I recently found out that my normally cost-conscious father has been renting his modems from his ISP for like 25 years and for Christmas I want to give him the gift of not having to pay $15 a month to Comcast anymore, but I was hoping for some guidance.
He’s currently paying for 800mb/s and they have him Arris TG3482G wireless gateway.
He lives in a ~1700 sf one story (plus basement) housee. All three bedrooms (and maybe the kitchen?) are wired with with ethernet jacks if that matters. Both he and my mom have said the signal in their bedroom can occasionally get spotty (in the rough sketch of their house below, the router is in the basement roughly on the X, room with occasional coverage issues is red square). That initially made me think maybe I should look into a mesh network, but then I realized it could just be that the signal on those modem/router combos really is that bad and a decent traditional modem could suffice.
Their internet usage typically consists of your run of the mill web surfing and occasional streaming. My dad also works from home over the wired connection.
They recently moved their landline over to Xfinity, so the modem requires voice. The modems xfinity lists as compatible with their plan:
- NetgearCM2050V
- Motorola MT8733
- Arris T25
- Netgear CM1150V
- Arris SBV3202
- Netgear C7100V
- Motorola MT7711
- Arris SVG2482AC
- Arris SBV2402
Any thoughts on which modem and router would best fit their situation and needs? Obviously the CM2050V appears to be the superior modem on the list, but also seems like a overkill given their plan and usage habits (unless it’d be a good idea for a bit of future proofing in case their plan ever gets upgraded?).
check to see if you will get unlimited bw or get stuck at 1.2 tb a month.
This. They’ve made it a wash with Xfinity with the Xfi Complete package - you pay for the modem but you get unlimited data. 1.2TB is nothing with a family of five, all gamers, streaming TV, etc.
Comcast still allows you to put the modem in bridge mode, at least for now. I run everything else on my own gear.
Depends on where you are. In northern New England they don’t have the cap because there’s competition here, but you do need their modem for the higher speed uploads (I’m stuck at 30mbit right now).
Can’t wait to get fiber installed next week.
Consolidated?
There are a ton of little fiber providers up here covering different areas. Just in my area are VTel, ECFiber, Lyme Fiber, Hub66, Fidium (Consolidated, as you mentioned), Burlington Fiber… it depends on where you are, but they’re being given money by the states to build out fiber lines since Comcast won’t get their shit together and just took the money and ran last time.