If it's a gateway item, yes. For straight modems, it's basically just the firmware, etc that they mess with it and if you can see the admin screen. Otherwise, it's a straight modem so no real issues. That's why we moved to a plain modem in the first place--just trying to get rid of the same thing the OP is.
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What to look for in a DOCSIS modem?
- Thread starter OpenSource Ghost
- Start date
I agree with you, and there's a lot of people that have had exactly that experience--it just works. I think the special snowflakes are the ones that think they've got some sort of defective item that's going to win them some pennies at the end of a class action lawsuit, and want the whole world to know about it.
Generally I'd say DOCSIS 3.1 is what to look for unless you're planning on being on the slow boat for a good long time. Depending on where you live you may not have a choice about that. Other than that, I dunno. I had one of those Intel Puma devices for a few years and never had any trouble that I'm aware of. I like my Netgear CM2050V better though. It's a Comcast exclusive, but basically just a CM2000 + Comcast voice support. The main thing I like about it is that it reboots really fast and the web interface is much more responsive. I guess I can't really give any advice on what's best since I just haven't been in a situation where I needed to bother thinking about that. I know sometimes people have issues, but I just haven't had any that weren't Comcasts' fault.. and, thankfully, fixed by Comcast. Guess I'm lucky for now?
I'd hedge a bet to say that you're not lucky, but just the typical scenario where stuff just works.
They aren't that simple. There are quality differences in every product ever made.
Once again, Intel admitted it's an issue, and there are reports all over of people experiencing the issue, besides this thread.
Seriously? I have first-hand experience with this, as do many others. Why would anyone NOT buy a Broadcom based modem and simply not worry about it?
True, but less so in the world of modems since basically arris makes everything now. If there was such a big brew haha about it, Intel would have had to send out some sort of fix like on the cpu issues, but there's been no official notification that I've gotten.
And I doubt the scenarios in which you and others had this issue. When I first ran the dslreport puma test, both modems were showing issues and I thought, 'oh no'. Then I ran it on the stock comcast router and it also showed there were issues, which wasn't correct. I had to disconnect everything on the network and have just the modem and a laptop to run the puma test and then everything was fine on all 3. Testing scenarios makes a huge difference.
Why go with one vs something else? For me, the main driver is cost. Because of being bashed online ad infinium, the sb6190 can be found used at the same price as the sb6183 or even sb6141, which presents a great value, whereas generally almost all other modems with the same bandwidth capability cost 2x as much. Sure, it's not much in absolute dollars ($30 or so), but if there is no real issue, there's no reason to throw that money away.
Look at who and what I was replying to for full context. SamirD was suggesting that consumers were "doing something wrong", which, it's pretty difficult to, again, given that consumers plug in coax, and get ethernet in return. For them, there's not anything to "do wrong".
From the intel lawsuit (which I see you still haven't bothered to read on):
And, basically, Intel's argument is that latency isn't tantamount to a defect requiring response or recall, or that the consumer good is lacking. Which is why you haven't heard anything. Not even sure why you'd think Intel would contact you directly on such a thing, even if they lose the lawsuit.
In terms of testing to determine that the modem is at fault, yes, consumers can most definitely do something wrong.
Hell no I'm not going to bother reading a lawsuit that doesn't affect me or many others. Definitely have better things to do.
So the problem is on UDP and most internet traffic is TCP/IP. Got it. I guess that's why most people won't see the issue, including myself since most traffic is TCP vs UDP. So if one is using anything that uses UDP, I guess you need to avoid it. I'm sure no one has done comparative test on UDP for other brands as a comparison, but why bother since bashing is fun.
And this still doesn't explain why my two modems were 100% clear on the dslreports puma report...Most gaming, streaming, and VoIP is UDP. Not a trivial thing. I doubt anyone else has done as much testing, because they didn't have faulty units that required testing for a court case.Hell no I'm not going to bother reading a lawsuit that doesn't affect me or many others. Definitely have better things to do.
So the problem is on UDP and most internet traffic is TCP/IP. Got it. I guess that's why most people won't see the issue, including myself since most traffic is TCP vs UDP. So if one is using anything that uses UDP, I guess you need to avoid it. I'm sure no one has done comparative test on UDP for other brands as a comparison, but why bother since bashing is fun.
Interesting that the RDP I'm using also uses UDP across the IPsec tunnel between the two sb6190 and has no issues. Probably would be impossible for my wife to do her video and other calls too, but she's never had issues with that.
I think that's pretty much what has been implied 100% of the time anyone bashes these modems. What is also never addressed is why only such a small sample of people have this 'issue' when many more haven't since they never noticed an issue.
