[colug-432] Insight Broadband Dynamic IP Problem

[Rob Stampfli]

This is not directly Linux related, but I suspect it might be a good
place to garner some information about a problem that's been driving
me crazy recently.  My apologies if it is out of line.

I am an Insight broadband subscriber.  Since January 7th, my IP address
has been changing every day or two.  Now, while I do not pay for a static
address, I don't expect it to change while I'm in the middle of doing
something.  I've been left high-and-dry while watching a movie, while
on a VoIP call, and when I'm just ssh'ed and working to one of my servers.
It's very frustrating.  Before this, my IP rarely changed, perhaps once a
year or so.

The problem seems to be due to an inability of my router to renew its
DHCP lease:  Insight seems to be forwarding the DHCP Discover packet,
which culminates in an IP address being assigned, but not the Unicast
DHCP renewal packet.  Thus, the IP address eventually expires.  It
also looks like there are multiple DHCP servers on the Insight LAN, as
I'm being assigned IPs out of several different pools.  I suspect this
is due to changes being made with Insight's acquisition by Time Warner.
See:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26576944-TWC-Fail-to-renew-TWC-DHCP-issued-WAN-IP-address-Kansas-

I'd think this would be a major problem, but the Insight people won't
tip their hat either way.  All they want to do is offer to send a tech
out to check the signal levels (already done, and NTF) and try to
convince me to get rid of any router and "connect your PC directly to
the modem", which I tell them is not an option.  (Does anyone except
my aunt run with a PC directly connected to the modem anymore?) They
don't/won't give me a list of routers that they support.

I'm using an old ZyXEL P324 router which has served me well until now.
I've tried several others, including another P324 and a ZyWALL 2 Plus,
and they all behave the same way.

Several questions:

1.  Are others experiencing this problem, or is it just me?

2.  If you are/have experienced this, what are you doing about it?
    Or, better yet, how did you resolve the problem?

3.  I have the option of moving to WOW broadband here, and am considering
    doing just that.  What are people's experiences with WOW?  I can also
    move to AT&T U-verse, although that is a less attractive option for me.
    In particular, I'm a bit concerned I may not be able to run my own DNS
    LAN server with WOW.  WOW used to block external access to port 53.
    Does anyone know if this is a problem?

Thanks in advance.
Rob