Originally Posted By: supton
I've been having issues lately on ours--for last year or two, wireless devices would lose connection randomly. These days my work laptop refuses to run VPN; and now when I use a hard connection via Ethernet it still has problems. My wife called our provider and now we're getting a new modem&router; apparently it was the same price for just a modem vs router (we get to pay $4/month for it, which I don't understand), so we got the router. But the woman was shocked that ours was 9 years old.
We goofed and bought a router a while ago, only to realize that we needed a modem too. I'm going to be curious if this new modem&router has a direct outlet so as to connect to a different router. I wonder if we can store this unused router for a few years and use it at later date.
Hey Supton. This stuff happens to be my area of "expertise". My provider here in Haverhill, Ma. is Comcast
, and it rankles to rent the equipment from them. So, I use a Motorola Surfboard 6121 cable modem. It's a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, about $60.00 on Amazon, maybe $70 at Wally-World. In tandem with the Modem, I use an N router from Belkin, it's an N600, IIRC it was around $80. Well worth the cost. It provides my wireless with the 5GHZ band along with the 2.4Ghz band. The 5Ghz band is good for cell phones, and for wireless adaptors that can use 5Ghz, it's really fast. This combo has four ethernet ports, I can print through the network on it and it runs my NetTalk VOIP router for my landline. It really is a robust combo.
One thing folks on Comcast and any other ISP's providing "hotspots" need to understand is, when you rent their cable modem/router combo (it's a pretty large piece of gear), your rented router is really TWO wireless networks, one Private for you, another Public for the ISP's customers to use when they're in range. I'm not a hacker and I have no idea if someone on the Public side can reach data on the private side, but it rankles a little. Nonetheless, Comcast eating up the bandwidth I pay for with their Public hotspot powered by the modem they charge me rent on is so objectionable I wouldn't tolerate it. Hardly anyone understands this stuff, so they're mostly unopposed.
Hope these tidbits help.