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 ???

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

OGI wrote:
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 ???


The channel number that is least-used, is preferred :-)
You would do a survey, if attempting to play that game,
and see what channels are occupied.

The Arris works on 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Each has channels in it.

http://www.arris.com/globalassets/re...pf_30sep13.pdf

3x3 Integrated Dual Band Concurrent
2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11n radios with
Beam Forming

The Arris doesn't have band steering. There is a
red X next to the feature in the table here.

http://www.dslreports.com/hardware/ARRIS-TG1682-h4006

A demo without a lot of benchmarks...
A Wifi with band steering, puts the 5GHz capable
clients on the 5GHz band. These are silly little
firmware features, not necessarily requiring any
custom hardware to make them work.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wirel...-band-steering

*******

The rates are listed here. The Arris is likely to be
rows 21,22,23. Min of 156, max of 450 (ideal signal
conditions, with some mixture of clients). Would
the security cameras have three antennas ? What happens
when a non-MIMO device talks to a MIMO router ?
150 maybe ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009

21 3 64-QAM 2/3 156 173.3 324 360
22 3 64-QAM 3/4 175.5 195 364.5 405
23 3 64-QAM 5/6 195 216.7 405 450

And to my way of thinking, you cannot reasonably
expect to escape the clutches of the "150", unless
the client devices switch to something better. If
you had band steering, *maybe* some of the more
capable clients would end up on the 5GHz band.
And *maybe* it would use 40MHz then. It's a
Wifi Lotto after all.

Even if you had a modem/router with 802.11AC
in it, it might still switch down to 150 for
some of the client devices.

And remember that penetration power, varies with
frequency. 900MHz bores through a lot of stuff.
2.4GHz is getting a bit flaky. 5GHz is going
to be worse. And 60GHz (WiGig) is guaranteed
to work in the same room as you - with whizzy
transfer rates, but no ability to reach
the basement room.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Gigabit_Alliance

*******

I'm not a big fan of "integrated" boxes like the Arris.
Can you figure out why ?

I need control of each aspect of my network. So
I can "design it". And for me, that means separate
boxes and a lot of wasted electricity. But, I'm getting
the features I want.

My VOIP ATA is a separate box. My router setup has
varied from time to time, and for a lot of years,
I used a separate router box. The modem portion
tends to stay in "bridged" mode. Which is not
available on "rental" modem/router/rocketship
boxes from the ISP. The ISP really doesn't
want you modifying the settings, because
then you'll call up and "complain" when it
no longer works. And they can't have that.

*******

Wifi:

1) Feature-rich.
2) Not tunable by humans.
Tends to deliver lowest-common-denominator.
3) Is an "Up-To" technology. Never ever
delivers the "max rate". Unbounded lower
rate (until the connection is so slow, it
times out).

*******

They make separate VOIP ATA boxes. There are two
ways to connect them. The easy way. The hard way.
The hard way, is for ATAs connected to subtending
wired connections, where you have to port forward
a bunch of stuff. If you install them in-line (the
easy way), they may limit download speeds. So you
have to be careful when selecting one. The boxes
also auto-update the firmware, and auto-pull-down
the config from the ISP. Using the box the ISP uses,
makes it a lot easier (the ISP puts the correct URLs
in the setup, so the box does the right thing when
plugged in).

Example: "GRANDSTREAM VoIP ATA" - has two RJ11 jacks
(Would need two phone accounts to use both jacks)
(VOIP accounts are available for $10/mo with
portable DN. I use my old POTS phone number
on my VOIP setup. I *hate* VOIP and think
it sucks donkey balls... The ****er has dropped
calls on me, while the modem was operating
perfectly fine. The server at the ISP is suspected.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA3HG37Y8553

VOIP offers the worst of all possible worlds:

1) Nobody is interested in your call quality.
Try and get Tech Support to care :-(
AT&T won't "wring the line out" when you call.
POTS has a certain regulatory framework.
What does VOIP have ?
2) Services are unverified. Does the VOIP service
have "e911" ? Mine doesn't. In an emergency,
I could be talking to a dial tone, screaming
for help. There's no guarantee of anything when
an emergency arises. No guarantee they know where
you are. If I dial 911, someone will pick up,
but they might not be in my city, and they have
no idea of my physical location. If I've just
had a heart attack, and cannot speak, I'm
going to just croak waiting for help.
3) For $10 a month, you get a DN... (preserve your
Directory Number), and the rest is purely left
to your imagination. You are responsible every
once in a while, for using your cell phone or a
pay phone, to make sure the VOIP still works.
Call home, see if your voice mail box picks up
or not. What fun. I'm enjoying myself already.
4) If you drop the conventional FAX machine to 9600 baud,
it may work over your second RJ11 VOIP jack.
The 14400 baud setting is unlikely to work.

But I am saving money. I keep telling myself
I'm saving money dammit.

HTH,
Paul

On Mon, 3 Oct 2016 09:52:06 -0700, OGI wrote:

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 ???

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

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.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

On 03/10/2016 17:52, OGI wrote:
Looking at getting Spectrum cable but having spec difficulty.



Look the one and only OG is back with his stupidity to spam all the
available newsgroups that will allow him to post. This time he is
having difficulty with his spectrum because of his autism.


