AT&T U-Verse Data Setup Convention

Thu Jul 30 22:31:29 UTC 2015

On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 12:02:06 -0400, Keith Stokes <keiths at neilltech.com>  
wrote:
> 1. Is it really accurate that the customer’s address is tied to the  
> modem/router?

To the 802.1x identity of the device, yes. That's the unit serial number,  
which (partial) contains the MAC.

> 2. For my curiosity, is this done through a DHCP reservation or is there  
> a hard coded entry somewhere?

No. It's just "plain" DHCP. Until the pool is depleted, addresses don't  
get recycled. So, even if your address were released, it would take days  
before it would be assigned to someone else. (which DOES happen, btw)

Addresses are *NOT* hard coded. You can order (and pay for) a static  
subnet that is routed to whatever dynamic link address you get. That's the  
only "static" they offer.

> 3. Do all U-Verse modem/routers behave the same way? This particular  
> unit was a Motorola but the friends I’ve seen with U-Verse use a Cisco  
> unit.

Yes. This is a fundamental part of the network. If you *do* manage to  
side-step their PoS hardware, your own router will experience the same  
addressing scheme.