Comcast Small Business

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Hades16x

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Has anyone here in the past switched from Comcast residential to Comcast small business?
We just mailed in the paperwork to make the switch. The package is 89.95/mo and it is a 16/2 connection. This connection also has no cap. My current is 12/2 on residential.

Has anyone tried it out? Besides the price, I don't really see a problem with it.

-Michael
 
I have a few clients on it...very fast, very stable solid connection, great uptime, and their business support is pretty danged good versus most of the other ISPs I deal with on a regular basis.

They'll probably replace your current modem with one of their SMC Gateway appliances..which is a combo modem/router with 4x LAN ports, but you can bypass that with your own router connected behind it configured static with your next assigned public IP address.
 
Well as it was explained to me comcast residential rates 12/2, but thats with their power boost technology. The average sustained is around 8/1, which is about what I currently see. The way the business is marketed is the connection is a 16/2 connection and the lady said when it "powerboosts" users can see bursts into 20/4 realm. I don't really care about the whole powerboost thing, I think its a load of crap, but if its true, this connection will average out to be ~twice as fast as what I currently have.

Also I've been informed the same thing that YeOldeStonecat said. The gateway that they provide is on a separate coaxial line from the normal house wiring. I am excited to see how they accomplish this. Also I've heard the uptime is flawless and there is no "5-oclock rush hour" slow downs.

To Electrofreak - yes its a static IP, not that it really concerns me. I don't think I've been assigned a new IP from comcast in the past year.
 
@ YeOldeStonecat
What do you think about the SMC Gateway. Meghan@CSB emailed me the tech document on the gateway. It's not something that I need, but I guess it's mandatory for this level of service. I assume it's a pretty robust piece of hardware that wont give me any problems.

My only experience with Comcast's hardware was when they gave me a crappy 3-com modem. I had so many problems with disconnects I went out and purchased a Surfboard. I've never had any problem with that in near 5 years...
 
Cloud15x said:
@ YeOldeStonecat
What do you think about the SMC Gateway. Meghan@CSB emailed me the tech document on the gateway. It's not something that I need, but I guess it's mandatory for this level of service. I assume it's a pretty robust piece of hardware that wont give me any problems.
Click to expand...

Amen to the Moto Surfboards..love 'em.

The SMCs, they're stable, designed to handle a fairly heavy load. But I don't think I have a single client using them as a router, I've effectively bypassed them by putting my own routers in, since I've needed VPN support for the places I have them at.

The SMC is a combo modem/router, 4x LAN ports on the back. Plug a PC into it with IP set to obtain auto, and you'll pick an IP address like 10.1.10.100 They have a web admin at .1, user/pass is something like highspeed/cusadmin or hispeed/custadmin

While they're not rich in features, they have the basics, port forwarding 'n stuff.
 
Cloud15x said:
I don't really care about the whole powerboost thing, I think its a load of crap,
Click to expand...

Powerboost only affects the first 20MB of a file, so it is a load of crap.

Business Class is very nice. Although we have seen outages. Never thought about using it at home, but I do like the speed, level of service, and "no cap". Let us know how it works out.
 
Have several clients on it, real world it isn't any faster than residential.
Onsite support is much faster.
Telephone support is the same people as residential.
No limits and static IP for vpn are the real advantages.
The SMC are basically junk in my opinion, you can use your own modem and router but they still charge you rent on the smc.
 
stormy1 said:
Telephone support is the same people as residential..
Click to expand...

Not in my experience...in my area anyways. It's a different number to call, and it's a local office where you get a live person right away. If you call residential support by accident..after you finally get to a live person they'll transfer you to biz support.

They won't let you use your own modems up here, the business accounts have a special config file...they're provisioned for your static IP and monitored by a totally different system that will not monitor the Motos.
 
Well meghan got the paperwork. She says ill hear from their install team probably on monday. Also the smc gateway rental is rolled into the 89.95 a month. There is no separate charge. Ill ask the guy if I can use my moto. I'm pretty excited. Btw, I guess you don't need a small business to get this tier of service, although we are using my step fathers in home company.
 
When we ordered it for a customer's residence, they rolled a new line to his house just for this. That was pretty impressive.
 
Just installed another one today, stuck the Untangle box into the back of the SMC, assigned the static IP to the WAN interface of the UT box...blammo, online. Ran a few benchmarks..28 megs down via da boost.
 