--

If you want to filter all of my posts then please read this article:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/organize-your-messages-using-filters
In step 7 select "Delete"

With over 350 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

On Mon, 3 Oct 2016 09:52:06 -0700, OGI wrote:


[sci.* groups dropped. I don't read those groups.]


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.

You left out the modem(s), one for data and optionally one for phone.
They can also be combined into a single modem device.

My general advice is to use separate components, i.e., data modem that
you purchase and own, router or WiFi router that you purchase and own,
and optionally phone modem that Spectrum provides. In my area, Spectrum
will provide a phone modem free of charge if you break things out as
described above.

With separate devices, you have greater flexibility in selecting the
exact device models, their placement within your home, and the ability
to replace a failed device or upgrade just a single device when the time
comes. By purchasing, you get to pay once up front, but then they don't
charge you a monthly lease fee. This usually works out to your financial
advantage.

To select a data modem, use the list of supported modems from the
Spectrum web site. Pick one that matches or exceeds your current service
level, as in DOCSIS 2 versus DOCSIS 3. Think long term, not short term.
I chose an Arris 6183 DOCSIS 3 modem because I wanted DOCSIS capability.
(Arris purchased the cable modem business from Motorola, a very highly
respected brand of cable modems.) I purposefully stayed away from phone
modems because even if you purchase such a device, Spectrum won't
activate that particular service on that device and will insist on
providing their own phone modem, so don't waste your money.

To select a router, use the guides, charts, and reviews from the
following site as a starting point. You can also check reviews at places
like Newegg and Amazon to get more feedback. Certain models will float
to the top.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com

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

Setting up your own is exactly what I recommend. What don't you like
about that option?

Last question -
If I get internet only and want phone service, what are my choices ?

1. Phone service through Spectrum. In my area, phone service costs $10
per month and they supply a free phone modem. This is what I currently
use.

2. Phone service via Google Voice. The service is free, but you need an
ATA device, such as one of the Obihai units. I picked up an Obi-100 for
about $30 a year or so ago. The Obi has only 3 connectors: power in from
the supplied wall wart, Ethernet in/out, and a phone jack. You can
connect any standard phone to the phone jack, or if you need to power
all of the phones in your home you can simply connect the Obi to an
existing wall jack. In that case, you'd want to make sure your home
phone wiring is disconnected at the demarc, usually somewhere on the
outside of your house.

3. If you get an Obihai device or something similar, there are many
phone providers that would love to have you as a customer. Obi supports
a pretty big list of them, and you aren't limited to just one at a time,
so you can try out one while you use another, or make nationwide calls
with one provider and international calls with another provider, and so
on.

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.

For #1 (Spectrum), yes absolutely.

For #2 (GV), I don't remember. I ported an old mobile number to GV when
I used that service, so I assume that a landline number could be ported,
but my experience is from over a year ago and things might have changed.

For #3, it probably depends.

Does that service have caller ID - mandatory feature for me to have.

I assume you mean for inbound calls.

For #1, CID seems to work fine (when originating and terminating ends
both support it).
For #2, CID is number-only, no CID name.
For #3, it probably depends.

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

Those are the only recommended channels for the 2.4GHz band, and the one
you should use is the one that is least busy. Note that the number of
SSIDs (access points) that you can see does not necessarily translate to
levels of 'busy'. Without test equipment, trial and error is your best
bet. Don't use the Auto setting, if your WiFi router has one. Most Auto
features have no qualms about settling on channels other than 1, 6, or
11. If that happens, your own wireless performance is likely to suffer,
as well as the people around you. Their wireless traffic will look like
interference to you, while your wireless traffic will look like
interference to them, worsening the signal-to-noise ratio and dropping
the throughput for everyone.

The 5GHz band is still much more wide open, so the Auto setting should
be fine there, or just pick a channel that looks unused. Note that 5GHz
has slightly less range, so if range is your biggest issue, you might
end up back on the 2.4GHz band. There are ways to improve coverage
within your home, if necessary. Stay away from range extenders, but
adding one or more additional access points will certainly help.

--

Char Jackson

On Mon, 03 Oct 2016 12:43:36 -0700, John Larkin
wrote:

On Mon, 3 Oct 2016 09:52:06 -0700, OGI wrote:

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 ???

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

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.

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.

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

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

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


--
AL'S COMPUTERS
"OGI" wrote in message
...
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 ???

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

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

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 buy 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

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

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote:

[lousy performance problems on Comcast using an "approved" cable modem]

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.

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

OGI wrote:
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 ???

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---
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 *******s 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 bull**** price; actual cost is
always about TWICE whatever the ad says.

John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 3 Oct 2016 09:52:06 -0700, wrote:

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 ???

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

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.


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.

Andy wrote:
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


YESMotorola 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.

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.


--
AL'S COMPUTERS
"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
s.com...
On Oct 4, 2016, Andy wrote
(in ):

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 buy 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

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

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.


--
AL'S COMPUTERS
"Robert Baer" wrote in message
...
Andy wrote:
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


YESMotorola 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.

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 wrong, salesmen shouldn't argue with
customers. Cable modems have more in common with TV transceivers than
they do with modems. I asked him if a smartphone was a modem, and he
said no.

After serious thinking Andy wrote :
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.


--
AL'S COMPUTERS
"Robert Baer" wrote in message
...
Andy wrote:
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


YESMotorola 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.