Why MAC Address Cloning is Required For Cable Internet Connection

Published by: Alex George on July 09, 2012
CoreNetworkZ is rich with different tutorials to configure and troubleshoot networking devices. After reading some of them, one visitor asked me a question regarding the importance of cloning Media Access Control Address while configuring cable broadband. He is curious to know the reason for cloning the MAC (Hardware) address of the computer into Router while configuring the router with a Cable modem. It is because most of the cable Internet providers register the MAC address of the PC Ethernet adapter in their records to allow Internet access to the specific device. This is a safety precaution to block any unregistered computers from accessing their connection. So the only registered computer can access the Internet provided by Cable ISP. In the case of DSL Internet Providers, they do not use this method to verify the user. So DSL connection does not care the MAC address of your computer.


When you connect a router to the Cable modem, the cable Internet Provider will block you from accessing the Internet. It is because the Cable Internet Provider sees the Media Access Control number of the Router instead of your registered computer. Router Hardware number is not registered and you will be blocked from accessing the connection. In order to avoid this issue, most routers have a feature called MAC address cloning.



By using the feature, MAC address cloning, you can clone the MAC number of your Registered computer into the Router. When you connect the Router after this step, Cable Internet Providers see the registered MAC address. You should use the registered computer while configuring the router and clone the MAC address of the same computer. If you use a different PC to setup router to share cable broadband connection, your ISP will block the Internet. So it is important to make sure which PC is used while configuring the modem and have a note of the Hardware number of that PC.

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