OzCableguy

Most people on Telstra Cable still with old CDLP (CyberSURFR) modems should have received shiny new DOCSIS compliant Motorola SB5100s by now. A few people have been reporting that they can’t get online with the new modems and I think in 99% of these cases patience is the missing element. On the front of the modem there’s a bunch of lights and you need to have the Receive, Send and Online lights glowing (not flashing) before you’re going to get anywhere. When I plugged mine in, the Send and Receive lights came on pretty quickly but it took a good 3 or 4 minutes before the Online light stopped flashing, but I remember way back when I was still installing Cable modems and the DOCSIS system was first introduced, it was not uncommon for this syncing up process to take anything up to half an hour. However, if it’s still blinking after half an hour there’s more than likely a fault with your modem, the DOCSIS network in your area or something technical to do with your account that you’ll need to contact BigPond about.
The 2nd problem with installing the new modem mainly affects Routers, but it could affect PCs as well. Naturally before unplugging the old modem you’d be logging out of BigPond first right? Yes… Ok, well apart from that, the Router will have data associated with the old modem in its records which will cause hassles, but it’s easy to fix. Once your Receive, Send and Online lights are all glowing (not flashing) on the modem, power the Router off for 30 secs or so and back on and you should be away. For modems connected to PCs, a reboot will be in order.

As a footnote I should warn anyone shopping for 2nd hand modems from this point on to beware of enterprising wackers attempting to sell these old CDLP (CyberSURFR) modems. They’re completely useless in Australia now and only good as paper weights.

Update: One thing not mentioned in Telstra’s instructions is that the attenuator on the supplied fly lead (from the wall socket to the cable modem) isn’t needed and shouldn’t be used with the new DOCSIS modem, particularly if you’re having problems getting line sync. Fly leads were often made up by the installation technician and it’s easy to unscrew the attenuator from these, but if you’ve got one of the pre-manufactured white leads, the attenuator is hiding under a heat shrink tube. In these case you’ll need to carefully cut along the heatshrink tube without cutting the cable sheath underneath to expose the attenuator. Then you can unscrew it from the F Connector and reattach the cable to the cable modem without it.
This should solve 90% of problems people might be experiencing with their modems not syncing.