So I ended up buying a cable modem...

[DesiPower]

I am paying $40 for a 15mbps connection and off and on Time Warner would keep charging me for cable modem, have not been paying for last 2 years but starting this month I was being charged $7 again. I called them and tried to get it waived but it didn't work. So I finally started shopping around for a modem, didn't want to spend $60 - $100 so turned to fleabay and found this dude selling his SB6121 for $35, received it today, works great! and my speed bumped up to ~60mbps!! I had heard that for a free modem upgrade I could get a higher speed but never bothered to go though the process... but today I have a happy camper!!!

 

[Zim Hosein]

I am paying $40 for a 15mbps connection and off and on Time Warner would keep charging me for cable modem, have not been paying for last 2 years but starting this month I was being charged $7 again. I called them and tried to get it waived but it didn't work. So I finally started shopping around for a modem, didn't want to spend $60 - $100 so turned to fleabay and found this dude selling his SB6121 for $35, received it today, works great! and my speed bumped up to ~60mbps!! I had heard that for a free modem upgrade I could get a higher speed but never bothered to go though the process... but today I have a happy camper!!!

:cookie;

 

[Sonikku]

I too was stung by TW's modem fee. ($8 a month) The cheapo modem they lease out is made in china and worth about $10. But if you were to buy that exact model you'd be out of luck because they won't activate it. They're willing to lease out a cheapo modem, but they aren't letting you buy your own. The cheapest modem they're willing to approve is the motorola sb61 which retails for $70. Just outrageous.

I did the math and ended up biting the bullet. I have the sb6121 now, but my speeds only improved about 10%. I'm blown away that your speeds quadrupled, 400%, from just swapping in the same modem. I too have the 15mpbs plan for $40. (Was $60 before I played the twitter game and threatened to quit, thus getting a better offer) But as of now the best speeds I can download are about 1.8 megabytes a second.

 

[tynopik]

The cheapest modem they're willing to approve is the motorola sb61 which retails for $70.

Don't believe their page, they'll activate any piece of garbage. Just be sure to read all the reviews carefully to make sure it works with TWC.

 

[biostud]

I switched my laptop's network module from a 1x1 802.11n (only capable of running 54Mbps) broadcomm to an intel centrino 2x2 802.11n running 300Mbps, and getting much better connectivity. So I am very pleased with my upgrade

 

[balloonshark]

I bought the same modem when my isp started charging $5 for their used, dirty, pos modem. I thought I would be saving $5 a month and I'll be darned if they didn't raise my bill $5 a month anyways.

 

[Svnla]

I purchased a brand new Motorola SB6141 for $85 from Amazon. I think as long as the modem is DOCSIS 3.0, it would work with most major cable providers.

So far so good with this modem and the speed from the local cable provider. I only have internet (50 down/5 up for $40/month) and nothing else (no TV or phone).

 

[boomerang]

Just so people are aware, if you by a used modem that was in use at the same cable provider you have, you may not be able to get it to work. The previous owner has to have it released from their account. If the seller is cooperative, you're good. If not, you're screwed.

 

[mnewsham]

I pay for 75/75 from verizon. On ethernet I generally get around this

Lately I have noticed in counter strike global offensive my ping was 20-30ms. However in the last week it has gone down to 3-10ms. Generally sitting at 3-5ms which seems next to impossible for an online game unless they are hosting the servers literally in the same building as my ISP.

ah well, i can't complain.

 

[CZroe]

Just so people are aware, if you by a used modem that was in use at the same cable provider you have, you may not be able to get it to work. The previous owner has to have it released from their account. If the seller is cooperative, you're good. If not, you're screwed.

Never heard of this problem. My brother works at a cable company and we suggest that people troll thrift stores for cheap modems all the time. He says that there would be no reason not to "release" it from another account if that other account is not paying for Internet service on it. Even if the modem belonged to the company and was never returned, the previous customer was billed for it. You probably got a stubborn CSR.

