Cable Modem Help

Looking at getting Spectrum cable but having spec difficulty.

They will provide a router only, router with wifi or router with wifi and phone but cannot give me specs.

What's my problem ? I currently have AT&T WiFi Router that does not have much power out and seems to drop WiFI or internet or ??? often. My security cams turn off and the app shuts down. Bad app too !

If I use WiFi Analytics WiFi app on my laptop it shows the AT&T WiFI at "Max Rate" 150 where another LAN WIFi router at the other end of the house shows as "Max Rate" 300. I cannot watch movies from the back room PC where the AT&T WiFi is to the living room PC using their wifi since it stops and stutters. Using a cable down the hall works perfectly.

Several questions. What feature should I be looking for in a WiFi router: Speed 300 vs 150 "Max Rate" Power output Dual freq 2.9 vs 5 GHz AC protocol or whatever it is called

Spectrum says it installs an Arris TG1672G but it does not specify output power in the specs I found. Anyone have a better spec source ? I am not even sure that is the WiFi modem router that I will get as it seems they grab whatever is handy to bring out to install.

So I hate to think I would have to set up my own WiFi Router.

Last question - If I get internet only and want phone service, what are my choices ? And would that service be able to take my current land line phone number and use it ? I would totally drop AT&T if so. Does that service have caller ID - mandatory feature for me to have.

Also is there a preferred Channel ? 1 or 6 or 11 or ???

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Reply to
OGI
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[snip]

IMO the best configuration is a separate wifi router connected to the modem. The modem will govern the internet connection, the wi-fi router will govern everything else, so streaming content from a computer to a TV (for example) will be as fast as the router can handle it. But streaming from the internet (eg, Netflix) is governed by the modem's speed.

Keep in mind that if two or more devices are on the router at the same time, neither will see the maximum rate. If you want the fastest streaming between devices, use Ethernet cable. Some mfrs offer super-routers with very high throughputs, but I have no idea how well they handle multiple sources/destinations.

HTH

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Wolf K 
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Reply to
Wolf K

We had AT&T DSL and phone service. The DSL was terrible and the phone was expensive. We got Comcast cable and DSL, and phone service is "free" but we had to rent the cable modem/phone box for something like $5 a month, a fraction of the cost of AT&T landline service. We use our own WiFi router. We kept our phone number and it works great.

The Comcast data speed keeps going up. It's about 130 mbits now.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
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Reply to
John Larkin

We had naked DSL for a few years. It was horrible. Earlier this year AT&T allowed us access to the fiber running through our yard so went with Uverse. It hasn't been without it's issues, either. First, they own the router/AP, so con troll the password. The hardware has been really flaky and they've had to replace everything at least once and some of it several times. The Internet still drops out occasionally for a few seconds to minutes.

When it doesn't screw up, our Uverse is just OK (~60Mb). AT&T sucks.

Reply to
krw

Why would you want to pay spectrum up wards of $ 10.00 a month to rent a cable modem from them? In less then a years rental time and cost you could by a good modem and or modem wireless router combination for the same or less money. I have stopped paying them a model rental fee the day it came out. I my self use a Motorola cable modem and love it and spectrum fully supports it . Because it is one of the models on its approved modems list so they cant refuse to support it:)

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Reply to
Andy

On Oct 4, 2016, Andy wrote (in article):

I do the same, for the same reason. I?m on COMCAST, but it?s the same story.

When the transition from DOCSIS 2 to DOCSIS 3 became mandatory, I decided to buy my cable modem, for money reasons, but at least as importantly, because what COMCAST wanted to provide got terrible reviews on technical grounds. They also wanted to be your WiFi base station, but with a very weak WiFi radio, and no obvious way to turn the WiFi function off. (Perhaps there is a way, but it proved impossible to get a real user manual for that modem, and so one must presume guilt.) I already have a wired network with a WiFi arm that all work just fine.

So I worked through COMCAST?s list of approved DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems, and chose one that did only that, no VOIP phone or WiFi pretensions, specifically ARRIS SurfBoard SB6183 for about $90, if I recall. The payback period is about 9 months.

