The Magic Of MAC Cloning

Many people excitedly rush home with their shiny new wireless router and follow the easy setup instructions to the tee only to be frustrated to find their Internet connection seems to disappear as soon as they plug in to their modem. Many times a simple setting on your router called MAC Cloning can fix this issue in about two minutes.

Many ISPs require your computer to have a certain computer name and MAC address in order to connect to their service. If you plug a different computer into your modem you may find you lose your Internet connection. This is a good indication that your ISP wants you to have a specific MAC address in order to access their service.

Since the MAC address on your router is different from the MAC address you had on your computer your ISP does not allow a connection unless you call them and tell them that you now have a different MAC address and ask them to reset your connection. This can involve a lot of wasted time on the phone with your ISPs Tech Support.

MAC address cloning is a feature that comes with most wired and wireless network routers. You can use it to duplicate or clone your computers MAC and computer name on to your router. Once this is done your ISP sees your router as being the same machine as your computer and allows a connection.

To access this feature you'll need to know the IP address of your router and the password to access the Web interface. Simply type this into your web browser to connect. Once you're in the Web interface you should be able to locate the MAC cloning feature without much difficulty. It usually involves simply typing in the MAC address and computer name of the computer you want to clone and clicking on a "clone" button. Some routers have a utility that enters a computers MAC for you when you type in that computer machine name.

To find your computers MAC address simply open a command prompt and type in "ipconfig /all" (Without the quotes). You will probably see several different sets of numbers depending on how many network adapters you have installed on that machine. You want to make sure you use the "physical address" of the local area connection you were using to connect to the modem.

Next time you purchase a new wireless or wired router and you find you're having problems connecting to the Internet be sure to try the MAC address cloning feature included on your router before a spending a lot of frustrating time on the phone with Tech Support.

J Richard Jones