First off, I’m sorry that the tech was rude, makes us technicians look bad. From what I’ve read I see that you where upset at the fact that the modem was not releasing the Mac address associated to it very easily.
There’s a couple reasons for this One being that if your not hooking up to a router then we would assume that your only hooking up one pc and that’s why the modem grabs that first Mac address.
Now when I’m installing modems or fixing someones issue here my normal rule of thumb for getting a router to work with the modem.
1. Hook straight from the modem to pc and get the internet up.
2. Unplug that line and then go to CMD and run as administrator. Then type the command ipconfig /release. This releases the ip assigned to that pc.
3. Unplug the modem from the back and keep it off for 30 sec. This releases that mac address.
4. While everything is still off(modem and router)
Hook a line up from the modem to the router.
5. Plug the modem in and wait 5 secs to power on the router. This is called a power cycle and in a normal situation this will allow the modem to grab the Mac address of the router and allow the router to assign ips to multiple pcs.
5. Plug in from the laptop/desktop to the router.
6. While still in CMD type ipconfig /renew. This renew’s the ip on the pc we used before and allows it to get one from the router.
7. Get into the router setting and set up wifi. Procedure varies from router to router.
8. Connect to wireless and test the internet. 9 times out of 10 this will solve the issue.

I hoped this info helped the situation of the Tech to Costumer relationship. And again I apologize on the way you have been treated by the tech, Both in this thread and at your home.

Oh and if this helps I’ve only been a Comcast Technician for two months now, And from I can see I already out match some of the so called veterans of cable out there. So fellow techs, If there’s something to learn here it’s this. Always treat the costumer with respect, It’s never your place to disrespect the people that pay your bills. And if you don’t like that then get this, There’s always another job for you elsewhere.

I had called tech support, and told the person “hey I lost the mac address after I reset my router to defaults to fix some unrelated issue (I had replaced the router that had the original mac a year ago), can you guys reset it?”.

Note: I’ve been managing datacenters/ops teams for 12yrs, networking is kind of second nature to me.

What do they tell me? “No it doesn’t work that way, we don’t cache your mac address” and “from my end I can see your router and it looks fine, this is clearly a problem with the router, let me forward you to Dlink’s tech support”.

Lol?

Ok admittedly my cable modem isn’t something I pay much attention to day in and day out, so honestly I don’t know if resetting it would blow away any important settings (like, voip, for example). Old ops/IT wisdom kicks in, don’t fix something that isn’t broke, so I left it alone.

Luckily I found my old router in the garage, still working, and got the old mac address…Entered it on the wan interface of the current router, and its all good. I then broke out the ptouch and labeled the current router with the old mac address just in case this happens again…

I am glad you resolved your problem though. I’ve been struggling with Comcast for a very long time. At one point, my business services didn’t work at all in my (new) office building, and when they did it was very rare. So, my employees ended up spending most days at the coffee shop, where the Internet was more reliable. Probably wonderful for my employees but very embarrassing for me — It was a brand new office and rendered useless because Comcast.

Unfortunately, commercial services require a three year contract (which I had to have, because it was a commercial building)…. and even though their service didn’t work they had me locked in. After complaining enough and filing a complaint with the FCC, they canceled my contract and apologized. I thought it was all over…. at last.

Six months passed and all was well. I had switched back to using residential services which worked better than commercial for 1/3 the price and with much faster customer service response. Everything seemed to be perfect, until I received a call from a bill collector demanding that I pay Comcast $3,000.00 for early termination of my contract. What?

I immediately called the Comcast representatives who canceled my contract (I had their names and several email correspondences) thinking it was just some paperwork error. They denied ever talking to me.

So I decided to continue calling them and record our phone conversations where they vehemently denied ever speaking with me. I then approached them with the recordings and emails and threatened to contact the FCC again.

Although they didn’t cancel my contract, and I’m still on Comcast’s subpar business class internet, they did reduce my rate to residential prices and are now only requiring me complete one more year of misery. I probably should have just taken them to court, but it isn’t worth it. I’d never win against the multi-billion dollar ivory tower of digital greed…

So while I ride out my Comcast sentence, it’s nice to read that I’m not alone. Perhaps I should start a support group when I’ve been released. “Hello my name is Brady, and I’m a Comcast Survivor…”

“… because I will survive, Comcast! I will.”

He may have even known that it takes awhile for it to register a new device when switching around the way you were, but was enjoying making another ‘stupid user’ (as they see them) figure it out for him/her self. It is how he amuses himself maybe.