After getting everything working (and batting away various attempts to get me to ditch the SB6183 and use the COMCAST offering), things went well for at least a year. Then, the performance began to degrade. I didn?t notice at first, but the issue came to a head when I was unable to download a 3 GByte file - it would struggle for six hours, and always fail. Now, I have 25 Mbit/sec service, so this should take about 15 minutes. When I measured the speed using COMCAST?s own Xfinity Speed Test, I got 411 Kbits/sec. Huh?

So I contacted COMCAST Support, first by internet Chat to someone who seemed to be in India. He walked me through the usual diag steps, none of which worked, all the while insisting that the problem was the ARRIS modem. Nope - It?s an approved modem. One observation was key: If I used the nearby Boston, MA server, I got far higher speed than to the remote Detroit and Chicago servers (which are near to the source of the 3 GB file). Well, that cannot be a modem issue, and can only be a COMCAST network problem.

Anyway, the guy in India gave up, and escalated to Advanced Tech Support, a woman on the telephone calling from the US somewhere. She reiterated the bit about the ARRIS modem, and I made the points about the meaning of ?approved?. Again, no test changed the speed. Modem make came back up. Well, ?approved? means that I can expect to get the 25 Mbit/s data rate I?m paying for. Or, is COMCAST putting proprietary stuff in their interpretation of DOCSIS 3, so that no other modem will work? At this point, the conversation dwindled, and I said that I?d go and do all the tests that had been suggested but couldn?t be performed without dropping the chat to India, and the conversation ended.

First test was to hook computer directly to cable modem, which could not be done without rebooting (because the DHCP server was not the cable modem). All of a sudden, speeds had jumped from less than 1 Mbit/second to around 88 Mbits/sec. Wow. Put the internal network back into the path. Still 88 Mbits. Ran a test from my wife?s laptop, via WiFi - still 88 Mbits.

This whole drama basically cost me the weekend. All that testing confused a number of unrelated devices and their drivers, requiring debugging and network scanning.

The 88 Mbits was during the weekend. As the week progressed, the speed did drop. As I write, it?s 15 Mbits/sec for downloads, and 6.5 Mbits for uploads.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn
[lousy performance problems on Comcast using an "approved" cable modem]

As a data point (and this is from a friend, not personal experience): My friend was a Comcast customer a few years ago and was getting decent speeds out of the Comcast interface, but noticed that they had started dropping to the extent that snailmail would have almost been faster than email.

Unfortunately for Comcast, this friend is the head of the networking department for our common employer, so one weekend he took home some of the test equipment to see what's going on.

To make a long story short, what he found was that on the Comcast link:

*every* router he looked at:

  • had the default SNMP community strings [passwords] for both read and write.

  • was significntly downlevel, well below the version for critical fixes
  • was running at 100% CPU
  • was infested with malware.

...which explained his problem.

Comcast's response when he notified it of the situation? "You're not supposed to do that!!!"

My friend is now a very satisfied FiOS customer.

Joe

Reply to
Joe Morris

I have an "Xfinity" Technicolor TC8305C. That seems to be the brand name for those made by Motorola (if i remember correctly) and sold to Comcast. Arris is another brand name. As far as i can tell,about 90 percent of production goes directly to Comcast.

One model/style has no Wifi, and the other has it; otherwise they all seem to be the same beast. Rental rate is the same; sales price cannot say; i got the WiFi version for about $100, saving me $20 year one.

There is no "preferred" channel; let the modem do the assignment automatically (for best signal).

There are re-sellers where you can buy exactly what your cable provider offers. I suggest you do not rock that boat for a few months and look at the bill CAREFULLY to find the exact monthly rental charge. If in the region of $10/month or more,then buy the exact same model for around $100. Pays for itself in 10 months.. Those resellers may have specs or know where you can get them.

The installation instructions CANNOT work (read them and you will see what i mean). You will have to call your cable provider and get them to add its MAC address into their database and activate it; else it CANNOT WORK. Once you are satisfied, if at all possible, PHYSICALLY return their modem to one of their sales centers AND GET A RECEIPT (!!!_VERY_!!! important). If not, see if you can wangle a shipping label from them (as a courtesy because you are UPGRADING the service). Without that receipt, they can continue to charge monthly rental fees.

Get your phone service from the same cable internet provider; the phone service alone will be less than landline. In fact, that is why i switched from copper (POTS) to cable,as the loco phone bastards were raising the rate every other month; i wound up saving money.

