Cable Modem Recommendations

[dweiss]

I do not see this issue discussed elsewhere on the site, so I thought this might be the place to ask: Can anyone provide recommendations for the best options for a new DOCSIS 3.0 compliant Cable Modem?

I want to replace my existing rented Earthlink / Timewarner DOCSIS 2 Modem, and it just is not clear to me whether there is much to consider other than the DOCSIS spec and price. Are there other features that one modem offers versus another? Do some modems provide better management features? Do any modems enable one to measure traffic throughput or other parameters, etcetera?

Thanks,

 

[fistv]

First step for me would be to ask your provider what modems they support, then go from there.

 

[dweiss]

First step for me would be to ask your provider what modems they support, then go from there.

I know which ones they support, but I am trying to find information beyond that. Most ISPs support multiple modems. My real issue is whether there are end-user reasons to prefer one modem versus another, or if they should all just be treated as "black boxes" which are of no real interest to me once installed. Basically, if I am going to own the modem rather than rent it, is there a basis for the purchase decision other than price, such as features provided, management functions, or performance?

Thanks,

 

[fistv]

I've had good luck with Motorola surfboards, non wireless. The new cable modem supplied by my cableco we lease, don't remember the brand, it looks like a cisco product, it's the size of a thick DVD player, I'll look tonight, mainly because I moved my wired phone from verizon to the cable co and it is a single unit, been in place two years now.
My daughter who moved to Pawleys island SC three years ago went through 2 netgears in a year down there, she has my surfboard, SMC7008ABR, linksys wap and a 1100va ups now all neatly mounted in the entertainment center.
I think how well you protect the equipment is at least as important as the brand. I thought the netgear cablemodem/router was kind of nifty, coax in, 4 lan ports and wireless out but no access to the firewall because it was leased, if she needed to change the wireless password it required a service call and that is what turned me off on it in addition to the failure rate.
I have two of the RCN supplied Cisco cable modems here at work for two wireless networks, one for customers, open and the other, secure, for the restaurant side, both have been in place for 3 years, again power wise, those are on a 80KVA UPS with grounded apc surge protectors on the ethernet side before they get to the cisco 891W's in my main computer room.

 

[connorm]

its a bad time to buy modems right now. almost all major cable ISP's will be on 12 or 16 downstream channles over the next year.

buying an 8 channel modem now is like buying an iphone 5 1 month before the iphone 6 comes out.....

 

[stevech]

I judged that it is best to lease not buy. That way, there's no finger-pointing, no charge for truck-rolls. This has paid off for me over main years. Esp. now, with cable digital phone.

My current cable modem is an Arris DOCSIS 3 and 34Mbps down, 5Mbps up service. My digital phone is on a separate Arris modem by my choice.

 

[fistv]

I judged that it is best to lease not buy. That way, there's no finger-pointing, no charge for truck-rolls. This has paid off for me over main years. Esp. now, with cable digital phone.

My current cable modem is an Arris DOCSIS 3 and 34Mbps down, 5Mbps up service. My digital phone is on a separate Arris modem by my choice.

Agree on the lease, now, back when it was new I wanted my own modem. My home stuff I don't really do much with, the last thing I want to do when I get home is touch a keyboard. When the kids were in college two years ago it was a different story. Wife uses it more than me, plus we have two cats, ever try to do anything on a computer with two cats.... keyboard clicks draw them faster than shaking the cat treats bag...

 

[abailey]

I am in the camp of purchasing your own modem. My provider is Comcast so I looked online at their list of approved modems. From the list I chose one I had heard good things about, the Motorola SurfBoard SB6141. They sent a tech out to hook everything up. He saw the modem was on the approved list and he had no problems working with it. After it was hooked up, they downloaded the lastest OS for it and it works great. I have had no problems. My return on investment vs renting a modem from them is 11.5 months. I have no plans to upgrade in that time period, or even within 24 months, so to me it made sense to purchase.

 

[Terry Kennedy]

I am in the camp of purchasing your own modem. My provider is Comcast so I looked online at their list of approved modems. From the list I chose one I had heard good things about, the Motorola SurfBoard SB6141.

Same here. I have Comcast Business 50/10. I had a Comcast-provided Cisco DPC3000 which tended to reboot on its own at random times and didn't support IPv6. They kept bringing out routers, sometimes with WiFi, instead of a cable modem. Since I'm doing VPN stuff and tunnels on a Cisco 2821 router, I didn't want the NAT that a router would give me, and I didn't want to be a host for an XFINITYWIFI node.

I ordered the white 6141 from Amazon and was able to auto-enroll it via the Comcast automated portal.

After it was hooked up, they downloaded the lastest OS for it and it works great.

In my case, they downgraded the firmware from SB_KOMODO-1.0.6.12-SCM00-NOSH to SB_KOMODO-1.0.6.10-SCM00-NOSH.

 

[Samir]

I judged that it is best to lease not buy. That way, there's no finger-pointing, no charge for truck-rolls. This has paid off for me over main years. Esp. now, with cable digital phone.

I'm with you on this. It's very easy for someone in support to point to your modem if there's a difficult issue they can't troubleshoot like packet loss.

When it's their network, it's their problem.