Buying own cable/dsl modem?

N

netsider

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 12, 2004
Messages
466
I always see cable/DSL modems for sale at Walmart and other stores. What is the purpose of buying one? :confused:
 
Not having to lease one. Charter now bundles one for free, but for most companys, you can pay $6 a month for the cable company to give you one, or just buy one and not worry about it. I used to do that but I had poor service and they would always blame it on my modem, which I called BS on, but....it's the cable company. So I lost in the end.
 
My ISP gave me the choice of renting it for 8$ a month or buy one for 99$ from newEgg. I opted for paying it because its payed by itself within a year and you dont have to return it if you change ISP and my model is compatible with other ISP competitors.
 
I just signed up for Comcast and opted to buy my own modem. I spent $70 on one. Comcast would have charged me $7 a month, so I will make my money back in less than a year. It's not a ton of savings, but I was sort of in a hurry and was able to sign up with Comcast internet service over the phone and had my modem and internet working in less than 30 minutes. If i had waited for Comcast's "self install kit" I would have waited 3-5 business days.
 
If you do choose to buy your own cable modem, look on your ISP's website for a list of supported modems, and choose one based on DOCSIS 3.0.

Comcast will be dropping support for cable modems with older versions of DOCSIS (1.x for sure, I don't know about 2.x) on December 2, 2013. On December 3, you're going to see a lot of confused old people at Walmart looking for them.

When I did this research for a family friend, I chose the Zoom Telephonics 5341J, which is particularly good and cheaper than the equivalent (and also good) Motorola SB6141.
 
evilsofa said:
If you do choose to buy your own cable modem, look on your ISP's website for a list of supported modems, and choose one based on DOCSIS 3.0.

Comcast will be dropping support for cable modems with older versions of DOCSIS (1.x for sure, I don't know about 2.x) on December 2, 2013. On December 3, you're going to see a lot of confused old people at Walmart looking for them.

When I did this research for a family friend, I chose the Zoom Telephonics 5341J, which is particularly good and cheaper than the equivalent (and also good) Motorola SB6141.
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I actually picked up the SB6121. Is the 6141 better? I wasn't able to see any difference other than the price and color. Although I am tempted to take back the SB6121 and instead get the 6580 because I now need a wireless acess point. It seems like a cheaper alternative than buying a separate WAP or Wirelsss Router to convert into a WAP. I'll be starting a thread on this when I get home to get some input from everyone so no worries on answering this question, but if you happen to know I'd appreciate your input.

EDIT: Nevermind, I see the 6141 has double the download speed. I don't think that will benefit me though since my down is only 25Mbps from Comcast. Correct me if I'm wrong!
 
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TheOrangeJuicer said:
I actually picked up the SB6121. Is the 6141 better? I wasn't able to see any difference other than the price and color. Although I am tempted to take back the SB6121 and instead get the 6580 because I now need a wireless acess point. It seems like a cheaper alternative than buying a separate WAP or Wirelsss Router to convert into a WAP. I'll be starting a thread on this when I get home to get some input from everyone so no worries on answering this question, but if you happen to know I'd appreciate your input.

EDIT: Nevermind, I see the 6141 has double the download speed. I don't think that will benefit me though since my down is only 25Mbps from Comcast. Correct me if I'm wrong!
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SB6141 can bond up to 8 channels while the SB6121 can only bond up to 4 downstream channels. Otherwise they are precisely the same. The SB6141 is more future proofed. Most cable providers are only bonding 4 channels right now.
 
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My modem through charter was a cheap 10/100 modem AND was a wireless router all in one. When 3 people were on the network at once, it would start hanging on websites and going haywire. So, I bought a separate gigabit wireless router, disabled the wireless on the modem, but the problem persisted, so I got the Motorola SB6121 (I believe). Internet works great now, and I'm ready for a full gigabit if charter ever makes it available for me.
 
shade91 said:
SB6141 can bond up to 8 channels while the SB6121 can only bond up to 4 downstream channels. Otherwise they are precisely the same. The SB6141 is more future proofed. Most cable providers are only bonding 4 channels right now.
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Thanks for the quick response. I'll have to think about it. I imagine it will be quite some time before I'll be getting 100+ Mb download speeds. I really didn't do too much research on picking a modem and mainly just went with what looked to have the best reviews.
 
