Ditch those Comcast wifi modems.....

[FESTER665]

I was mainly giving him shit cause he is my brother

For routers and access points, I recommend Ubiquiti brand equipment.

Just not a fan of their CCTV stuff I brought up?

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

Just not a fan of their CCTV stuff I brought up?

I like open platforms for camera systems. Cameras change so drastically that you want something future proof.

Network equipment doesnt change nearly as much but they need a provider who will keep up on security updates for network devices. Consumer brands like netgear, asus, linksys, dlink, etc... Tend to lack greatly when it comes to firmware updates or security patches for their network devices. And IMO, the device that allows people to get in and out of the network needs to be able to be updated regularly and have a provider who cares enough to patch their equipment when a big flaw gets revealed.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

Likely something commercial and overcomplicated for your average Joe. Commercial grade equipment is great, but often comes at a cost and at an inconvenience to the non-techy as it generally will have less convenience (see: ease of use) features that the consumer grade stuff will have.

Ill take less convenience when you get better security, performance and updates.

 

[wombat]

Ill take less convenience when you get better security, performance and updates.

As will I, as a person that knows how to work with the equipment, but for your average Joe, they want to plug it in and be insecure

 

[Shawn1112]

Thanks for this thread, we rent ours thru Comcast as we didnt know better.
I will be ordering this stuff tomorrow.

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

I have the EdgeRouter ERPoE-5 for my router. Nice unit, not user friendly at all for a non-computer person.

Very powerful, very customizable, but the average Joe won't be able to get it working out of the box.

The average person can't even setup a modern Smart TV any more.

Let alone a prosumer level router + access point setup.

Thats when you hire a contractor to setup the system for you, and most people aren't going to pay those rates.

 

[Fish]

In my opinion, stay away from combos. You will have to sacrifice one of the two unless you pay an ungodly amount of money for something that just isn't worth it. For example, the modem might be great, but the router range sucks, or the router is great, but the modem sucks. On top of that, if the modem goes out, or the router goes out, you have to replace the whole unit.



You want specifics for each, or just what a modem / router do? I'll do my best to explain a modem/router in layman's terms.

A modem takes the coax signal from your provider and translates that into the internet for your PC. You want the speed of your router to be higher than the speed provided to you from the cable provider. For example: You have a 100Mbs connection from Comcast - you want at router that at least can handle 100Mbs (ideally more, to "future proof" yourself).

Comcast regularly is upgrading their speeds and if you have a modem that is faster than your current speed, you'll be fine if they give you more speed.

A router is a device that takes the signal from the modem, and "routes" it to multiple different devices, wired or wireless. Your modem will be plugged into the router, the router will then take that internet signal from the modem and distribute it to the different devices connected to it. A few things to ask yourself when buying a modem: How big is my house? How many users are going to be using the internet all at the same time? What will I be doing with my internet (Gaming, streaming netflix/hulu, web browsing, etc.)?

Let me know if you want more info (or if you were pulling my leg, I hate you).



Here's my list. Keep in mind that this is MY OPINION. I built this list based off of hardware I have heard of, read the reviews of, or more importantly used myself or for others that I have done basic installs and setups for. I have used every one of the 3 listed modems in customer's homes, but only the "better" router first hand.

Cable modems:

Good: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AJHDZSI/?tag=tcg21-20
This is the all around every day user. It'll be fine if you do browsing, gaming, hulu, netflix etc.

Better: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MA5U1FW/?tag=tcg21-20
This I would recommend if you're a power user or have lots of gaming or in-home streaming going on in your house (Plex for example)

Best: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6SKK1G/?tag=tcg21-20
This I would only recommend if you're getting gigabit speeds, which most people are getting 150Mbs or lower

Routers:

The one thing to keep in mind for routers is house size. Even if you're not that heavy of a user but are in a large house, you might want to spend the money on a better router. Generally speaking, the higher end the router, the better signal strength it'll have. So if you've got a large house or multiple floors, get the better or best router.

Good: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071J24FNY/?tag=tcg21-20
Same as above, good all around every day user router. Good for small-medium 1-2 floor houses.

Better: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R2AZLD2/?tag=tcg21-20
Same as above, good for heavy gaming or multiple devices streaming at the same time. Good for up to a large house, or houses that have devices in the basement and router upstairs or vice versa.