The main concern is that they could be fried by lightning and dumped on Goodwill.

 

[boomerang]

Never heard of this problem. My brother works at a cable company and we suggest that people troll thrift stores for cheap modems all the time. He says that there would be no reason not to "release" it from another account if that other account is not paying for Internet service on it. Even if the modem belonged to the company and was never returned, the previous customer was billed for it. You probably got a stubborn CSR.

The main concern is that they could be fried by lightning and dumped on Goodwill.

A member here, Gustavus, had the exact problem I described.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2433443&highlight=

He's a Comcast customer as am I. Over the last 12 years I have been with Comcast I have several times switched from my owned modem to Comcast's leased modem. When I would log into the Comcast site and look at my equipment the prior modem would show although it was not active on the account.

Now, perhaps after x number of months of inactivity it drops off. That more than likely is the case because eventually I would only show one modem tied to the account.

My post was based on the information in the link and tempered with my own experience.

What if a customer had a balance they'd walked away from who later sold their owned modem? What about a customer that had a leased modem who decided to sell it although it didn't belong to them? That's just two possible scenarios. If I was an ISP with a customer that had an uncollected balance whose modem was trying to be reinserted into my system I would not allow it to happen.

 

[mikeford]

Payback less than a year, downside, any problem gets blamed on your modem, and cable finds some other way to charge more.

OTOH we have 300/100 and family gives stink eye at suggestion of anything less or that puts it at risk.

 

[boomerang]

Payback less than a year, downside, any problem gets blamed on your modem, and cable finds some other way to charge more.

They're getting better, at least Comcast is for me. I had an issue that took me quite a while to diagnose. That was in part because it was both a Comcast issue with my owned modem and a wireless router issue. The WAN port of the router died but the modem would also not release the MAC of the bad router so I couldn't get a replacement to work. (This is the highly condensed version of the story.)

Anyway, Comcast was very good on their end. They zapped my modem (twice actually) and the problem was corrected. No mention of rolling a truck or charging me. All in all, it was a pleasant experience dealing with them.

My theory, is that faced with the possibility of massive 'cord cutting', they are starting to bend over backwards to be both cooperative and friendly. In Florida, I stopped in one of their retail stores and they were the nicest people and a pleasure to deal with.

I think things are changing for the better from a customer perspective.

 

[Kneedragger]

I will be leaving Att internet and bought a Motorola Arris SB6141 last week for under $90.00.

 

[1sikbITCH]

I pay for 75/75 from verizon. On ethernet I generally get around this

Lately I have noticed in counter strike global offensive my ping was 20-30ms. However in the last week it has gone down to 3-10ms. Generally sitting at 3-5ms which seems next to impossible for an online game unless they are hosting the servers literally in the same building as my ISP.

ah well, i can't complain.

And this was after you replaced your modem?

I just replaced my Comcast modem with an SB6141 and it works great and doesn't have some of the network limitations that the Comcast modem did.

 

[Anubis]

same thing happened when I got my own modem

TWC doesn't do DOCIS 3 checking correctly so if you get a DOCIS 3 modem you get a free speed bump

 

[Cal166]

Never heard of this problem. My brother works at a cable company and we suggest that people troll thrift stores for cheap modems all the time. He says that there would be no reason not to "release" it from another account if that other account is not paying for Internet service on it. Even if the modem belonged to the company and was never returned, the previous customer was billed for it. You probably got a stubborn CSR.

The main concern is that they could be fried by lightning and dumped on Goodwill.

boomerang is correct. I sold my old motorola modem off fleabay and they owner couldn't activate it because it was still tied to my account. I had to call into CSR and had it release from my account.

 

[DesiPower]

I too was stung by TW's modem fee. ($8 a month) The cheapo modem they lease out is made in china and worth about $10. But if you were to buy that exact model you'd be out of luck because they won't activate it. They're willing to lease out a cheapo modem, but they aren't letting you buy your own. The cheapest modem they're willing to approve is the motorola sb61 which retails for $70. Just outrageous.