Well the techs called me yesterday. They're scheduled to come out Nov 3rd from 8:00a-1:00p I was wishing it was sooner, but whatever.

Anyone else heard that by the end of the year the cap on residential will be removed with their move to Doxis(SP) 3.0? People have told me by the end of the year comcast will be at 50Mb dl. Any update to what the SB 89.95 tier will be?

Pretty excited at the 28meg dl. Just speed tested my Residential at 14.55/1.88.

Why cant I have a symmetrical connection? Id take a 12/12 connection over a 20/4 connection any day.
Am I the only one that feels that way?
 
In the Chicagoland area they offer up to 50Mb, priced as such
Residential $100/mo
Business $200
 
Well appt is today. Time from 8AM-1PM. I hope they're here soon because I have work at 1:00 and my stepfather will have to be here for them then.
 
So comcast screwed up my service I requested. I got the starter(6/1) instead of the next one up thats 16/2.

I decided to load up a quick *o*r*n*........ to see actual sustained speeds after powerboost. On the 6/1 I'm holding a fairly steady 745-760KB/s, which if you do the math is just about full usage of the connection.

If I can expect this from my switch to 16/2 tomorrow I should be looking at damn near 2MB/s.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
They'll probably replace your current modem with one of their SMC Gateway appliances..which is a combo modem/router with 4x LAN ports, but you can bypass that with your own router connected behind it configured static with your next assigned public IP address.
Click to expand...

Charter tired to do this when I got the Business Internet Last week. (20 x 2 service )
I showed the tech my modem / untagle box and that was the end of that.
 
EvilAlchemist said:
Charter tired to do this when I got the Business Internet Last week. (20 x 2 service )
I showed the tech my modem / untagle box and that was the end of that.
Click to expand...

Why was it the end of that?
I have a few clients with Untangle hooked to the SMC, runs great. Untangle with the public IP and all that.
 
Im having a hard time getting my router to do ANYTHING behind the SMC.

Can anyone tell me a few things I should try to change?
 
When you purchase your biz account from Comcast...you'll often get a block of 5x IP addresses. Even if you just get a single IP account, you really got 2x IP addresses. ;)

They gave you a sheet of paper, the setup tech would have written down some stuff on the bottom half of the sheet.
*Customer IP address (example, 172.12.120.89) (replace these IPs with the ones you were given obviously)
*Gateway (example, 172.12.120.90)
*Subnet Mask (example, 255.255.255.252)
*2x DNS servers (example, 68.67.71.226/242)
*other stuff that you don't need to bother with

Now, the SMC gateway is a combo modem/router, and it has 4x built in LAN ports.
By default, it runs DHCP with a LAN IP range of 10.1.10.xxx. You can plug any computer into one of those LAN ports, it will pickup an IP like 10.1.10.100...and off you go. If you point your browser to a website that tells you your public IP address, such as www.whatismyip.com you'll see it give you the same IP address that you see written down on that sheet of paper as your gateway (such as 172.12.120.90 in the examples above)

The SMC has a web interface at 10.1.10.1 username:cusadmin password: highspeed

You can use the setup like this if you like, for basic needs it's fine.

The "customer IP address" is the one that you can use on your own device. Say you want to use your own router, and have your router obtain the public IP address. So setup your own router with the WAN configuration set as static. For the IP address, type in the customer IP address (such as 172.12.120.89 in the example above)...subnet mask the same, and for the default gateway enter the IP of the public side of the SMC...172.12.120.90 in the example above). I enter OpenDNS servers instead of Comcasts DNS servers.

Now uplink the WAN port of your own router to one of the LAN ports of the SMC. You can leave DHCP enabled on the SMC, it's fine.

Now plug a device into one of the LAN ports of your own router..and if your router is doing DHCP (or if you have another device doing DHCP fine)...you should be able to go online fine. Hit up www.whatismyip.com and you should see your customer IP address (.89).

Your router basically does a passthrough of the SMC, it's not double NAT'ing, the SMC just NATs the first IP address (its own)

If you wish to make ports open on your router, like port 25 for e-mail or 443 for OWA or something...log into the SMC and disable its firewall...as it can still block other IPs behind it.

If you have a 2nd public IP address, like .88, repeat the process in a similar fashion.
 
