Which router should I buy?

[VeNoM7]

Hey everyone I'm buying a modem and am not sure which one to get. I'm deciding between the ARRIS / Motorola SurfBoard SB6141 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem and the NETGEAR DOCSIS 3.0 High Speed Cable Modem. The only reason I'm considering the netgear modem is because it supports up to 16 downstream channels vs the arris's 8. We have a total of 10 devices but rarely use all of them. I was also not sure if it would compromise performance being close to the 8 device max consistently if I were to purchase the arris modem? Customer support and reliability are also a factor to me. My budget is $120 max but would prefer to go less if possible.

 

[i7Baby]

I just change over to a Netgear N600 adsl router/modem and have found its easy to use.

The last few modem/routers I've bought have been Netgear and I haven't had a problem with any of them.

Are you looking at the 3700 or the 3000?

 

[VeNoM7]

I just change over to a Netgear N600 adsl router/modem and have found its easy to use.

The last few modem/routers I've bought have been Netgear and I haven't had a problem with any of them.

Are you looking at the 3700 or the 3000?

Im looking at the cm500 it's just a modem. I was going to buy the modem and router separate because I've heard that works better.

 

[bill001g]

The number of downstream channels has nothing to do with the number of clients the device will support. Each channel is either 38m or 55m depending on what country. They combine the channels together to form 1 logical connection. It appears as a single stream so 1 device can use it all if the ISP allowed it. In theory 16 channels can run 600m/800m but there are technical reasons that it does not actually run this fast in real implementations.

The other nasty thing they neglect to tell you is that it is not just your 10 devices sharing this connection. It is every device in any house near you that also buys cable services. All the traffic is actually mixed together and your modem just pretends it is you only receiving data for your house when in actuality you get every packet sent by the ISP to every client it is just encrypted. It is not uncommon to have 100s of houses sharing 1 docsis3 path.

Your first step is to try to figure out how many channels the ISP is actually using in your neighborhood. It is still very rare to use more than 8. Many still use only 4. It does no good to buy a modem that is better than the ISP is supporting....especially if they have no plans to upgrade the system coming to your neighborhood. Pretty much the cable companies that have little competition do nothing, when google fiber or something comes in they magically upgrade and start offering 150m and faster plans.

Do not assume that buying a modem that supports more channels will run faster, they can only run as fast as the ISP allows....There are artificial limits in place even on systems that support more channels.