If there is in fact an issue that randomly affects a percentage of the total number of units produced, and this issue only affects UDP when used in certain latency sensitive applications, then there is in fact a higher chance that someone with this modem will not have an issue than that they will. I'm usually very unlucky so for me to have two modems from the whole pool that have zero issues is either astonishing, or par for the course. I lean towards the latter.
I can't believe this is being debated for a $30 difference (as SamirD stated). Ridiculous. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. It's like arguing in favor of a Cyrix x86 CPU instead of Intel or AMD.
I know the OP has checked out, but to anyone else...you're simply lack common sense in the face of all the evidence to not choose one of the (many!) Broadcom based modems with no issues. If that price difference matters, perhaps you could skip Applebees just once.
I know the OP has checked out, but to anyone else...you're simply lack common sense in the face of all the evidence to not choose one of the (many!) Broadcom based modems with no issues. If that price difference matters, perhaps you could skip Applebees just once.
Nicklebon
Gawd
- Joined
- May 22, 2006
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- 982
I can't believe this thread is still going. If the 6190 works for Samir thats great! Why give him grief over this? There are firmware updates that mitigate the issues mostly. At this point in time most of the ones still in service have likely been patched by the ISPs. The patched devices are still subject to specific attacks designed to trigger the resource exhaustion, which was the root cause, and COULD still experience the issue under certain circumstances. MTFO already!
Because bashing the sb6190 seems to have become a big thing on the Internet so when anyone says even the slightest thing in favor of it, out come the bashers, lol.
I could care less except that I think the bashers have done such a great job that the sb6190 is now into 'good deal' territory--and being the connoisseur of good deals that I am, I cannot let that go unnoticed.
OpenSource Ghost
Limp Gawd
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Which Non-VoIP DOCSIS 3.1 modems (non gateways, not routers):
- Support Comcast Xfinity 1.2Gbps plan
- Get support and updates by the manufacturer
?
Do manufacturers update firmware more frequently for private modem units compared to ISP's updating firmware for their rented equipment?
- Support Comcast Xfinity 1.2Gbps plan
- Get support and updates by the manufacturer
?
Do manufacturers update firmware more frequently for private modem units compared to ISP's updating firmware for their rented equipment?
Last edited:
Your ISP will provide your firmware. Doesn't matter if/when a manufacturer makes an update available, as you, the end customer, won't apply it.
As far as what modems support on Xfinity, they have an entire website dedicated to that question.
As far as what modems support on Xfinity, they have an entire website dedicated to that question.
Check the supported list on their web site as it is constantly changing.
All modems no matter who owns them will be updated. In fact, when you plug in a modem for the first time, rented or not, it typically will spend some time downloading and updating and rebooting a few times. This also happens when you move the modem from one isp to another as different isps probably have different things they push to the modem.
OpenSource Ghost
Limp Gawd
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- Feb 14, 2022
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- 222
Do ISP's generally have permission obtain client's modem login credentials if client uses personal (non-ISP-provided) modem? I know my ISP can login to my gateway (in even in bridged mode) via management VLAN and make any changes it desires.
Aside from being ISP-accepted, modem needs to use secure TLS connection for login GUI. Most modern network equipment uses self-signed certificates that are re-generated after factory reset, but some gateways/routers don't use any encryption for local connections.
Aside from being ISP-accepted, modem needs to use secure TLS connection for login GUI. Most modern network equipment uses self-signed certificates that are re-generated after factory reset, but some gateways/routers don't use any encryption for local connections.
1) No one can get to your modem management interface except you and the ISP.
2) The ISP doesn't use the web interface anyway to push config changes, firmware or anything else. It's all "behind the scenes".
3) Therefore, you can change your password on that management interface and they won't care. It's just for you. (This is true of my ISP - perhaps not all of them)
If it's a gateway that's isp managed, then no because it's isp managed and your access to it is secondary. Another reason to not get modem/router combo models because if you connect it to the isp network, it's managed by the isp.
OpenSource Ghost
Limp Gawd
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ISP can remotely reset modem/router gateway they provide, even if its in bridged mode. I assume ISP wouldn't be able to do that for clients with personal self-purchased modems?
They have all the same controls for a self-purchased unit. And the reason why is because once joined onto their network, they download the firmware and configuration that allows them to manage the unit like any other one.
Now, I don't think an isp can change a bridged combo unit back to routing mode, but the last time I dealt with this was over 5 years ago now, so things could have changed (for the worse).
