Are all combo units bad?

[drthrd]

I know people say combo units are bad and don't have enough power especially the ones you get from your ISP. I was looking at some retail gateways and they look good. Motorola MG7550 and the Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 C7000. As far as coverage would the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Router have better coverage than the Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 C7000?

 

[PliotronX]

They're likely going to be very similar in coverage. What is useful in discrete units isn't always features or coverage but reliability and configuration. Being able to reboot just the access point or update one devices firmware without affecting the other is quite beneficial, similar to partitioning roles on virtual servers. That said, I don't particularly care for netgear in general and would offer Asus counterparts. The office across from us has fantabulous coverage with a single Asus AC (not sure of the model) that reaches to buildings across the street yet our POS Cisco "enterprise" APs have trouble reaching the back door.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would not say they are bad, but they arn't as good as separate discrete devices. Typically the dedicated devices offer more options too. That said, for someone like my parents I just go with a simple all in one for simplicity. Personally though I like having it separate. Pfsense for the main router/firewall, managed switch for distribution to devices, and Unifi AP(s) for wireless. Overall it offers much more options like vlans and more granular firewall rules, etc.

 

[JackMDS]

They are mostly designed and sold to ISPs to be able to give customer a basic working Gizmo.

They are Mediocre at Best. Work sink OK for small apartment with limited amount of Wireless Clients.

ISPs are Not in the business of giving good service and take good care of their customers.

 

[drthrd]

If I didn't go with a gateway what cable modem would you recommend? I was looking at the ARRIS SURFboard SB6190. We can only get 100 Mbps. That is the top speed speed for now. So that might be overkill but you never know if they will roll out faster speeds. I really don't know what brands are considered good for modems besides Arris and Motorola. I don't know much about the channels. What is channels on a cable modem? Is a 16x4 modem better than a 8x4 modem connected at same speed?

 

[bigboxes]

Combo units (Gateway devices) are bad because if one part goes you have to replace your whole unit. If just the cable modem goes you just replace that. Vice versa with the router. Less features, cheaper components. That SB6190 is badass. However, unless your ISP is upgrading to Gigabit speeds or you are planning to upgrade to that, you would be wasting your money on a device you will never use. Get the SB6141 instead. It's $40+ cheaper and has room to grow as your ISP increases the speeds.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I hate that most ISPs pretty much require to run their router now. If you want to use your own firewall you end up with a double NAT. For my ISP I did find a custom firmware that someone wrote for an ASUS router though so I bought that router and installed the firmware. It has options such as passing through the internet as layer 2 so it essentially bypasses any router functionality and goes straight to your own device. No more double NAT.

 

[JackMDS]

The ARRIS SURFboard SB6190 is a very good solution for a Modem only device.

 

[boomhower]

Getting seperates is better from just about all perspectives; price, performance and reliability. A Motorala/Arris modem of a speed your ISP supports will do wonderful. Motorola's can often be found on sale for cheap. Combine with a Ubiquiti ER-L and Ubiquiti Unifi AP AC Light and you have a powerful set-up that offers better performance and $200+ consumer routers. Ubiquiti has done wonders recently making their products easy to set-up. The router has a wizard that will set it up very similar to your typical consumer brands and the AP's have an app to do them. While they will never be as simple as consumer routers as they offer more customization options they are easy enough that about anyone on this forum can do with little difficulty. Wouldn't recommend it to my parents but anyone mildly into tech can get it done.

 

[drthrd]

Wow. I just looked up the Ubiquiti Unifi AP AC Light, 400 feet. 400 feet now that is good. They even have one that will go to 600 feet. Anyone else makes wireless access points that will do that distance or that is better? How many Mbps does it take or is best to run 2 Roku's at the same time, a tablet that does some video watching but mainly surfing email and little games and a computer? How do you figure that up. It seams like 300 Mbps would be good enough not sure about if you are gaming though and not sure what the real world results would be. The connection is no where near that.

 

[Ichinisan]

Didn't read the thread, but most combination modem+router devices don't have a QoS setting to prevent a single device from hogging all the upload capacity and killing Internet service for the entire household. I have always preferred to have 2 separate devices, but my current setup doesn't allow it. I have an Arris all-in-one multi-room DVR system where the main gateway unit has a DOCSIS3 cable modem, MTA (can enable phone service, inactive), 802.11ac WiFi router, 5 tuners, and DVR storage (not sure of the HDD capacity).

I have disabled the built-in WiFi and I use my own wireless router in bridged/access-point mode, but I have no way to limit upload and I just have to be aware of what's happening when a YouTube upload kills Inet or an Apple device on charge is uploading to iCloud Photo Library.

 

[Ichinisan]

I hate that most ISPs pretty much require to run their router now. If you want to use your own firewall you end up with a double NAT. For my ISP I did find a custom firmware that someone wrote for an ASUS router though so I bought that router and installed the firmware. It has options such as passing through the internet as layer 2 so it essentially bypasses any router functionality and goes straight to your own device. No more double NAT.

Most routers these days have a bridged/access-point mode. Many detect NAT during initial setup and automatically configure as AP. Even my oldest Linksys B/G routers could be forced to behave as an AP (set a non-conflicting IP/subnet, disable LAN DHCP, and connect to the incoming Internet connection to one of the LAN ports.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Most routers these days have a bridged/access-point mode. Many detect NAT during initial setup and automatically configure as AP. Even my oldest Linksys B/G routers could be forced to behave as an AP (set a non-conflicting IP/subnet, disable LAN DHCP, and connect to the incoming Internet connection to one of the LAN ports.

Yeah but if you're using pfsense or any other advanced router you kinda don't want to do that or it negates the whole purpose. Some ISP routers may have that function though so you can set that one as a bridge so your own router gets the outside IP, but it's hit and miss. The one my ISP had did not have that function, but got lucky in that I found a different router that is compatible with ISP(by installing a special firmware) and has that function. So that way my pfsense firewall actually gets the outside IP and can be the real gateway.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I'm on Comcast. They don't require their router at all. Just something off of the supported device list will do.

I run a SB6120, have 100/10 connection with no issues, Ubiquiti ER-X as the router.

 

[Anubis]

TWC doesn't require the use of their stuff either. ive been running my own modem for at least 5 years and my own routers since forever

 

[Aikouka]

Keep in mind that "bad" is subjective. The biggest reason why I usually suggest people to shy away from ISP-provided modems is that they're usually old, way outdated junk. At least in my experience, an ISP will give you whatever modem they happen to pick up that can handle the speed to which you've subscribed ...or at least you hope it does. Another big reason, and one that is probably easier for convincing people, is that you usually start saving money after 6-12 months.

My mom signed up to WOW! and they gave her a combo router. She wanted to hook up her modem (SB6141), but the tech said that it wouldn't work. I originally called bupkis on that until she reaffirmed her age and admitted that she signed up for a VOIP phone too. So, the tech was right in that the VOIP phone wouldn't work without that combo... unless you install an eMTA to handle it. In a situation that isn't much different than avoiding paying for a modem rental, I explained how the $10 per month VOIP charge could be avoided by simply buying an eMTA off Amazon that supports Google Voice, and then she could use her own hardware. Of course, once you start rattling off acronyms, you tend to lose people.