What is a decent DOCSIS3.0 modem with WiFi?

Yes, but the cable carrier is also able to push new firmware to modems. (very different from docsis config which is done whenever modem connects to the coax network). So it is possible that Comcast accepts "off the shelf" modems because its CMTS detect wrong firmware and and automatically push their firmware onto modem.

(This is different from canadian carriers who do not accept modems with wrong firware, and only do "mass" firware upgrades to fix known bugs in modems).

On 12 Jul 2015, Jeff Liebermann wrote in comp.mobile.android:

Unless you're referring to something else, that's not true for me. I have the all-in-one gateway for their X1 service, and I can access a reasonable array of settings for DHCP, Wifi, firewall, etc. It's not exactly "full-featured", but I do have some control.

By "modem", I mean just the bridge between the cable network and the ethernet connection usually going to a router. You're referring to what Comcast calls a "gateway", which conglomerates a modem, router, wi-fi, ethernet switch, and an optional telephone VoIP device into one package.

Comcast maintains strict control over the modem section, but has no reason to limit your access to the router, wi-fi, etc which you can configure and control. When you connect to 192.168.100.1, you'll find all these configuration and control settings, but if you dive into the cable modem section, all you'll find is status and diagnostics.

You can probably haggle the 'promotional' price for at least another year. We got promotional prices from Charter for several years, but they finally refused to haggle back to the previous price -- they WOULD give us the current promotional price, though -- $39/month rather than $49. I hate to have to keep calling and threatening to quit.

That depends on the speed that you're expecting and paying for. There are maximum data rates. Actual data throughput will be less due to physical layer overhead (error correction coding, burst preamble, and guard interval) as well as TCP/IP packet overhead. I don't have the number handy, but my guess(tm) is the actual maximum throughput will be about 70% of the maximum data rate. So, your SB6121 should be good up to about 120 Mbits/sec download speed. Download Upload ch Mbit/sec ch Mbits/sec SB6121 4 172 4 131 SB6141 8 343 4 131 SB6183 16 686 4 131

Since I'm unfamiliar with the location, is it still true that only one company generally serves cable at any one address?

I think it's a crime that I paid a sales tax on the Ooma device, which makes sense, but then I pay tax on the use of the device (which makes no sense).

I don't care about 911 (that's why I kept inputting zip codes until I found a cheap one) and that's where it's registered so I pay the tax for some county in Kansas as I recall.

How they get away with charging tax just for the use of a device (whether or not you even use it) makes no sense to me from a "logic" standpoint.

it is *extremely* rare for there to be more than one company offering cable service, which is why they don't give a s*it about offering a quality service.

In general, yes. It's true of where I live.

In fact, the only high-speed internet services I can get are Cox and Satellite. There's no DSL, Uverse, etc., available in my subdivision.

Generally true. Municipalities grant franchises to cable providers, usually in trade for various service and monetary concessions.

However, there are a few areas where the incumbent service was so bad, that an alternative provider became a possibility. These are called "overbuilders". The most prominent are WOW, RCN, and Google Fiber:

Yeah. I'm capped at a measly 16 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up on my business class connection because I'm using the absolute lowest tier speed to save money. I typically get more like 18/4 Mbps, according to speedtest.net though. Before that I had consumer ~60/6 Mbps service. It looks like they've raised that to 105 Mbps for that tier consumer service now. Anyway, even with a healthy Netflix appetite and lots of regular internet use going on between multiple people in the house, I haven't found the drop in speed to be noticeable most of the time. So it's worth the savings on my monthly bill to me. : )

Sounds like the Gore tax. Thank your buddy Al for that one.

As for making sense- exactly when does anyone expect the government to "make sense"?

Stan

I used to have my own modem with Comcast. Trouble was, anytime anything went wrong, even if they had a huge outage in my area, they always claimed the problem was my modem.

Assholes.

Based on the advice here, I think I'll buy the Costco modem that Jeff suggested, and then a normal router, and that should set them up (for about $150).

Thanks!

Really? I have about a dozen customers and friends that own their own Comcast modems. I've handled outages for them a few times and never had the phone support person specifically blame the customer owned equipment. They can see the same numbers for signal levels and SNR that you can see at 192.168.100.1 and can tell if there's a problem with the line, the drop, or the modem. In other words, they can tell if there's a problem on your premises, which is quite common. If the modem checks out ok with a remote diagnostic and reboot, they may suggest that you plug your computer directly into the modem to eliminate problems caused by house wiring, router, wireless, etc. If that works, the problem is with your equipment. Even if support cannot "see" the modem, they will ask what the lights on the modem are doing in an effort to determine if it's a line or modem problem. Oddly, it never occurs to many people (including me) to check if the TV signal is working on the cable to determine if there's a line or drop problem. That happened a few weeks ago at one customers, where mice had chewed through the coax trying to get into the house.

Make sure that it's a dual band router. If y'er son is living in student housing, the 2.4GHz band is very crowded and prone to interference problems. 5GHz is much wider and less crowded.

The new Mac's are all coming with 802.11ac modems. You should probably get a matching router. The speed between the Mac and the wireless router will be blazingly fast, but will do nothing if the cable modem speed is throttled by the service provider. However, there's a benefit to going fast over the air. By occupying less "air time", the probability of having a packet clobbered by interference is less. Or, by cramming more data into the same amount of air time, you transmit less. That also allows more users on the channel.

Good luck.

as well as transfers between machines on the same lan, which at a school, is something that will happen, a lot. sometimes even for legitimate purposes.

At some point they were no longer able to grant monopolies, but it's a lot more expensive to lay cable now than it was 30 years ago so they're still effective monopolies. AT&T had landlines everywhere, so they're generally one option, and one cable company is generally the other.

Lots of wireless carriers if there are enough people to make it pay.

The Feds etc. charge connection fees, which ooma passes on to us. The fact that the feds make us pay this 'universal connection' fee is outrageous, but it's not ooma's fault -- everybody who provides you phone services has to pay it.

AT&T wanted to charge me $3/month for long distance service even if I made NO LD calls (the case for a couple of years). We had to deliberately cancel LD service with them, and the price of ordinary landline service just kept increasing. When it hit $30+ we switched to ooma and never looked back.

AT&T used to be respectable people. Now they're just cheesy.