Cannot manually set the time

Aspirant

Jan 31, 2018

Jason, I do just want to say thank you. You are trying and that is appreciated.

You seemed so confident about calling the ISP... that I did so.

AND...I recieved information similar to what is posted in this link here:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Cable-Modems-Routers/Unable-to-set-to-Internet-time/m-p/1296385#M8689

A link I did mention in my original post. It is a run around.... I was told by Netgear to contact my ISP...my ISP told me to connect the Manufactuer (Netgear) who tells me to contact my ISP. Spectrum/TWC seems to think there may be a software update that Netgear needs to push out. They end with and becasue "it is your own equipment" there is only so much TWC can do.... "maybe netgear can send you a new router" (yes...he said that).

TWC did send an ISP signal and the router rebooted and still was 10 (ten) hours ahead. He called something like the Netgear IT advisory line while I held. They were unable to access the router remotely. There was mention of using the pin on back to reset-- i would need to call the manufactuer (Netgear), see if they can do an update...Hello forum, is there a phone number for that I can have? Seems like the next move!

Hahah, basically, if you buy a router thinking it will work seemlessly with your system and (hey, i'll save that rental fee!)...hahhah...that may or may not be true! Adventure! (seriously, WHY can you NOT manually set your own time on your router? Its a good thing I don't have kids I need parental monitoring for... setting block times would be a nightmare!)

ErnestTheGreat
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Jan 31, 2018
@StarDar are you referring to the Current System Time not being correct on the Cable Connection page or the Current Time not being correct on the Schedule page?

The date and time information shown in the “Current System Time” section on the Cable Connection page is retrieved from the CMTS’ (Cable Modem Termination System) ToD (Time of Day) server.

When the Cable modem comes on line it goes to Initialization/Registration process with your ISP and during that process number of information is passed between CMTS and your Cable modem and one of those pieces of information is the date and time information which the CMTS gets from service provider’s ToD server and that information cannot be change by the cable modem user.

The reason that user cannot change the time and ToD server’s has to do with DOCSIS specification. The ToD server provides a common clock for network time so that all logged events reference the same clock, which allows for correlation of data between devices. Please note that ToD server does not observe DST either.

When ISP’s tech support troubleshoots your issue they need to be able to correlate the time that events, errors or issues are being reported at their end with what your device is seeing. If they allow users to change their time to whatever they want those events would not sync up making it very difficult to figure out what is going on as this helps them establish the timeline of events that took place.

Furthermore, since this is not a modem specific issue I am pretty sure that there will be no firmware features added to allow users to change time for the reasons I mentioned above. If you look at any other cable modem on the market this how they all behave. If there is issue with your system time being way off you need to know where the CMTS your device is connecting to is located and which time zone it is in.

The Cable DOCSIS system is quiet fascinating if you want to know more about how it works and how your cable modem get the info to establish internet connectivity you can always check out the CableLabs documentation/specification website at https://apps.cablelabs.com/specification/?query=&category=&subcat=&doctype=&content=false&archives=false

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