AT&T Broadband installation tips

May 07, '02 09:38:49AM

Contributed by: treborg

I recently moved to ATT Broadband, and it wasn't a very smooth experience. Let me pass on a few hints from my experience that may make your transition a bit smoother.

  1. I had to run the cable myself from the house entry point to my Mac for various reasons. If you do the same, us RG6 and DBS-quality splitters, not RG59 and regular cable TV splitters.

  2. Don't anticipate the process by creating a location before the installation. Set the location to "Automatic" and let the installer create the location (this isn't documented in their process!). I tried the pre-installation "trick" and ended up with the appearance of network traffic (I've got Network Statistics in my dock) but no working internet connection. From the error message window, I got to some help docs that showed me how to uninstall their software and start over.

  3. The software installation process wasn't smooth. They offer an OS X installer, very nice at first, but then it calls on Classic for part of the process, a bit weird. Then, the process crashed just after it was supposed to install software, with an error message about "Service Manager couldn't be integrated with your network software". After some time on hold, the tech rep told me the installer has a known bug like this. He gave me a website that I could reach with a browser to complete the account activation process. That website process ends without clear instructions for what to do next. You're supposed to cycle power on the cable modem to have it reconfigured for your account.

  4. The process tells you to get a pair of numbers off your work order left by the installer. Fat chance trying to find it! There's a secret that the installers frequently forget to tell the new customer: the subscriber number on the work order is your account number, and the last nine digits of the subscriber number is your access code.
Hopefully these tips will save some grief for those of you who may be installing AT&T Broadband under OS X.

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