Thank you so very much. Ill try this when I get home.

Onto static ip. one static IP is 14.99, a block of 5 is 19.99. I couldn't see a use for the extra 4 ips. What's your take yeoldstonecat?
 
No special advantage to having more IP's unless you are running multiple servers, or some other special condition where you need a public IP.
 
Cloud15x said:
Thank you so very much. Ill try this when I get home.

Onto static ip. one static IP is 14.99, a block of 5 is 19.99. I couldn't see a use for the extra 4 ips. What's your take yeoldstonecat?
Click to expand...

Depends on your needs, what the network needs. For my clients..even though a few have the 5x IP package, I've not yet had to use more than 1. But for 4 bucks per month difference...not much to worry about either. I'd say..if you're placing the order now, and you think you might grow a bit over time..why not get the 5x block ahead of time. Because if you have 1x for a while..the need to upgrade, you have have to give up your current 1x IP and get a whole new range..which may create more work for you down the road.

My biggest client on Comcast has a network of about 90 nodes, they have a 5x block, but I'm still only use 1x public IP. If you wish to run a web server or lease out space in your building to other clients...those could be needs that would desire additional public IPs.
 
We use extra IPs for our convenience. For example, a /29 gives us 5 usable on the clients firewall. The first goes to the firewalls external interface and is used for general NAT for the network. We then assign 1:1 NATs with the remaining, one to the primary server (usually an SBS), one to the DRAC in the server, and maybe others to other network equipment that we as a provider would like ot have direct access to.

Then we restrict the open ports on the firewall to only allow the subnet we are coming from, our office. Makes it easy to hit important devices on the clients network directly with no VPN while still remaining secure. We can hit the DRAC, ESXi, the VM, whatever.
 
So I attempted to follow your guide.

Currently I can get online either by being directly connected to the SMC gateway or being connected to my gigabit switch thats directly connected to the gateway.

The moment I connect my gateway to my router then to my computer, I lose the ability to connect to the internet.

Here are some SS's I took of my routers config:

gateway-1.png


Router-1.png


The values on the router config are the numbers I was emailed for my IP etc...

The values on the gateway are the values loaded into the modem.

Anybody have any clue on how I can connect to the internet via this gateway through my router? I want to connect like this SMC>Router>gigaswitch>all wired computers.

Thanks,
Michael
 
The problem is that you are trying to input your WAN information into your router, but the only thing your router is actually connected to is your SMC router. What it looks like you're trying to do is not use the SMC as a router at all but just as a cablemodem. You can't do that unfortunately, one of the many limitations of the horrible horrible SMC unit.

What you want to do is log into your SMC, set your DMZ to an internal address (10.1.10.2 for example). Then set the WAN IP on your other router to 10.1.10.2 (or just let it pull that from the DHCP on the SMC).

You are basically just daisy-chaining two routers and setting the DMZ on the SMC simply forwards all ports to your other router.

Yes, it's super-ghetto, and yes the SMC is a horrible piece of trash that is no more reliable than a $9.99 airlink router but does have half the options.

I was on residential with a Motorola SB5100 and it was rock solid for YEARS and took anything I could throw at it. The SMC on the other hand flops over dead with even one large swarm torrent using the exact same settings I used before.

Overall it was a huge downgrade for me but at least I don't have comcast on my back anymore when I pull a terabyte in a month.
 
that sucks to hear about your SMC but mine works just find with torrents :(
 
GotNoRice said:
The problem is that you are trying to input your WAN information into your router, but the only thing your router is actually connected to is your SMC router. What it looks like you're trying to do is not use the SMC as a router at all but just as a cablemodem. You can't do that unfortunately, one of the many limitations of the horrible horrible SMC unit..
Click to expand...

That is not correct, and it's not a problem. This is how it's commonly done with ISP business packages on ISP supplied gateways with static IPs, be it SMC gateways with cable, or Netopia gateways with DSL.

The steps I wrote above...were the exact _steps the Comcast Business Level Support Tech told me to do the very first time I used on their SMC gateways years ago at a client of mine, and I always use my own routers. Yes my own routers have public static IP addresses on their WAN interface. I'll post screenies if I get a chance over the next few days,as I just did another one of these setups for a clients new branch office. I have many setups with this using Untangle, or Linksys/Cisco RV0 routers, or even a little Linksys/Cisco SRX400. Dunno if DD-WRT has a problem with the SMC.
 