I did the math and ended up biting the bullet. I have the sb6121 now, but my speeds only improved about 10%. I'm blown away that your speeds quadrupled, 400%, from just swapping in the same modem. I too have the 15mpbs plan for $40. (Was $60 before I played the twitter game and threatened to quit, thus getting a better offer) But as of now the best speeds I can download are about 1.8 megabytes a second.

yeah I was surprised too, but as I mentioned, I was already invited to swap the existing modem and get 50/mbps connection at no extra charge. Downloaded some large files from nVidia and linux iso and the download rate held steady around 7 mbps.

Don't believe their page, they'll activate any piece of garbage. Just be sure to read all the reviews carefully to make sure it works with TWC.

That is correct, if you know that it will work then you can use it. All they ask is the make and model, you can SB6121 or one of the supported models, irrespective of what you actually have and then the only other thing they will ask is the MAC address. There is no way for them to verify the model from the mac address.

 

[DesiPower]

I bought the same modem when my isp started charging $5 for their used, dirty, pos modem. I thought I would be saving $5 a month and I'll be darned if they didn't raise my bill $5 a month anyways.

TWC here has been good to me so far, they would put me back on the promotional price, BUT they would play around with the modem rental charges...

 

[DesiPower]

Just so people are aware, if you by a used modem that was in use at the same cable provider you have, you may not be able to get it to work. The previous owner has to have it released from their account. If the seller is cooperative, you're good. If not, you're screwed.

That's the advantage of flea bay, if it don't work for whatever reason, just send it back! all you loose is return shipping

 

[DesiPower]

same thing happened when I got my own modem

TWC doesn't do DOCIS 3 checking correctly so if you get a DOCIS 3 modem you get a free speed bump

So you are saying that if I got SB6141 I could potentially get even higher speeds?

 

[CZroe]

A member here, Gustavus, had the exact problem I described.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2433443&highlight=

He's a Comcast customer as am I. Over the last 12 years I have been with Comcast I have several times switched from my owned modem to Comcast's leased modem. When I would log into the Comcast site and look at my equipment the prior modem would show although it was not active on the account.

Now, perhaps after x number of months of inactivity it drops off. That more than likely is the case because eventually I would only show one modem tied to the account.

My post was based on the information in the link and tempered with my own experience.

What if a customer had a balance they'd walked away from who later sold their owned modem? What about a customer that had a leased modem who decided to sell it although it didn't belong to them? That's just two possible scenarios. If I was an ISP with a customer that had an uncollected balance whose modem was trying to be reinserted into my system I would not allow it to happen.

I actually asked him about that scenario too. He said that if they didn't pay for the equipment they didn't return then it had been passed on to collections and there was no reason to keep the equipment blocked for a different customer.

 

[SP33Demon]

I'm in the market for a new cable modem, good thread. Going with Comcast 150Mbps package for $78/month. Gonna try the SB6141 y'all are raving about.

 

[Anubis]

So you are saying that if I got SB6141 I could potentially get even higher speeds?

possibly

TWC in my area finally fixed the issue but I have the 141 and so do a cpl friends, and when we got them a cpl years ago our speeds jumped 2 whole tiers

its should be noted that the fastest speed I can even get is 30/6 , without going to a business line which costs 10x as much

 

[boomerang]

Remember folks, you're not going to get a faster speed than the tier of service you're paying for. What has happened with Comcast is that they increased the speed at no extra cost but neglected to inform their customers that their modem was not capable of that speed.

Cox does this too. We spent last week visiting the grand kids and my stepson was complaining about the buffering he was getting when streaming. His old, owned modem was not able to utilize the speed tier he was paying for. He also was using an ancient Belkin G router that he said was about 8 years old. In his case, he opted to pay Cox to have a modem/router combo provided by them and his speed on wireless went from 5Mb/s to 32Mb/s. We never tried hard wiring to the router to see what speed he could get that way. His tier was 50Mb/s. He's not interested in running wires anyway.