it's obvious really

[glennd]

I went onsite a couple of weeks ago. The customer was complaining of poor internet speed. I had previously had his computer in the workshop, given it the full treatment, a clean bill of health and said if you think you still have problems to call and i'll come onsite. he called, i spent hours there.

part of my diagnostic procedure is to replace the existing modem and adsl filter with known working units. this requires configuring the modem with the customer's adsl account information. now, as predicted, the customer doesn't know his own adsl account password so i have to ring the isp, wait on the phone for ages then go through the pain of resetting the password. (this happens a lot! why don't people write down passwords??) no change.

I mentioned to the customer that normally when the monthly quota is exhausted, the isp throttles back the speed. do you think this may have happened? oh no, says the customer, the month has only just started. i plug in my own laptop and run the same speed tests and get the same results. having discounted everything other than the isp, i ring the isp back and get them to run their tests and while they're at it, check the account quota. sure enough the account quota was exhausted.

this past week, similar scenario. when i inquire as to the possible state of the account quota, the response is, oh no they automatically add extra quota and bill me. well, anyway i go through the whole biz all over again and again come to the same conclusion. he said i'll prove it by going to the account web page and sure enough the available quota is -4MB. he was throttled.

not sure what the moral of the story is other than once you figure out what the problem actually is, it always seems so obvious and why didn't i start with that.

 

[Martyn]

It's a real pain not knowing the ISP login details and the customer is like "there is no login the router just works" I usually ask for the sign up letter and a lot of people still have that with the details on them. Also BT are a big player here and as the telephone lines are usually theirs therefore the login details are easy. Also I can't remember the last time I had a capped internet issue.

 

[Larry Sabo]

I just log into the router to find the account user ID and login credentials.

 

[katz]

I just log into the router to find the account user ID and login credentials.

I do this as well; I don't usually even bother asking the client anymore, as 9 out of 10 will not have the info., or I'll have to sit there for 20 minutes while they search for it and then they come up with a password from 3 routers ago...

@ glennd;

I have a few clients that are on satellite internet and they stream tons of movies, and then wonder why their speed is so slow. They even know the isp will cut them back, but they still call me out, as if I can work some magic with the connection. I don't get it.

 

[River Valley Computer]

We had a similar instance several weeks ago. Client said his connection was really slow. We checked it out on site and turned out his neighbor was piggy backing onto his wireless with movies, etc. The telco shut his DSL off. Of course NOW he has a password.

 

[glennd]

by router i presume you mean the modem. all the modems i've ever come across have the password hidden with no way of discovering it. is there a secret i don't know about?

without exception, the customers have thrown away the introductory letter with the account/plan information and the password.

in this country, capping is a big deal, although it's becoming less as adsl2+ and huge caps is starting to kick in. probably half of my customers are on satellite with a monthly quota of 5GB-15GB.

never thought about wifi security, must remember to check that out. again many customers don't care because there's no-one for miles...

 

[Larry Sabo]

The modem may incorporate a router and be in router mode, or it might not incorporate one or be in bridge mode if it does. If it doesn't incorporate a router or is in bridge mode, they must have a router if a UserID and password are required, or they have set up a broadband connection in Windows. Cable modems don't require a UserID and PW. If it's DSL and no router is involved (either external or internal to the modem), then the PC needs to set up a broadband connection and the UserID and password are supplied to it. Open a cmd prompt, issue ipconfig, and look for the router gateway address (192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1). If it's 192.168.2.1, the router is usually incorporated into the modem. Log into the "router" and look for the UserID and PW. If the gateway address is really his IP address (i.e., not one of the above), and he is on DSL, you might try some of the Nirsoft utilities or use SIW to see if the connection credentials can be found. If no joy with any of the above, I guess you have to call the ISP, but that's rarely the case.

If I got any of the above wrong, someone please correct me.

 

[johnrobert]

One big problem is when I need router login password and of course they dont know it, so I have to reset router then all info is lost

 

[glennd]

@Larry

i've always thought of the modem that makes the dsl connection and provides the login information to the isp and the router just hangs off the end routing traffic but you're implying the router does the job of logging in. that seems to imply the modem makes the dsl connection while the router makes the isp log in. something for me to learn about....

anyway, what i didn't know about was the wonderful Nirsoft tool you alluded to called RouterPassView. I log into the router and do a config backup to disk then use RouterPassView to open the config file and there is the dsl username and password.

I had cause to use it this morning. Saved an hour in the telephone queue to the isp.

 

[glennd]

One big problem is when I need router login password and of course they dont know it, so I have to reset router then all info is lost

if the customer doesn't know the router login, then it's most likely still set to the factory default which is either printed on the unit or can be found online.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

@Larry

i've always thought of the modem that makes the dsl connection and provides the login information to the isp and the router just hangs off the end routing traffic but you're implying the router does the job of logging in. that seems to imply the modem makes the dsl connection while the router makes the isp log in. something for me to learn about....

