Laurie Brown said:
Chris Glover wrote:
[SNIP]
If you get something like the Netgear WGT624, you can make it spoof it's MAC address. Connect Netgear to cable modem, then PC's to the 4 internal ports, and via it's web interface you can make it spoof it's MAC address. I set up something similar for my Uncle (who's on Blueyonder), with the non wireless version of that router.
Been doing this for years. Set up the NTL cable modem with ethernet *NOT* USB, then hang a router off of that instead of a PC. I've used several, most recently a Linksys WAG54G for wireless, and a Linksys BEFSX41 for wired, but there's no reason any other (firewalling!) router wouldn't work.
NTL's network will never know or care what's inside that router. I've had all sorts of Linux firewalling/VPN kit with spoofed MAC addresses running. Our main line in here is a 2mb dedicated line, and the NTL cable (700mb) is used and has been running virtually flawlessly for at least 5 years with frequent kit swaps inside it...
I was just about to say the same thing, NTL won't know or care about what's connected, the only thing is that they won't 'support' you for more than a single connection, but unless you have trouble getting the DNS IPs you probably won't need support.
I had NTL cable in Cambridge when I was at uni, and we started off using an OpenBSD box for our NAT, then an Apple Airport (plugged the cable modem into the WAN port and away ya go).
Most recently, a few weeks ago my brother moved into his new house and got Telewest cable, we just got a Linksys WRT54G (the ADSL/Cable Router, not the ADSL Modem Router) and again plugged the cable modem into the WAN port (the diagram on the back of the box shows how simple it is.
The problem of it ties to the MAC address of the connected PC was a bit annoying when I first tried it at uni when we were trying new things on new machines all the time, but all you have to do is unplug the modem for a minute or so, then plug it in with it connected to the new machine.
Hope that helps Duncan