Last edited:
In that drop down box where it says DHCP Server on the DDWRT, I can also choose DHCP forwarder. I've already tried it, but maybe I haven't farted around with it enough.
 
On the firewall options tab of your SMC....
I have a checkmark in "Disable Firewall for True State IP Subnet Only"
Also a checkmark "Disable Gateway Smart Packet Detection
and I did not put a checkmark in "Disable Ping on WAN Interface"

You shouldn't have to fiddle with DHCP stuff on your DD, defaults should be fine, long as you have proper DNS settings on the WAN interface. Just for giggles though, what happens if you try to ping by IP address..like ping 208.67.222.222
 
KORI said:
that sucks to hear about your SMC but mine works just find with torrents :(
Click to expand...

Mine works "fine" with torrents as well once I bring down the settings to what the hardware can handle. I probably would have never thought twice if I never knew how much better it could be with a good modem like my old Motorola. For example, on my old Motorola I used to be able to have over 600 simultaneous connections for a torrent, with the SMC if I go much over 200 the SMC will start to hiccup where all net traffic dies for a few seconds before slowly resuming and then the cycle will repeat every 15-30 seconds.

YeOldeStonecat said:
That is not correct, and it's not a problem. This is how it's commonly done with ISP business packages on ISP supplied gateways with static IPs, be it SMC gateways with cable, or Netopia gateways with DSL.

The steps I wrote above...were the exact _steps the Comcast Business Level Support Tech told me to do the very first time I used on their SMC gateways years ago at a client of mine, and I always use my own routers. Yes my own routers have public static IP addresses on their WAN interface. I'll post screenies if I get a chance over the next few days,as I just did another one of these setups for a clients new branch office. I have many setups with this using Untangle, or Linksys/Cisco RV0 routers, or even a little Linksys/Cisco SRX400. Dunno if DD-WRT has a problem with the SMC.
Click to expand...

I talked directly with Comcast support also and was informed there is no way to directly disable NAT on the SMC unit. I'd be curious to know exactly what changes in terms of the functionality of the SMC unit if you are somehow able to assign the public IP to the router behind it, considering that it, again, has no option to disable NAT. I don't have a static IP, so maybe that is the difference.
 
GotNoRice said:
I talked directly with Comcast support also and was informed there is no way to directly disable NAT on the SMC unit. I'd be curious to know exactly what changes in terms of the functionality of the SMC unit if you are somehow able to assign the public IP to the router behind it, considering that it, again, has no option to disable NAT. I don't have a static IP, so maybe that is the difference.
Click to expand...

You don't have to disable NAT..there's no need to. Read my steps above a few posts (again, those are following what Comcast biz support told me years ago when they first rolled out these devices and I was using my own routers)...the SMC itself takes an IP, you take one of your static IPs that you're given with your account..and assign that (or those) to the WAN interface of your own router. The NAT on the SMC remains for its public IP and the 10.1.10.xxx network behind it, but you are using a different public IP, and the NAT does not apply to that. You're just mapping additional public IPs to your own devices.
 
seems like a lot of issues for a simple install.

our provider supplies a modem and a cisco router (no firewall or anything) 4 port.

we run a line from the cisco router to our router, throw in one of the Static IP, throw in the gateway, dns, subnet they supply and good to go.
 
marley1 said:
seems like a lot of issues for a simple install..
Click to expand...

Seriously, it isn't. Takes me about 5 minutes...less if I prefer the router I'm bringing with me ahead of time. I suspect DD-WRT is having some issue with the SMC...I haven't used DD-WRT on these before.
 
Shadowssong said:
Wow are you serious? I never knew that, what a bunch of bull$@#!
Click to expand...

Many cable ISPs are doing these "bursting" technologies..allowing you to download files at very fast rates (often past 30 megs) for the first 10 megs (or 20 megs..depending on your ISP and level of package). That's actually a cool features, since many times you're downloading (the average user) only small files..so it's cool to suck them down in the blink of an eye. Websites load snappy, downloading e-mail snappy, etc. What can be wrong with that?
 
*Wump/bump*
Any news on this, trying the recent suggestion I had above?
Any chance of trying some spare "other" router with this to see if DD is the culprit?
 
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