end.

4. Power down reset everything, Fixed !!

I have just found out today this kind of thing is going on with several ISP providers,If you have a fast connection (speed test) with a direct connection and very slow with a router you and your MJ is a victim of your ISP.

Makes me wonder how many people have trashed or gave up on the MJ for this very hidden reason,If you search Google you will find a ton of information on how an ISP only wants a single machine connected directly to the modem unless you lease the router equipment from them.

Most of the routers have a "Clone" feature which will do this for you. It reads the mac address of your computer and clones it into the router so that the cable company thinks your computer is still connected.

[Matt9876]

And the Charter crap goes on,seems nothing I can do from my end will stop the router from going from a 200ms ping to over 3000ms ping and data speeds that get into the sub dial up ranges,

I have tried everything to fix this issue to no avail,always within a day or two they have turned my Belkin router into a non functioning paper weight.

I have found the only way to have MagicJack VoIP is to directly connect the computer to the modem,this gives me phone and one web browser that works as it should.


PS after much online research looking into this subject for an easy solution to this issue It has become apparent that 1,000s of people are being messed over by their cable ISP

[Matt9876]

I have a fix that has been working on the Linksys N router.

The Fix:This was done with a Windows7 laptop computer , Linksys N router & Motorola surfboard cable modem.

1. Connect laptop computer to cable modem directly with Ethernet cable,make sure you can surf the Internet properly,don't power down the modem during this process in fact connect your modem and router to a UPS if available.

2. Connect laptop to router and log into setup screen (http://192.168.1.1 Linksys router)

3. Under Internet WAN settings set connection type to automatic/dynamic and leave host name blank,Under MAC address setting clone your laptops mac address into the router,connect router to modem.

This makes the router appear to be a computer from cable ISPs end.

4. Under the status tab in the router setup click button to release IP addresses,log back into router and go to status tab and click renew IP address, Fixed !!

5. If you have problems in the future repeating the release/renew IP address should get things working again.

I have invested many hours to get things back to normal, Good Luck

FYI =The fix for the Belkin router didn't work long term in fact after a day or two it would be non functional or reset back to factory defaults and not functional for Internet data.

P.S. over two weeks of normal Internet/wireless access.

[Matt9876]

I'm bumping this thread because at least for the Linksys router it seems to be the correct long term fix.

The same fix works on the Belkin Play router but won't last but one or two days,Could be a defective purchase but more likely problems caused by cable ISP jamming the router.

WEP 128 bit encryption works good for a MJ wireless server.

WPA/WPA2 works but older machines have delays/problems during initial connection to router,sometimes 5 minuets to connect and sometimes it takes multiple manual reboots.

[Diggs]

I think there is a healthy dose of paranoia here. I have had Charter Internet for many years. I have had a few friends in the Charter organization. I have never known them to block, shape, throttle or cap any Internet usage. (They discussed capping excessive usage once and decided against it.)

I have had enough trouble with Linksys hardware that I will never by it again though. As you yourself detected, you need to massage the Linksys router to work, not your Internet settings with Charter.

I don't think you should be so adamant that Charter is the problem.

[michelevalenti]

My Linksys router was blocking my www.lazyrecruiter.net website and my support warranty ran out. Thanks to your instructions my problem is now fixed.