After talking to 3 different reps at level 3 tier support for TWC (1-866-508-1157) and being told that "bridge mode is not supported" and told other lies, I gave up and fixed it on my own. Basically what they refuse to tell you is that the modem has 2 MAC Addresses, 1 for the actual modem (WAN MAC) and 1 for the internal router (LAN MAC). They provision the MAC address (LAN MAC) of the internal router to have access on their network and any other MAC Address such as that of your PC or router, will simply not work.
When you enable bridging mode and turn the device into a cable modem, you're then passing along your computers and/or routers MAC Address, which is not provisioned in their system. They will refuse to provision a new MAC address over the phone and your modem wont go online. To fix this and have your modem go online, follow these steps:
1. Unplug coax cable from Motorola
2. Hold down the white reset button on the back panel with a pen for 30s. This resets all settings to factory defaults. The modem will be auto-reconfigured once you plug in the coax cable.
3. When modem is back on plug in a computer with an Ethernet cable into the modem.
4 Connect to http://192.168.0.1 and login with "admin" / "motorola"
5 Now you will make some changes:
-Wireless -> Primary Network -> Disabled
-Basic -> Setup -> NAPT Mode -> Disabled
-Basic -> DHCP -> No
-Advanced -> Options -> Rg Passthrough -> Enable
-Copy and save the LAN Mac Address from the Basic > Configuration Section
-Advanced -> Options -> Passthrough Mac Addresses -> Add LAN MAC Address of the SBG6580 Found in the Basic > Configuration section.
Save all settings and plug the coaxial cable back into the modem and power cycle it.
You should now be online with the Motorola SBG6580 into Bridge mode and you can use your own router to forward ports correctly or directly connect it to your PC and configure your firewall.
The reason you'd want to do this is due to the bug in the firmware that only allows the port forwarding of 1 IP Address only. Meaning if you try to forward any other ports to any other IP's the forwarding breaks all together. By putting the SBG6580 into bridge mode we can forward our own ports on a separate router or firewall.
I'd like to give a shoutout to the TWC Tier 3 support in Colorado. Thanks a lot for not helping anyone on this issue. It's policy to not support it, but it's down right rude to argue with customers over it instead of admitting fault. Since you guys suck at customer service, I have provided the solution here for free.
The reason this works and other solutions do not is that TWC has to provision the MAC Address of the SBG6580 router portion on their end. If the MAC Address of your Router and/or PC is not provisioned in their system you will not get an external IP Address. They will not tell you this, because they don't want to go through all the above steps to make it work right!
When you enable bridging mode and turn the device into a cable modem, you're then passing along your computers and/or routers MAC Address, which is not provisioned in their system. They will refuse to provision a new MAC address over the phone and your modem wont go online. To fix this and have your modem go online, follow these steps:
1. Unplug coax cable from Motorola
2. Hold down the white reset button on the back panel with a pen for 30s. This resets all settings to factory defaults. The modem will be auto-reconfigured once you plug in the coax cable.
3. When modem is back on plug in a computer with an Ethernet cable into the modem.
4 Connect to http://192.168.0.1 and login with "admin" / "motorola"
5 Now you will make some changes:
-Wireless -> Primary Network -> Disabled
-Basic -> Setup -> NAPT Mode -> Disabled
-Basic -> DHCP -> No
-Advanced -> Options -> Rg Passthrough -> Enable
-Copy and save the LAN Mac Address from the Basic > Configuration Section
-Advanced -> Options -> Passthrough Mac Addresses -> Add LAN MAC Address of the SBG6580 Found in the Basic > Configuration section.
Save all settings and plug the coaxial cable back into the modem and power cycle it.
You should now be online with the Motorola SBG6580 into Bridge mode and you can use your own router to forward ports correctly or directly connect it to your PC and configure your firewall.
The reason you'd want to do this is due to the bug in the firmware that only allows the port forwarding of 1 IP Address only. Meaning if you try to forward any other ports to any other IP's the forwarding breaks all together. By putting the SBG6580 into bridge mode we can forward our own ports on a separate router or firewall.
I'd like to give a shoutout to the TWC Tier 3 support in Colorado. Thanks a lot for not helping anyone on this issue. It's policy to not support it, but it's down right rude to argue with customers over it instead of admitting fault. Since you guys suck at customer service, I have provided the solution here for free.
The reason this works and other solutions do not is that TWC has to provision the MAC Address of the SBG6580 router portion on their end. If the MAC Address of your Router and/or PC is not provisioned in their system you will not get an external IP Address. They will not tell you this, because they don't want to go through all the above steps to make it work right!