Best: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F0DD0I6/?tag=tcg21-20 or https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0192911RA/?tag=tcg21-20
These are your powerhouse routers. If you or your kids game and other people are watching netflix and you're trying to run your amazon tv or whatever - these are what you want to invest in. For most people, these are overkill.

Let me know if you have any questions!

I have the EdgeRouter ERPoE-5 for my router. Nice unit, not user friendly at all for a non-computer person.

Very powerful, very customizable, but the average Joe won't be able to get it working out of the box.

The average person can't even setup a modern Smart TV any more.

Let alone a prosumer level router + access point setup.

Thats when you hire a contractor to setup the system for you, and most people aren't going to pay those rates.

Why do you need a middle of the pack modem to run plex when plex is your in home server, which is more of the router's job?

Unless you are streaming from someone eleses server, but why not say Kodi?

Still rocking my 6141 for everything since all I get is 100MPBS down and thats pretty much what I pull with that and my current POS router.

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Why do you need a middle of the pack modem to run plex when plex is your in home server, which is more of the router's job?

Unless you are streaming from someone eleses server, but why not say Kodi?

Still rocking my 6141 for everything since all I get is 100MPBS down and thats pretty much what I pull with that and my current POS router.

The ERPoE5 router is because I wanted more control over my home network, and I wanted to segregate my Wireless and Wired traffic onto separate VLANs. It also gives me excellent control over Firewall and NAT rules.

The PoE is to power the DAP-2660 Access Point which while older now has some nice near enterprise grade features.

My modem is rated for Gigabit downloads, but not uploads. I'd honestly be happy with a 150Mbit down, and 150Mbit up. Rather than the 300Mbit down, and 30Mbit up I have right now.

Plex is setup for myself to stream anywhere I want. In fact, I was watching some home stuff while on TCG Tour last year from the hotel room.

But I also have my own cloud storage solution setup I can access anywhere, along with some other things.

 

[219Cobra]

We rent are also. I’ve always talked about getting my own just never pulled the trigger. What if you have a house phone threw Comcast. Any plug and play modems for that. I know,I know. The old lady’s idea for having a house phone. I can count on 1 hand the times I used it.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

Well tell her to get with the times ditch that shit and save some moola

 

[Fish]

Yeah, we did the triple play once, and realized we didnt even hook a phone up. Get rid of it. Comcast will try to lie to you and say that you will pay more for not having it. Tell them you will shop elsewhere for everything. All of a sudden they get some new specials they didnt know about.

 

[Grabber]

[MENTION=127]wombat[/MENTION] - how hard is it to configure both the cable modem and router with Comcast?

We are looking at the Arris in your link and the Nighthawk router for $147 or so on Amazon.

 

[Mook]

Very easy. You just need to tell comcast the info for the modem and then you're done. That part took forever b/c comcast sucks but its easy enough.

 

[wombat]

Very easy. You just need to tell comcast the info for the modem and then you're done. That part took forever b/c comcast sucks but its easy enough.

Actually, you don't even need to do this anymore.

Plug modem into wall, plug coax cable into new modem, plug ethernet cable from modem into PC, open up a web browser (might have to wait 2-3 minutes after plugging coax into cable modem). It'll pull up a Comcast Activation Site where you verify your info and activate the modem, no phone call needed.


Once that's done, unplug the cable from the PC - plug it into the Router and then run a cable from your router to your PC.

 

[Mook]

WRONG, kind of. You can do that, but it doesnt always work. I tried the last time I updated my modem and the activation page refused to work...which resulted in an hour long game of waiting for comcast to answer the phone.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

I was always under the impression you had to call them to provide the MAC and they'd push a new "config" packet for the new device.

 

[wombat]

WRONG, kind of. You can do that, but it doesnt always work. I tried the last time I updated my modem and the activation page refused to work...which resulted in an hour long game of waiting for comcast to answer the phone.

Sounds like you suck. I've done my own, twice in the past year, plus like 5 other peoples that way. LEARN TO COMPUTER MOOK.

 

[wombat]

I was always under the impression you had to call them to provide the MAC and they'd push a new "config" packet for the new device.

That was before they got with the times.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

Yeah i had to call cause they fucked up my online order, but you should be able to do it all online noe