Recommend me a cable modem

Well, I don't actually care who's fault it is. Either way it ruins the end product for me.

It's exactly why I'm ditching pay tv service.

I agree. Disney/ABC/ESPN is the reason Brighthouse prices went up this year in many areas. Made us take on some of the extra espn channels to justify the quite significant extra charges. The networks fight dirty too by placing adds in local papers suggesting that the cable companies are going to lose the channels.

The future is a la carte. You'd pay your cable company for a box (or really just a login to web access) and buy all the channels individually. When that happens we might finally get rid of the more channels = better mentality. I can see 200 channels of crap disappearing rapidly. Channels would need to price themselves according to the quality/demand for their programming not because they are packaged with an in demand channel.

Thin_J wrote:

Well, I don't actually care who's fault it is. Either way it ruins the end product for me.

It's exactly why I'm ditching pay tv service.

Yeah I'm dumping mine too.

Unforseen_Power wrote:
Thin_J wrote:

Well, I don't actually care who's fault it is. Either way it ruins the end product for me.

It's exactly why I'm ditching pay tv service.

Yeah I'm dumping mine too.

We dumped ours earlier this year, and haven't looked back.

We actually just went back up to 'enhanced' basic to get the channels we couldn't get via clearqam (anything more than that is encrypted). We more entertainment than we have time to watch though so who knows how long it will last.

Thread necro!

I just got a letter from Comcast stating I should upgrade to a Docsis 3.0 modem and that my current modem is limiting me. I'm currently getting this:

IMAGE(http://www.speedtest.net/result/2168149937.png)

I think I should be getting up to 50Mbps, by looking at the offered plans, since they don't tell me in my account details. Docsis 2.0 according to Wikipedia allows for 42 Mbps. Hmmmmm....

If anything, you should be using D3 just for the fact that they use 4-8 downstream channels, and 2-3 upstream channels, with channel bonding. D2 modems can't.

I have a Motorola SurfBoard 6120 and I suspect it is going bad. It will randomly reboot and scans for an upstream channel for a seemingly random amount of time (sometimes it comes back quickly, sometimes it takes a hard power reset to make the connection, sometimes even that doesn't work - on Thursday it was down all day, at least it was down when I left for work and was down when I came back from work and the kids were complaining that they couldn't get on the Internet when they got home from school).

Are there any tools for troubleshooting a cable modem? After a pretty good Google session, I still can't find anything. The reason I ask is that FIOS is getting installed in my sub-division and should be available in a couple of weeks. Normally, I would just toss the current cable modem and get a new one but I'd *really* like to make this one last for another couple of weeks.

Any thoughts? It seems odd to me that this will work sometimes and not others. I would expect a hardware failure to just brick the damn thing.

Could be a dirty cable somewhere in the line. Someone may have been doing some work and jostled it slightly, and now it's failing, where it was okay before.

If you call the cable company, they can do some basic troubleshooting on the phone with you, including checking signal strengths.

You may also be able to log into the cablemodem to see the stats, but you'll have to look that up, I have no idea how, offhand.

tboon wrote:

Any thoughts? It seems odd to me that this will work sometimes and not others. I would expect a hardware failure to just brick the damn thing.

Could it be signal strength? Too many splits in your house, line, or not enough power on the main line into your house off of the pole?

You can go to this address on your network and pull up your modem diagnostics that will tell you signal strength, etc:

http://192.168.100.1/

I've had my Motorola SB6120 for almost a year and a half with no problems using Comcast.

PoderOmega wrote:

I've had my Motorola SB6120 for almost a year and a half with no problems using Comcast.

I use one of these with my TekSavvy service. Works fantastic. There was a buggy firmware at one point that caused it to randomly reboot but the vast majority of ISPs never deployed it.

PurEvil wrote:

If anything, you should be using D3 just for the fact that they use 4-8 downstream channels, and 2-3 upstream channels, with channel bonding. D2 modems can't.

Yeah, that only sorta makes sense in that more channels = more potential bandwidth. No clue about channel bonding.

It would be nice if they put what plan I was on in writing somewhere/anywhere that had to do with my account without having to call and beat it out of them.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

It would be nice if they put what plan I was on in writing somewhere/anywhere that had to do with my account without having to call and beat it out of them.

I called Comcast and asked what internet plan I had awhile back and after 10 minutes, they still couldn't tell me. It's buried somewhere under a grandfathered bundle plan that no longer exists.

I think I'm at the highest DOCSIS 2.0 level, but am not 100% certain.

MannishBoy wrote:
tboon wrote:

Any thoughts? It seems odd to me that this will work sometimes and not others. I would expect a hardware failure to just brick the damn thing.

Could it be signal strength? Too many splits in your house, line, or not enough power on the main line into your house off of the pole?

You can go to this address on your network and pull up your modem diagnostics that will tell you signal strength, etc:

http://192.168.100.1/

Cool, thanks. Will do.

I'd like to blame this on Verizon digging up the neighborhood to install fiber, but this behavior predates that work (after working with no problems for a couple of years). It just has gotten a lot worse lately, so maybe it is a combination of things.

Thanks to everyone who posted advice.

Well, Verizon could have been doing some prep work where you couldn't see it, which jostled a corroded cable somewhere. When Charter did their big network upgrade to roll out phone service a few years ago, I ended up knocked completely offline for a couple of weeks, and it all turned out to be a corroded end on the cable that connected to the box outside the house. Their new equipment was too sensitive, and refused to work with the same cable that had been fine on the old stuff for years.

PoderOmega wrote:

I've had my Motorola SB6120 for almost a year and a half with no problems using Comcast.

