Typical Comcast experience reconnecting Internet
I used Comcast as an Internet Service Provider at the old house for nearly 2 years before moving to Sandy Springs. Last Saturday, the cable guy came to the house to "hook up" cable and the Internet. What no one told me was that because I was simply transferring service, I needed to bring my cable modem and digital cable box from the old house to the new one. so the guy couldn't actually test the connections with the real equipment. Instead he used some kind of fancy voltometer and told me the signal was good and I should just be able to plug everything in. I mean, I wasn't even moving out of the county!
So Sunday I hook up the digital cable box and to my surprise, the TV works! Yay. I hook up the cable modem and all the right lights come up. So I plug in the wireless router, the Vonage Internet phone box, and fire up my laptop. I detect wireless right away - nothing here has changed. I open up my web browser and here is where the typical Comcast experience begins.
I am immediately taken to http://cdn/download_installer.htm. This page appears to be a Comcast page which wants me to download some kind of installer. However, clicking the button "Download Installer" merely refreshes the page. No dice with an Internet connection. The phone handset, plugged into the Vonage box, helpfully tells me that "This Vonage phone has not been provisioned for use"
So at work the next day I fire up a chat session with a service agent who spends 20 minutes trying to understand the problem. When it finally sinks in, he gives me these details:
Scott(Mon Apr 30 09:01:32 EDT 2007)>
1. The first step is to clear the cache, cookies and history in Internet Explorer. Once cleared, close Internet Explorer.
2. If you are using a router, you will have to connect 1 computer to the modem until the account has been registered.
3. Next, power cycle the modem by unplugging the power supply cord on the back of the modem. Wait 2 minutes. During this wait, restart the computer.
4. After 2 minutes plug the power supply cord back into the modem. Do this even if the computer has not completed its restart.
5. Once the computer has completed restarting, use the right mouse button and select Open In New Window on this link: http://010.load.home.comcast.net/hsitools.setup.exe. It should open to a Walled Garden site. Download, install and then follow the steps to register the new account.
Scott(Mon Apr 30 09:01:41 EDT 2007)>
This is the registration site for Comcast. Make sure you select you already have an email account. Otherwise, the existing email ID's will be lost. Once you have completed the registration, your account should be fine.
I guess I get to test this tonight. If this fails to work, I did find this following bit of helpful advice in the Comcast support forums:
Call them back, tell them that the registration software wont download and that you need to have them provision the gateway for you.
Have the HFC MAC address and the serial number of the gateway handy. That info is located on a label on the bottom or the back of the device.
Me actually finding this advice and copying it into the window with the support agent is actually what resulted in the guy understanding my problem. I guess the original guy asking the question and this answer was more clearly stated than what I was typing. Whatever. I just hope it works.