Comcast pushes out firmware to approved modems and combo units and can send reboot commands, but that's only devices that connect to the coaxial cable. You don't get updates directly from the manufacturer. The manufacturer sends updates to Comcast and Comcast pushes them out. If you buy a modem and a separate router they can reboot and push out updates to the modem, but can't do anything to the router. Same if you connect a PC directly to the modem.
I'm actually rather glad Comcast does this. It helps prevent my technically clueless neighbors from messing up the cable segment we're sharing. Some of them would never update firmware unless someone helped them, but you can bet they'd buy a cheap combo unit to save the $14/mo rental fee. I use a modem rather then a combo unit so everything Cocmast can mess with is on the WAN side of my router and on the other side of a firewall from all my stuff.
My Netgear CM2050V modem will talk https, though I don't see any way to disable unencrypted http. As you'd probably guess my browser tells me the certificate is no good. I'd assume it's siblings (CM2000 for DOCSIS 3.1 with a 2.5Gb port and without voice support) would too. That's not something I'm going to worry about since the admin interface is only on the ethernet side of the modem and I can just restrict access to certain machines with my router. I'm running a "business" rather than a "consumer" router, so I can write my own firewall rules. I limit admin access to my network gear to the VLAN my 10Gb hosts are on. That happens to be the same machines I'd put on a management network if I had one, so I didn't bother with a dedicated management network.
What do you know@@!@??>? Comcast doing the "right thing." That's like one of those comets that swing by the sun every 50-100 years.
Aside from the rental fee, I have always resented and been nervous about the "xfinitywifi" public WiFi that runs in parallel with my internal WiFi. What if some enterprising hacker (state-level actor?) figures out a way to jump across the software barrier that separates those "separate" networks? Then it's unlimited access to all the systems connected to the compromised device.
And then there is the issue of my bandwidth being shared with some xfinitywifi users.
Xfinitywifi public WiFi can be disabled in the Xfinity app or in My Account.
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/disable-xfinity-wifi-home-hotspot
BlueLineSwinger
[H]ard|Gawd
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It's theoretically conceivable that a hack could jump SSIDs/VLANs to your personal LAN, but I think highly unlikely. It's probably more likely that password to your SSID would be cracked. There are far more efficient and easier ways to get into someone's systems, such as spam/e-mail based phishing.
AFAIK, bandwidth used by guests connected to the "xfinitywifi" SSID is separate from your personal allocation. I'm not sure what the cap is. However, their SSID is going to be on the same radio/channel as your own, so random users of "xfinitywifi" will subtract WiFi throughput from your own hosts. And as mentioned above it can be disabled even when using Comcast-issued equipment.
It's on a separate physical access point, so they would have to compromise the router and reprogram it since the default firmware won't allow that ap to route to the main lan. So I don't know there is an issue there or even bandwidth sharing except in the following--because wifi signals are a shared medium (only so much signal you can put into the air without collisions), this extra ap when used DOES actually compete with your wifi's air-time space and can cause issues. How bad? It really depends on the number of them, but when our apartment complex was completely filled with these, many of them would have stronger signal than our own ap in our own apartment, and we had just a modem. Some food for thought.
And it will magically get turned back one at random. It was one of the biggest factors of us moving to our own modem--no dealing with this type of nonsense.
While that bandwidth is separate and capped at 25Mbs ime, that radio interference can be a crazy high amount of it if you have a lot of modems blasting it out. And ime (it was a few years back), the disabling option never stuck long enough to be what I would consider 'permanent'.
TheSlySyl
2[H]4U
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Absolutely no way in hell am I gonna have a "public" WiFi coming out of my house. I don't care how secure it is, or even if they decide I'm getting paid to have it available. Nope. Fuck that.
Comcast hasn't ever acted in a way that makes me think they're even remotely trustworthy. Hell no.
Comcast hasn't ever acted in a way that makes me think they're even remotely trustworthy. Hell no.
Tell us how you really feel.
I'm with you on this except I extend this philosophy to every single company out there. Every 'feature' or 'improvement' or 'bonus' from any company seems to benefit the company more than the customer so you have to find the 'gotcha' to see if it is really a good change, and generally it is not. It's a third world technique that has gotten a foothold here for some reason and is basically one step away from full out bait and switch scams.
It is. You simply need an xfinity login for it. This is no different than public hotspots that need a password.
Might be going down a rabbit hole of semantics here, but as soon as you need an account and a login, imo, it's no longer "public". In a sense, it's little different than most home wifi which only need the security key.
Agree that it's a bit of a gray area, but I consider it public because a. it is open to anyone, b. just needs a login.