Add me to the list of SB6120 believers. I've also had mine for about a year and a half using Comcast and it's been rock solid.

tboon wrote:

I have a Motorola SurfBoard 6120 and I suspect it is going bad. It will randomly reboot and scans for an upstream channel for a seemingly random amount of time (sometimes it comes back quickly, sometimes it takes a hard power reset to make the connection, sometimes even that doesn't work - on Thursday it was down all day, at least it was down when I left for work and was down when I came back from work and the kids were complaining that they couldn't get on the Internet when they got home from school).

Are there any tools for troubleshooting a cable modem? After a pretty good Google session, I still can't find anything. The reason I ask is that FIOS is getting installed in my sub-division and should be available in a couple of weeks. Normally, I would just toss the current cable modem and get a new one but I'd *really* like to make this one last for another couple of weeks.

Any thoughts? It seems odd to me that this will work sometimes and not others. I would expect a hardware failure to just brick the damn thing.

There definitely are tools, but none that I think you'd be willing to pay for. The meter I use is a JDSU DSAM. It's one of the older models, so it's a bit cheap at around $3000. The reason I jump straight to this, is because as a tech, I can't troubleshoot a modem without one. Here's an example from my own home:

The line to my home is connected to a 23 value tap, in a pedestal behind my row of townhomes. On my meter, the levels should be (given the setup, which varies a bit, but this the one I'm on), 25 dbmv on the highest channel, and 15 on the lowest. The upstream transmit level should be about 43 dBmV. Without my meter, I wouldn't know if the levels at that tap are what they're supposed to be, and all levels beyond that are determined as good or bad relative to those levels.

A few months back, I had an issue similar to yours. My line is a 150' span of QR-320, which should (given the distance) lose about 4-5 dB on the high, about 1.5 dB on the low, and maybe gain 1 dB on the transmit. I check the tap, 43 dBmV on the transmit. That's right where it's supposed to be, and it should be around 44-45 dBmV at the other end. I check the side of my home, 54 dBmV transmit. Well, there's my problem. I ran a new line for myself, and called the company to send a tech out to bury it.

All cable troubleshooting pretty much goes this way. Find what you have coming off the tap, then compare those levels to what you should have elsewhere. So while I'd like to tell you that checking the levels on the modem can maybe give you an idea of where your problem is... I really can't. If you have high levels/low transmit at the tap, and a bad line to your home, your levels will look perfect (except your Modulation-Error-Rate and Bit-Error-Rate, which you won't be able to see). However, in this instance you're fighting two problems, both of which on their own can cause intermittent connection.

I can tell you that your issue is being caused by your modem not being able to send information properly to the server though. The issue is that there's no way to tell you why, or what to check, besides making sure all the connectors you can get your hands on are tight. Other than that, get a tech in your home to check the levels, and they should (assuming they're not lazy) be able to tell you what's going on.

There is a small possibility that it's a bad modem, but I'd say it's highly unlikely. Motorola makes some very resilient cable modems, especially when it comes to transmit issues. I don't think I've seen a bad 6120 yet. I've seen a few that weren't installed properly, or weren't working because the signal was lousy, but that's about it.

I'm not seeing it specifically mentioned, but does the 6120 do wireless as well, or just the hardwired connection? I suppose I could just use my existing router/AP and sneak onto the other laptop to reset the settings before she freaks out when her laptop wont go online anymore.

The 6120 and 6121 are just wired modems, no router functions whatsoever. The way it should be.

Yeah, I'm fond of separating my network functions -- switch, router, modem, all separate units.

There are actually a lot of good integrated units. I just like the idea of being able to upgrade my wireless speed and features without replacing everything. Or worse yet, having to replace everything because one component of it failed. Probably not as big a deal for people who aren't as picky as I am though.

Yeah, that's exactly it. By using separate pieces, I can repair, upgrade, or expand just one piece at a time. And it makes troubleshooting easier, since I can more easily rule out specific problems.

Of course, I spend a fair bit more time and money on my network than most people do. If you're one who views a network as a tool to get on the Internet, and that's pretty much it, then it's kind of silly to separate your components -- just buy a little all-in-one and be happy. But if your network is something you actually use, yourself, locally, then the component approach gives you more flexibility.

Hey cool, Time Warner decided to start charging me rent on my cable modem after having one of theirs for over 12 years or so.

I found a list of approved modems on a real crappy and unkempt section of their website (It looks like it missed a format change) but it did direct me to three different modems that are approved for me to use.

This
This
and this.

Any suggestions?

Norfair wrote:

Hey cool, Time Warner decided to start charging me rent on my cable modem after having one of theirs for over 12 years or so.

I found a list of approved modems on a real crappy and unkempt section of their website (It looks like it missed a format change) but it did direct me to three different modems that are approved for me to use.

This
This
and this.

Any suggestions?

Those are all DOCISIS 2.0. I would try to find what they have approved for DOCSIS 3.0. I've got a Motorola 6120, but I think the 6141 would be the most recent model. That's a bit high price wise right now in that 6141, I've seen it under $100 @ Amazon before.

This piece goes into the 6141. The article says it's supported by Time Warner.

They only have 2 DOCISIS 3.0 modems and they're both significantly more expensive.

This one and this one. At that cost it would take me at least 3 years to break even on the deal.

Norfair wrote:

They only have 2 DOCISIS 3.0 modems and they're both significantly more expensive.

This one and this one. At that cost it would take me at least 3 years to break even on the deal.

Looking at CamelCamelCamel (Amazon price tracking site/tool), the 6141 has been as low as $70 @ Amazon via 3rd party.