King Icewind said:
My modem through charter was a cheap 10/100 modem AND was a wireless router all in one. When 3 people were on the network at once, it would start hanging on websites and going haywire. So, I bought a separate gigabit wireless router, disabled the wireless on the modem, but the problem persisted, so I got the Motorola SB6121 (I believe). Internet works great now, and I'm ready for a full gigabit if charter ever makes it available for me.
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I looked at some of the reviews with the SB6580 and it looks to be good for some, but others have issues with it. I may end up just getting a separate WAP or Wireless Router to pair with my existing D-Link router. Then again I also have an old WRT54G that I may end up dusting off and using as a WAP.
 
TheOrangeJuicer said:
Thanks for the quick response. I'll have to think about it. I imagine it will be quite some time before I'll be getting 100+ Mb download speeds. I really didn't do too much research on picking a modem and mainly just went with what looked to have the best reviews.
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I mentioned the Zoom 5341J as equivalent to the SB6141 because it, too, can bond up to 8 channels, for the same price as or less than the SB6121 which can bond only 4.

The difference between 4 and 8 bonded downstream channels is 160 Mbps down and 300 Mbps down, so this is pure futureproofing. There's an article that discusses all that in great detail here; the tl;dr is that some ISPs are requiring the 8 channels for their highest tiers in some regions, and for as long as you are likely to have these modems, you might as well get 8 now and be done with it.

Units that combine a cable modem and router are to be avoided.
 
TheOrangeJuicer said:
I looked at some of the reviews with the SB6580 and it looks to be good for some, but others have issues with it. I may end up just getting a separate WAP or Wireless Router to pair with my existing D-Link router. Then again I also have an old WRT54G that I may end up dusting off and using as a WAP.
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lol... that WRT54g is a paperweight today man. I had one myself, and I ran tons of different third party firmware on it. It was at one point awesome, but it's not even "OK" today. The G wireless is crap, and it's not even good G wireless. It's Broadcom junk with poor range. Then there're the 10/100 LAN ports - fine for the average user, but not for me. Plus its routing performance is below the requirement of many household broadband connections today.

If you don't use wireless for anything important, have a relatively slow connection, and don't transfer large files on your network at all, I guess it might still be good enough. But given that you're on hardforum.com, I can't imagine that being good enough. If you were going FIOS, for example, even the included Actiontec router is better (though not good).
 
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Thanks for all the responses guys. I did have to google what 8 channel means (learn something new every day!), and thanks for the link with more details on the subject. The Zoom is cheaper than the SB line so that may be what I end up doing. I also got the vibe to avoid modem and router combo's, so I will definitely not be getting one of those. I'll most likely end up taking my modem back today and see what else Fry's has to offer. If I can't find anything decent I'll just buy off amazon and return the SB when it arrives.

I know the 54G is old as hell and I will most likely end up just getting something newer. I think I've had that thing for 8+ years :eek:. It worked last time I used it about 2 years ago though so I feel like I have to keep it haha. In all seriousness though... i think it is time to get rid of it. It even looks ancient.

That being said, any one have some good WAP or Wireless Routers (converted into a WAP) recommendations? I mainly use wireless for streaming Amazon Prime and/or Youtube. Eventually I'll probably be building a media server or HTPC. I already have a decent router so no issues there. I'm not opposed to scrapping the router either, though.
 
TheOrangeJuicer said:
That being said, any one have some good WAP or Wireless Routers (converted into a WAP) recommendations? I mainly use wireless for streaming Amazon Prime and/or Youtube. Eventually I'll probably be building a media server or HTPC. I already have a decent router so no issues there. I'm not opposed to scrapping the router either, though.
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I don't follow this equipment nearly as much as I used to, but one of my major sources of such research was/is www.smallnetbuilder.com. They have comprehensive reviews on lots of routers and other network gear, plus they have charts and recommendations sections. I recommend, at minimum, a 2x2 ("up to 300Mbps") 802.11N setup. Pretty easy to find at least that much these days. Look through the reviews for consistent wireless signals, not necessarily max throughput. Consistency is what matters most, especially for streaming.
 
dandragonrage said:
I don't follow this equipment nearly as much as I used to, but one of my major sources of such research was/is www.smallnetbuilder.com. They have comprehensive reviews on lots of routers and other network gear, plus they have charts and recommendations sections. I recommend, at minimum, a 2x2 ("up to 300Mbps") 802.11N setup. Pretty easy to find at least that much these days. Look through the reviews for consistent wireless signals, not necessarily max throughput. Consistency is what matters most, especially for streaming.
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Thanks for the reply. I will see what I can find.
 
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