Docsis 2.0 to docsis 3.0

[AustinInDallas]

So i was on the phone with time warner Cable the other day cause of an outage and when they were done they asked if I had any other questions. So i ask
"Im currently paying the 5 bucks a month for a docsis 2.0 motorola modem. If i buy the new docsis 3.0 modem will it still work"

yada yada yada, they sent me a new modem.

cliffnotes:
should I just stay with my motorola surfboard sb5101 and Netgear WNDR3700v3 or switch to the Arris DG860 docsis 3.0 modem?

 

[ImDonly1]

If they are sending the modem for free, why wouldn't you?
The docsis 3.0 modem would be better, even if you don't notice a difference in speed.

 

[Elixer]

Using a DOCSIS 3.0 modem is future proof... at least for now.

 

[AustinInDallas]

Since the arris is a modem/router, will I see any more issues using my own netgear WNDR3700v3 with it? are there any settings i need to change on the arris GUI?

 

[DaveVandorAmon]

So the DOCSIS 3.0 modems are required for certain higher speed tiers. If you're on TWC basic or regular up to 20mbit, the DOCSIS 2.0 modem is fine. You won't get more out of the DOCSIS 3.0 modem unless you go turbo, extreme, or faster - and since you have a relatively recent router/wifi you probably don't have a 10mbit WAN port (and even on some 100mbit WAN port) bottlenecks.

Then you have channel bonding support, but unless you have a gbit provider (or at least greater than 100mbit) downstream 4 vs 8 channels won't make much difference.

As far as issues - are you seeing any related to the internal network performance on your Netgear? If not, you can always disable the wifi on the Arris or whatever.

For your Arris, did they give you the TG852G or TG862G? I've hear people complain when they use the TG852G totally "all-in" with the telephony, wifi, and built in 4-port switch, and I remember there being issues with XBox 360 on the Arris, but that may have been resolved by now with a fw update on the XBox or Arris side.

I am on TWC too and I just said forget it, bought an SB6121 on eBay for $35 shipped, and I'm on the 'Extreme' tier. I do get 30/5, but nowhere near as fast to cheap as OOL was with Boost Plus 50/10 (although I got like wild fluctuations in upstream, it never went below 5.)

I also had a WNR3500L as my main gateway using the SBG6580 they provided, kept using it and disabled the services and used it as just a modem.

 

[AustinInDallas]

my TWC turbo package is 20d/2u
Also the arris i got is a dg860a
uid tg862

 

[DaveVandorAmon]

Should be perfectly fine if you disable the wireless. I would really consider getting one if you plan to stay with TWC; bonus points for seeing if the competition (if any, unless it's UVerse) can use the same one, and buy that one, maybe even spring a bit more.

 

[Cabletek]

So i was on the phone with time warner Cable the other day cause of an outage and when they were done they asked if I had any other questions. So i ask
"Im currently paying the 5 bucks a month for a docsis 2.0 motorola modem. If i buy the new docsis 3.0 modem will it still work"

yada yada yada, they sent me a new modem.

cliffnotes:
should I just stay with my motorola surfboard sb5101 and Netgear WNDR3700v3 or switch to the Arris DG860 docsis 3.0 modem?

So here is what the difference is, but mostly it will depend on how the cmts is configured as to what degree of an advantage you get.

Docsis 2.0 was mainly and upgrade to upstream carriers, went qam 64, Docsis 3 now takes the current limit by qam type and gets around it by bonding multiple channels. so multiple qam 64 upstream channels and qam 256 downstream channels.


What does this mean to you the end user? You have to the potential to be given speeds that are up to [there is that key word up to] 4, 8, or even 16 times the speed, depending on what chipset the modem has and 2, 3, or 4 times the upstream, but again this depends entirely on the cable plant and cmts config, most likley you will see very little change, the advantage of having the same speed spread across multiple channels is it allows TWC to manage their bandwidth better, so you have less of a hit in crunch times like Friday night after school is out etc...


Arris products are usually pretty good, there is a problem with the comcast dory gateway by them and older xbox 360's apparently but other than that, I associate arris with motorola and since they are buying that part of moto from google they basically are them now.

 

[Emulex]

the buggy smc gateways run 256qam x 4 down, and 64qam x 3 up+16qam x 1 up - if any link degrades, full retrain.

now a 4 down/4 up retrain takes longer than D2 (1down/1up) - so you end up with longer periods of outage if its going up and down and this can drive some folks crazy.


with uverse vdsl i drop about 1-2 packets a day, with comcrap i was losing thousands a day, in chunks. 10-40 at a time, which makes telework impossible. after 3 years of hounding comcrap i just went with slow and reliable.

 

[Xtrem]

BTW, if you are on Time Warner and you switch from DOCSIS 2 to DOCSIS 3, Powerboost will no longer work because DOCSIS 3 doesn't support it. You'll lose the temporary speedboost but in return you have more consistent downloads/uploads/latency

 

[Cabletek]

the buggy smc gateways run 256qam x 4 down, and 64qam x 3 up+16qam x 1 up - if any link degrades, full retrain.

now a 4 down/4 up retrain takes longer than D2 (1down/1up) - so you end up with longer periods of outage if its going up and down and this can drive some folks crazy.


with uverse vdsl i drop about 1-2 packets a day, with comcrap i was losing thousands a day, in chunks. 10-40 at a time, which makes telework impossible. after 3 years of hounding comcrap i just went with slow and reliable.

I don't know what your going on about but it has NOTHING to do with this thread.