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STEP 1: Obtain information about your Internet Service
Provider (ISP) and your network
Is my connection bound to a MAC address?
It either is or is not. All network cards or adapters have a unique “serial
number”, called a MAC address. Your service provider can “see” your
network adapter's MAC address over the internet. In some cases, the
provider will record the MAC address of your network adapter and only
let that adapter connect to the Internet. This is done for several reasons,
one of which is security. It also enables your provider to keep track of
how many computers you have connected to your modem. You will need
to find out whether your provider requires the same network card to
connect to the modem all of the time. In the event that your provider does
bind your MAC address, your Router has a feature that will copy the MAC
address of your card. This will be covered later in the setup procedure.
For more about what a MAC address is, see the Glossary of Networking
Terms in the appendix of this manual.
Does my connection have an assigned Host Name?
It either does or does not. You will need to know if your provider assigns
you host name that is required for connection. If it does, then you will
need to know the Host name. If your computer was assigned a host name
by your provider, the next section describes how you can obtain your
host name.