ARRIS / Motorola SurfBoard SB6141 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem - White

I have had no trouble with this cable modem since January, 2015. There is a procedure to replacing a rental modem with a consumer-owned one, so here is my experience.If you access the Web via a cable modem, you might be paying $7-$10 per month + various taxes to the cable company to rent that equipment. Fine modems can be purchased online. Comcast offers a list of approved cable modems and even includes a link to Amazon:http://mydeviceinfo.comcast.net/No doubt other cable companies do the same. Always buy a cable modem from your cable company’s approved list, or expect hassles.Make sure that it supports the DOCSIS 3.0 standard to future-proof you. This standard can automatically handle much higher speeds than you can purchase now as a residential customer. If prices fall, that could change and you may desire blazing speed. The latest wireless standard, 802.11AC, can provide speeds within your home much faster than the cable speed to your home that can now be purchased. You’ll get “AC" in your future devices as you replace them (right now only my wireless router is AC capable, everything else is the previous “N”, still plenty fast). For residential users, faster speed quickly becomes a diminishing return on investment, since much of the time you wait for a web page to load is in waiting for the page server and intermediate hardware, not in transmission speed on the last link to your home. Unless you’re a deeply serious gamer, or need to download vast amounts of software daily, or stream several simultaneous movies, very high speed is a waste of money and just a "mine's faster than yours" macho exercise.The modem paid for itself in a few months. Do not buy any black version; that is made exclusively for ISPs and any units available for purchase by you, maybe on eBay, will be used equipment. Any equipment named here may be succeeded by a newer version.——I don’t recommend a cable modem that integrates WiFi. I use two products for different functions, so if one fails the other is still with me. If the WiFi router goes down, I can plug the cable modem into my iMac and configure the iMac to be a temporary wireless router replacement; If the modem goes down, we can still work offline and access the wireless printer while scooting in a replacement modem. Power and TV cable plug into the modem, and a short Ethernet cable connects the modem with the WiFi router that has its own power cord. Some routers also allow USB connection to a shared disk for backup purposes. That did not work so well when I tried it with two generations back from the current router, but I plan to try again.——If you have a cable “triple play bundle" that includes TV, Internet and phone, mine is not the modem for you because it does not handle voice. This one does:http://www.amazon.com/Arris-TM822G-Touchstone%C2%AE-Ultra-High-Telephony/dp/B00721TUNS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419716706&sr=8-1&keywords=Arris+TM822G+Touchstone%C2%AE+DOCSIS+3.0+8%C3%974+Ultra-High+Speed+Telephony+ModemThe magic term is “EMTA”. Your cable local cable monopoly may not allow you to buy a modem that also handles voice so you have to continue renting, or you may have to buy it from them and also pay an installation fee—check with them. That changes the economics. OTOH, by renting they will always replace a bad unit for free.——Whatever you get, your new modem must be registered with the cable company. For Comcast this can be done via a web page, or by telephone. Seehttp://forums.comcast.com/t5/Basic-Internet-Connectivity-And/Change-from-Leased-Cable-Modem-to-Owner-Purchased-Cable-Modem/td-p/1202305The correspondent named Baric there knows what he’s talking about. I used the web page method with no problems. Always faster than dealing with a human at “customer service” (in the animal husbandry sense).Here’s the recipe (MY ADDITIONS IN CAPS):1. Disconnect the old cable modem completely.2. Connect the new cable modem to coaxial cable (to the cable company), ethernet cable (to computer or wireless router, and power.3. Reboot your computer or wireless router. WAIT AWHILE FOR THINGS TO SETTLE DOWN.4. Using a browser, try to go to any website. You should be redirected to your cable company’s registration page. THIS CAN TAKE AWHILE. Follow the directions from there. I WAS PREPARED WITH THE NEW MODEM’S MODEL NUMBER, SERIAL NUMBER, AND MAC ADDRESS (ON A STICKER ATTACHED TO THE MODEM), BUT ALL THAT GOT TRANSFERRED AUTOMATICALLY.5. If #4 doesn’t work, your cable company has a phone number where you can interact with a human to get this done.6. After your new modem is operating properly, return the old modem to the cable company, get a receipt, and watch your bill to see that the rental charge is gone. You should incur no service charges of any kind.——I did the recipe with the new modem connected directly to my computer. Then my wireless router (Apple Airport Extreme) did not want to play. My current network is named “GoAway”, connecting to 8 devices. I did a hard router reset, and used the Airport Utility to rebuild GoAway in about two minutes, and everything came alive.——Although Comcast is widely considered to be the worst company in the USA, there have been widespread reports that Time Warner Cable messes with your speed when you substitute your own modem. Consider your options in the face of dastardly corporate activity. You can always test your download and upload speeds at sites like http://speakeasy.net/speedtest/ to see any changes.A utility, "namebench", (search online for it) will identify DNS sites that are the fastest for your location. (In OS X, you need to go to System Preferences-->Security & Privacy and allow apps downloaded from Anywhere, at least temporarily.) Replace the current servers with the fastest ones identified. Recently I got a 30% speed increase in DNS lookup but, that's in the noise compared to the time you spend waiting for a web server to deliver a page.——Here’s another reason to own your own cable modem! Comcast (and other?) cable modems include a public WiFi hotspot that ANYONE (up to 5 users) can use, if you buy a speed of 25Mbs or greater (I was pressed hard to do that, I did not). This article shows how to disable the “feature” by logging in to Comcast. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2363389/to-xfinity-wifi-were-all-hotspots-but-you-dont-have-to-be.htmlWhy should you care? I am not sure of the security implications, but it just seems like a problem waiting to happen--a prominent security expert who I know agreed that it’s a bad idea—and Comcast makes no security claims. But if you own the modem, it will not have this “feature.”