Allowed me to switch from modem (144K in reality, NOT the advertised or bally-hooed fake rate) to cable at a respectable speed. Plus...i now have unlimited long distance at NO extra cost.

Mind you,i did not have TV and still do not have it. Adding TV service on the cable is expensive as far as i am concerned. So,,if you HAD TV from your cable provider, adding internet and phone will not be that much more(*). If you are close enough to the transmitting stations (ASSuming no reflections to bugger signal), you can put up our own antenna and get them free (like the GOOD OLD DAYS of analog).

(*): IGNORE ALL ADS that quote some bullshit price; actual cost is always about TWICE whatever the ad says.

Reply to
Robert Baer

Over a 12+ year period, Comcast slowly raised the modem rental rate from the $5/mo to $10/mo. Ever hear the story about the frog in the pot over the fire? Got my own modem,EXACT same brand and model (heck it even says Xfinity on it) for about $100. So i can say i am saving $10/mo now that it has paid for itself.

Reply to
Robert Baer

YES>>>Motorola makes almost all of the modems sold to Comcast (and prolly Spectrum as well). Model brand names vary,but they is the same beast, so if what you buy on the net is the same exact brand and model that they use,then they HAVE TO have it on their approved list; they cannot dis their own stuff. $100 for your own modem and no $10/mo gives a 10 month ROI; no brainer.

Reply to
Robert Baer

Seeing the problems you have faced i can understand why you get fed up with the cable company. Some states have no problems with speeds ect others seem to have no end to them.

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"Joseph Gwinn"  wrote in message  
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Reply to
Andy

Exactly why i OWN my own modem. The day i got the notice in the mail about 2 or 3 years ago in Maine. I went out and bought my own Motorola modem off the approved list got the best one that DID NOT have wireless i don't use it . and love the savings and the speeds as they allow channel bonding in my area any ways so i get double the normal download speeds most of the time.

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"Robert Baer"  wrote in message  
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Reply to
Andy

Same here, except I got a WiFi "SurfBoard" model.

While I was at it, I had mentioned that a cable modem wasn't really a modem after he asked me if I needed a modem. I had already given him that "approved" list provided by Time Warner Cable for compatibility with their system. They, of course, call them all cable modems.

He argued with me! Right or wr> Exactly why i OWN my own modem.

Reply to
FromTheRafters

I had a modem, but it didn't do the telephone thing. The installer did everything with their modem, including patching into our phone lines, and setting up all the cable boxes, and I thought that was a good deal. I have plenty of electronic projects already.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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John Larkin

In my neck of the woods Verizon can't find their keisters with two hands, a map, radar etc., whereas Optimum is right on the ball. We soldiered on with V. for a long time despite hours spent in call forwarding purgatory that never resolved anything, billing snafus, clueless office droids, and an apparent total lack of communication between their residental and commercial operations. The only reason that I did that was because I really wanted to keep the copper POTS for use during blackouts. I finally decided that I didn't trust an operation that clueless to know how to run a legacy central office battery system, so that the whole thing was sort of moot.

In 5 years with Optimum I've had exactly one trouble. Within half an hour, they had somebody on my premises who actually knew what he was doing, with an apprentice in tow learning the ropes. Fifteen minutes later they had it patched (reprovisioned somehow so that I had 25/5 Mbps again) and the trouble outside was fixed the same day. A couple of times a year, V. sends salesmen to visit, and I try very hard to restrain my impulse to greet them with howls of derisive laughter, not totally successfully.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
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Phil Hobbs

You run WiFi right off your cable modem? With no separate firewall? I expect your other hobbies are bungee jumping, motorcycle racing, and free-climbing, right?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
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Reply to
Phil Hobbs

It's okay, I have a fire extinguisher.

Reply to
FromTheRafters

About like the Direct TV droids who accost me in stores. I tell them, loudly, that their service sucks so bad that even as bad as AT&T has been, it's worlds better than DTV. ...and I get Netflix now.

Reply to
krw
,

Apart from one documentary about a friend's family ("Game Show Dynamos"), I haven't watched a movie since the '80s.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

Is that necessarily an accomplishment? I haven't been to a movie theater in a couple of years, but I watch mostly movies on Cable, plus I have a library of around 300 DVD classics. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

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