What's new

Cable Internet Gateway Recommendations, please

  • SNBForums Code of Conduct

    SNBForums is a community for everyone, no matter what their level of experience.

    Please be tolerant and patient of others, especially newcomers. We are all here to share and learn!

    The rules are simple: Be patient, be nice, be helpful or be gone!

Rebound

New Around Here
Hello everyone!
I just moved and signed up for Comcast service at 800 mbps. They want to charge $14/month to rent a gateway, so I thought I'd buy one instead. I'm looking for recommendations for an Xfinity-approved gateway which can support 800 mbps or more, with WiFi and Voip phone support.
I had a Netgear Orbi WiFi setup a few years back and I hated their UI. For some features, I had to use a mobile app, for others, I had to login to the device, for others, they wanted to sell me a subscription. It was just awful. But, most importantly, I just want a fast and very reliable home gateway which will work for years without any difficulty. Please let me know what you recommend. Thanks!!!
 
2-in-1 "gateways" are not the ideal setup.

I use a MB8600 for the cable termination and have been running it for several years now w/ no issues.

Then you just hookup your WIFI to it and go from there. There's a few different ways to go about it depending on the size of your space. I use an AP you'd see in a business setting for 802.11AX / WIFI 6. The advantages of the MB8600 are the 4 ports you can bundle to get speeds over 1gbps and on the 1gbps plan I actually can get up to about 1200gbps.

But, from the sounds of it you'll just need to hook up your Orbi's or whatever router you're currently using and you'll be set.
 
Comcast has a list of approved devices, which they "support". Support means it will work, but the isp won't assist in device support, where they tell you to contact the device maker.
My past experiences with comcrap regarding any service issues have always received the standard answer "the issue is with your network equipment". I use the isp gateway in bridge mode, and whenever there is an issue with service, we can typically get credit applied to our bill.
There are scripts that assist in knowing exactly when the network goes down and other information that is helpful when dealing with an isp (see my sig).
 
Last edited:
I don't have problems getting credits from CC with my own modem. I make sure to go to the outage map and screenshot it from the phone if they want to dispute things but, in general it's not an issue. Since I run multiple monitoring apps I can even provide timestamps of when things are disrupted.

Documenting outages though might not be worth the credit you get here and there though. I tend to only go after CC when it's an extended or multiple issues with the service to make it add up to something worth my while. Using the chat feature is a whole lot easier than calling in as well. Luckily I don't have many outages to deal with where I'm at. However, they don't auto credit if you don't report / ask for the credit which does piss me off a little bit since they have records of their downtime and could script the credits to be applied automatically in the billing system.
 
I concede that dealing with comcrap YMMV.

Whenever I deal with comcrap regarding service issues, I am reminded of the scene from Groundhog Day NSFW shower scene (kindly replace hot water for isp services).
During this past weekend of Football Playoffs, the television service was so "glitchy" it made the television unwatchable. When we called comcrap their excuse was the cable was frozen in our area. Our temperature was 67F :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
Frozen with pixilation not precipitation!

Don't use intelligent thought, we're talking about the cable company ;)
Official Xfinity Response:
Due to the drastic changes in temperature, the cable constricts and expands, which degrades the signal.

I suppose it's due to California's drastic winter weather

Being pleasant and courteous to the phone rep got us a free month television credit. It was like getting a Double Christmas Bonus

EDIT: Due to the amount I thought it was a month, but it was only two-weeks credit. Makes me dislike the cost of cable significantly more :mad:
 
Last edited:
@Clark Griswald

A free month is nice but, cutting the cord is better. I cut the cord / bill back in 2007 and haven't looked back. I used the savings to build some stuff instead. That extra $100+ adds up quickly.
 
@Tech Junky "cutting the cord is better"
Exactly the conversation The Wife and I have been having, since the email stating an increase in fees, etc!
 
@Clark Griswald

It's great once you detox from the cable train. The hardest part is getting unhooked from being programmed by traditional flipping through channels and having a DVR on every TV stand. Converting to a DVR LAN setup makes things easier or streaming to multiple sets.

I opted to slowly detox by testing all of the free offers that had the shows I was watching prior to cutting the cord. I went as far as putting them in a spreadsheet to see which channels had priority for packages. I started off with some little tuner boxes and fed them into NUC for recording things / post-processing for removing commercials / convert to MP4 for space savings.

As things progressed though I switched to a full blown PC w/ internal PCI card for recording OTA programming as it turned out to be the biggest chunk of shows and very little "pay" stations. Since OTA switched over to ATSC3 I switched to a HDHomeRun that has ATSC3 tuners in it since upgrading the server from 8700K to 12700K caused the internal card to only work with 30-50% of the channels. The switch to ATSC3 made sense for future proofing since the price difference between the 2 boxes was very little.
 
I've had Comcast for 20+ years and Arris CMs
provided by them and me, several times, using my own routers.

It was my ~4 year upgrade cycle and I just bought my own Arris S33 3.1 cm to provide an upgrade to 600mbs Comcast service. It's delivered up to 700 on one wireless AX client on speedtest, typically in the mid 500mbs for AX and 400s for AC.

The S33 has a 1Gb ET and also a 2.5 Gb ET port. I use the 1Gb as it's what my router has (my router died, it was time for a new one, Asus AX88U). In reality I don't have applications that can use that much bandwidth, it was $3/month more to 600.

I like Arris as I've never had problems with them, just outgrew them.
 
Arris has had success working with comcast. We've been limited due to the "free" telephone, as to the supported modems. We aren't able to have telephone without activating AND using.
Cutting the cord and only having high speed internet will allow a plethora of modem choices.
 
@Clark Griswald

Yeah, if you get rid of the built in MTA for phone service you have better options.

The MTA / phone ploy to give you a discount on service is just roping you into paying more. Ditch the phone line and buy your own modem as you're likely not using the phone service anyway.

Drop your TV plan completely and hit the Comcast or whichever provider's forum and bitch about the price and a rep will reach out and work down the price. I did this with Comcast and locked in 2 years on gigabit for $80/mo IIRC and with tax right now it's 100.53 w/o any promos attached.
 
A few years back I went from triple play to just Internet on one call... boy was that fun
I was transferred 4 times up the ladder, each conversation starting from scratch and offering additional services.. the exact opposite of my simple request. I finally told them that it felt like "50 first dates"
 
That's why I use the forum. It's in writing and there are "retention" reps on there and they don't pitch the sales crap you get on the phone. Retention reps have access to codes you can't get over the phone. When I cut the cord and took back the TV card I was using in a DVR I had to show the store rep how to get the best pricing by doing the downgrade, exiting the account, and going back into it and applying the proper code for billing.
 

Latest threads

Sign Up For SNBForums Daily Digest

Get an update of what's new every day delivered to your mailbox. Sign up here!
Top