mac4mac.co.uk

My ISP used to be Virgin. Nearly 3 years ago, they decided to get rid of their phone line BB, so I transferred to TalkTalk, and my Virgin account was closed.

The morning I found a red light on my TT router and no WiFi signal on any Mac or my iPhone. Got on to TT support and they decided I needed a visit from an engineer. Earliest date: 21 Nov!

Later, thinking about the lack of a WiFi signal I was thinking it was a router failure. So I plugged my old Netgear in to see if I got a signal, which would confirm my theory. Imagine my surprise when not only did I get a signal, but I got the internet.

Now, the last time it was used was with Virgin, so I went into the router on Safari, and yes, it had connected to Virgin.

Weird, or what?

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Home: PPC Mac Mini, 10.4.11, Intel Mac Mini 10.6.8, MacBook Pro(mid 2012): 12Gb, 10.14.6, White MacBook 10.8.4
iPhone 5S, iOS 11.3 Vodafone PAYG

They (ANY ISP) know your identity from the hardware identification of the phone landline into which your router is plugged. This is known as "CLI" - Calling Line Identifier, and is the same new(ish) facility that can identify your landline phone number as a caller, to any destination number you call.

This is different from the "old" way, where they identified you from an ISP username and password you used to have to enter into the router. It means, in principle, you could use any correctly-specified router on any landline with any ISP, and it will connect as the landline's account holder (if the account exists, of course).

This is why, these days, then can send you a router in the post, and you can just plug it in, and it just goes. They don't have to pre-configure it with your account name/password.

All done in the name of "security" but really it is because of lower operating costs and lower hardware costs to the ISP, naturally.

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Martin Everyone is entitled to my opinions.

Yes, but I would have thought that Virgin would have deleted all my account details by now. Obviously not.

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Home: PPC Mac Mini, 10.4.11, Intel Mac Mini 10.6.8, MacBook Pro(mid 2012): 12Gb, 10.14.6, White MacBook 10.8.4
iPhone 5S, iOS 11.3 Vodafone PAYG

I suspect it's connected to Talktalk. What makes you think it's connected to Virgin?

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Martin Everyone is entitled to my opinions.

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Home: PPC Mac Mini, 10.4.11, Intel Mac Mini 10.6.8, MacBook Pro(mid 2012): 12Gb, 10.14.6, White MacBook 10.8.4
iPhone 5S, iOS 11.3 Vodafone PAYG

Found this "TalkTalk don't require authentication with a username or password on their copper broadband connections." so it will work with what ever login details are put in.

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Tony

iMac 24" M3 16Gb ram 512 SSD
14.2
iPhone 12 64Gb Blue
Linksys velop
Community fibre 150MBdown 150MBup.

Dave: I agree with Tony: and I don't think your router is actually connected to Virgin, despite it showing the Virgin username and password from a previous setup. That's the point of this new regime - it's using the CLI from your landline for identification, and NOT any account details in your router. I bet if you deleted that account name and password entirely from your router, it will still connect (to your Talktalk account, as now).

Try looking here, and see what it says:

https://www.whoismyisp.org/

or here:

https://support.rm.com/technicalarticle ... =tec862550

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Martin Everyone is entitled to my opinions.

Ok, ok. I surrender.

Thanks for all your help guys, but with what the router was telling me and TalkTalk giving instructions for using non TT routers(https://help2.talktalk.co.uk/setup-non-talktalk-router), you can understand my confusion.

It all helps to confirm my initial view that all TT had to do was send me a new router.

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Home: PPC Mac Mini, 10.4.11, Intel Mac Mini 10.6.8, MacBook Pro(mid 2012): 12Gb, 10.14.6, White MacBook 10.8.4
iPhone 5S, iOS 11.3 Vodafone PAYG

I think you're right Dave. And all that Talktalk stuff about using a non-TT router was right about 5-10 years ago, but not needed now.

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Martin Everyone is entitled to my opinions.