I purchased this Motorola Surfboard SB6141 from Amazon because it was one of several units Time Warner Cable NYC indicated as compatible with its RoadRunner Internet service, and it seemed to have capabilities that will enable it to take advantage of future improved technologies.The initial installation was quite easy with one phone call to TWC to activate the SB6141 with my RoadRunner service, and I was up-and-running within 30 minutes. I then returned my old RCA modem to TWC to end my $3.95 monthly rental contract.During the first week I used the new modem, download/upload speeds were relatively consistent with average speeds I had previously achieved with the old RCA unit, with Speedtest.net results for the new Motorola ranging from 13.81/1.67 Mbps to 14.26/0.95 Mbps over four days. The old RCA's results over the past two months ranged from a low of 1.43/0.93 to a high of 25.08/0.46 Mbps, but averaging about the same I achieved with the new Motorola SB6141.Two days ago I noticed sluggishness in opening web pages and downloading email as well as general connectivity issues. I also observed significant drops in Speedtest.net download/upload speeds to lows of 0.05/0.00, 0.21/0.94 and 0.03/0.12, interspersed with strong speeds of up to 13.84/1.56, 13.68/0.95 and 13.81/0.38. I contacted TWC late on the first day and ran through the usual modem and Airport Extreme unplugging and rebooting steps, which seemed to help a bit. The next day I experienced the same difficulty accessing email and loading web pages. I also noticed the my Airport Utility was indicating losses of Internet connections, alternating between the dreaded "yellow" and good "green" lights for Internet connectivity. A second call to TWC resulted in a preliminary assessment that Internet feeds to my modem were working correctly, and she offered to schedule an onsite appointment the next day.Onsite, the TWC repair technician was sympathetic and extremely helpful as he made several adjustments to my cable connections and performed a number of tweaks to the Internet set-up on my Macbook Pro, including changing channels and replacing the connecting cable I received from Motorola with a cable wire given to me by another TWC technician on a previous service call about a year earlier. After about an hour, his analysis of my Internet connectivity along with various iterative attempts to isolate the potential problem and perform tweaks to my set-up seemed to work. However, at the end of the service visit the TWC technician cautioned that my new Motorola SB6141 may be defective, and suggested I return it for replacement.Shortly after he departed I noticed a few brief "yellow" lights indicating Internet connection failures, but for the past seven hours Airport Utility has been glowing a solid "green."As of this writing, a 17ms PING produced a download score of 14.77 Mbps with an upload reading of 0.95 Mbps. I'm hoping the TWC technician's various fixes and tweaks will allow me continued Internet access, as I would very much like to avoid returning the Motorola unit and be "Internet-less" for the four or five days it will take to get a replacement. "Time" will tell...Had it not been for Internet connectivity issues which the TWC technician said might be attributable to the new Motorola SB6141 modem, I would have given this unit five stars. The size and white color with blue lights are visually pleasing, and the size and vertical configuration fits nicely on my desk. Installation was simple with help from Time Warner, and generally I'm very pleased with my selection of this Motorola modem, now that everything seems to working correctly.I will post an update status report once I have more experience with this Motorola SB6141.SUBSEQUENT POST -- TWO MONTHS LATERSince writing my original review, I have had numerous telephone conversations with Time-Warner and Motorola technical people to try and resolve my "intermittent Internet" connection as reported by my Apple Airport Utility. After discovering that the only time my wi-fi network experienced intermittent Internet connectivity was when my Macbook Pro was operating, I contacted Apple. (My network Internet connection worked fine when my wife's Macbook Pro and our two iPads and iPhones were in use, as long as my Macbook Pro remained off.) This led to a variety of iterative tests to try and locate the problem on my Mac, which eventually solved the intermittent Internet connection problem but inexplicably caused loss of my Macbook Pro's ability to connect over the Internet with Apple's App Store. All of the problems were finally resolved when I wiped my hard drive clean and re-installed my operating system -- along with reconfiguring some of my files on my Macbook Pro's hard drive.While Time Warner initially blamed the problem on the Motorola SB6141, Apple blamed the problem on Time-Warner. Motorola said the SB6141 was functioning perfectly, and the problem was probably with my Airport Extreme wi-fi transmitter. I think the problem was with my Macbook Pro's software, particularly after I installed a few OS X version 10.8 software updates.As a result, I've upgraded my rating of the Motorola SB6141 to five stars, and am very satisfied with it. Since re-configuring my Macbook Pro I've been getting consistent download scores in the range of 14.14 Mbps to 14.72 Mbps, and upload scores of 0.99 to 1.72 Mbps, with the exception of my all time high on March 17 using AT&T's 4G on my iPhone 5 to achieve a 24.45 Mbps download and 7.49 Mbps upload.This is a fine modem which I highly recommend.