It depends on how the ISP supplied modem/router (gateway) is configured. With most residential accounts, it's doing the PPPoE login, and also defaulting as a router doing NAT. Residential clients often hang their own router behind it...resulting in double NAT. But sometimes you'll find it configured so that the ISP supplied hardware still does the PPPoE....but passes the public IP to the customers router behind it. OR...the ISP supplied gateway can be configured in pure bridged mode...so that the clients router does the PPPoE and other router duties. (this is what we always do for business clients DSL accounts).

Many times the PPPoE password only shows in asterisks....so you can't just dig it up. And of course as noted several times above...clients usually don't know it. One of the reasons I dread having to do anything with residential DSL accounts.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Especially when you get old folks who are the nicest people that can be, but have always had outlook express set up for years. No backup of the address book or contacts and can't remember their password. Sometimes you feel like hitting your head off the desk when you're at those calls. Then you might try to explain something to them, and if it's any different than what they've used before.....

I was at one appointment a guy's windows live mail had messed up, and he couldn't get his email. I messed around with things and got thunderbird installed, but he's like this does not help me my contacts aren't there. I finally finagled with it and got live mail working with his contacts but he's talking to me at first saying how having email and no contacts does not help him, had I not gotten it working somehow, I might have said something like the fact that your contacts were never backed up is not my problem. It's one of those systems I hope never dies lol. I'm sure you all each have some clients where you dread the day their system dies because you know they will have no end of questions if you set them up with a different computer.

 

[HCHTech]

In my area, at least, it is common for the PPPoE password to be the same as the email password. They don't know that one either , but at least you can get it with mailpassview. God, I hate calling the DSL vendor for that. It turns what should be a 5 minute exercise into 30 or 45 if you're lucky. What's your address? What's your account number? How much was the last payment you made?. How are you related to the account holder? And....just in case you happen to come up with all of that, what is the secret PIN that we sent you on tissue paper with the initial install 8 years ago? :bangs head on desk:

 

[jr866gooner]

I remember net gear routers used to give you the password in plain text when you backed up the config! Shocking!!

 

[cypress]

I remember net gear routers used to give you the password in plain text when you backed up the config! Shocking!!

Yup, my mother had one like this. I trashed the SOB. lol

 

[frase]

Yup, my mother had one like this. I trashed the SOB. lol

Just pulled one apart [WNDR3700v2]- overheating causing connection loss.

 

[bertie40]

Yeah. I find netgears always run hot.

On one of my old modem/routers a couple of years ago, I attacked it with a dremmel and cut a rectangular hole in the top to ventilate it.

Believe it or not, I actually sold that mess to a customer (nothing else available at the time) and it lasted another 18 months. [emoji2]

 

[NJW]

I remember net gear routers used to give you the password in plain text when you backed up the config! Shocking!!

Yes, but oh, so useful! I can think of at least three or four times that I have been saved by that feature!

The norm here in France is to have an ISP-supplied modem/router, which is generally required to use the bundled VoIP telephone service. (Most residential clients no longer have a real landline.) These boxes are becoming increasingly locked down, to the point that almost nothing useful can be changed, so even a LAN-wide DNS change is no longer possible.

On the plus side, we have no xDSL traffic caps, which is nice.

Edit to add: there are legal requirements for keeping paperwork (bank statements, utility bills, tax correspondence, etc.), so the general culture is to file away everything. So you know that they have the ISP login information – it's just a matter of waiting for them to find it.

 

[allstarit]

yeah it amazes me how ,many users don't save any information or know what their passwords are for certain things.
With any managed service clients i get i make documentation part of my service and document router info, ISP info including speeds and quota, printer info ect. I also ask them if its ok to take photos of their Critical equipment and keep this under their company name on my server. Photos are handy when users call up and you cant recall what setup they have or how the device looks.
For non managed service clients ill document what ever they provide at time but wont waste time documenting their entire office/setup.

In some cases when its quite ill call up the internet provided to get the info sent to account holder but its worth while doing it now when there is no issues instead of during an emergency when their whole office is down and you have to wait ages on hold to get the info.
Put all this info into a network documentation and give the client a copy and save a copy on your server.

One other thing you can do too is check what email the ISP is using for notifications. Sometimes they provide an email username@isp.com which is used for the ADSL settings but they also send the billing notifications to this email. This is ok where the end user uses that email but sometimes they don't and never receive these notifications. So if possible change this notification to their actual email or see if you can add multiple and add your email to the list as well. I sometime receive emails for clients Quota nearing capacity and ill give them a call before it goes over to see if they want to increase their data usage.
Its also a good time to discuss what they are downloading and how much they are using on a monthly basis and should they be upgrading to a better plan.

 

[A/CPC]

We had a similar instance several weeks ago. Client said his connection was really slow. We checked it out on site and turned out his neighbor was piggy backing onto his wireless with movies, etc. The telco shut his DSL off. Of course NOW he has a password.

The great teacher: deadbeat neighbors.