Sky B/B Cut Me Off But Found a Way round it.

[MuttsNutts]

Now im not sure if this has been documented on the web anywhere as i have not looked and how i came about this was out of pure chance.

Tuesday night about midnight i was on the lappy and I could not get online had been working ok all night checked the router and all lights green as they should be did a quick reboot of it same thing lights green but still no internet.
it's the default sky router they sent me - i logged into the web console and i found all was ok said connected etc the only difference was there was no IP address given to me from the ISP.....?

So with this i checked service status using my mobile all ok, I went to call sky and the phone would not work either i dialed and just silence....? hmmm i thought must be a fault, changed filter, cables etc still nothing.

So i went to swap the router i already had a new router as i planned on replacing soon just never got round to it so as i had already found out my username & password i setup the new router and it connected fine etc all ok and gave me an IP address internet working again - great i just thought **** sky router had gone duff.

So wednesday came and get a call off sky saying my direct debit had failed my billing date was the same day Tues the 1st so I checked my billing account that the Direct Debit had been paid out my bank it had but had been returned due to lack of funds as sky said, it was £9.00 short due to the wife had not told me she had clocked up a few box office movies you see my billing account normally has just enough to cover all the bills etc anyway sky had said they had suspended the phone line and broadband until payment was made......and there's me surfing away as usual on sky broadband pefectly fine even though they said they had suspended it.

I paid straight away over the phone and they said it would take around take upto 24 hours for the service to come back on for me.
so as soon i was off the phone to them I put the sky router back on no IP address again put my new router back on and all ok i did this about 5 times yesterday back and forth each time the sky router would not pick up an ip address from sky and with the custom sky router it wont let you enter a static IP, on the 6th try about 11:30pm last night the sky router picked up an IP address fine.....

So im guessing that's how sky control there broadband they have access to each router that's theres to turn somthing off or ban the MAC address or somthing along those lines - so using another router you can get past there suspention..... not sure how long it would have worked like if i hadnt of paid it but it's a good way to keep you going online if you can't pay the bill straight away I know there's onther ways they can cut you off so in no way is it a way of free broadband from them but just a method of staying online.

thanks for reading i know it's not that exciting but i though i should share it

 

[MissChief]

Sky have a system that can block individual routers using the mac address. Use of another sky router will get round that.

 

[IrishChr1s]

Dns at the exchange is told to block your mac address if payment hadn't been made.
Once you pay its removed.

Without Dns authentication you will not be assigned an ip address.
Simple as that.

 

[Sin_Chase]

Dns at the exchange is told to block your mac address if payment hadn't been made.
Once you pay its removed.

Without Dns authentication you will not be assigned an ip address.
Simple as that.

I assume you meant to say DHCP but it's more than likely all controlled via RADIUS.

DNS is Domain Name Resolution and is not required from the ISP at all.

Seems a little strange they lock down on MAC address issued to a specific piece of hardware. Physical connection port, username or a combination of both seem like better options.

It would make sense if there was a MAC whitelist - eg NOTHING but this MAC can connect but when it's everything else BUT this MAC address can connect it leaves the door wide open for what the OP did.

 

[bremen1874]

It would make sense if there was a MAC whitelist - eg NOTHING but this MAC can connect but when it's everything else BUT this MAC address can connect it leaves the door wide open for what the OP did.

It's probably fairly effective against their average user base. Most users will only have the router they were supplied with and to real idea about how it all works. And with Sky they’d also presumably needed to have previously extracted their connection credentials to allow a different router to be used.

 

[MissChief]

Yes they use a radius system that has a whitelist. If the mac isn't on the list OT won't be allowed to connect, but it can also block individual mac addresses.

 

[steven_belfast]

Yes with Sky when they block internet access the mac address is blocked in IRIS and this links in with the radius server and so you get a amber / red internet light,

Yes if you happen to have a old router this might still be active but Sky are starting to Disable these mac addresses and unlike being blocked they are not to be made active again.

Blocked mac address are done for one of two things,
1 - Billing.
2 - Abuse most of the time this is caused by a virus being on the home network.

When the mac is disabled - abouse or disabled - billing we can change this back to active but if its blocked we are not to touch them and most of the time there is a flag on it also.