Want to buy my own cable modem/WIFI what stds. does comcast use? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 14, 2020, 12:15:52 am
content: Comcast went from charging 4 bucks a month to rent the modem to 12 or something ridiculous. Since I'm poor and on their economy tier owning my own modem would save almost 25% off the monthly bill.I live in a non FIOS town and what and where do you buy a cable modem/ WIFI box? Are there standards you have to follow are some better then others? Paying 120$ a year plus tax for a modem is just rediculous. I plan to have the service for a couple of years so paying 240-360$ for a modem seems crazy to me. I dont have TV or the useless land line phone (I used to work for comcast in the 2000's when everyone was paying 60+$ a month PLUS long distance and we could cut that down to $33 with unlimited long distance, it was so easy to sell and comcast paid us well. But now what the hell would a residential customer use a landline for? Locating their cell phone when it falls into the couch? Getting IRS scam calls and free cruses? How they spin that is beyond me glad I dont work their and have to try and sell that useless product) Anyways. I just need a cable modem and 2.4 and 5 ghz wifi.I tried to use an old one but comcast keeps track of the S/N's so that doesn't work even if your account got charged off and you paid for the equipment like I did when I moved and lost the modem. They charged me like 300 bucks for the thing with option I could use it in the future if I ever found it. So I found it in an old box called to reactivate it and they claimed it was their property because I didnt have the paper work showing I paid for it. A load of BS. Anyways what do you guys use instead of renting costly equipment? The range only has to go about ten feet so I dont need anything fancy and since im on their slow internet package I dont need anything fast.

author: andy3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 14, 2020, 02:00:14 am
content: There are several brands that work with Comcast/Xfinity. See the link below.https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/list-of-approved-cable-modemsI did the same thing. Got a Linksys modem when the guy comes to install (not sure if you can do it yourself on the phone with them) he will call Comcast and activate it with their service. If you buy a version that has no Wifi, you will need a Wifi router as well. Down in San Diego, the ISP is not so finicky. They allowed my family to use one of their modems and it has built in Wifi as well. If I remember, it is a Motorola Surfboard. The advantage is that you do not need a router then. If you can get to a Best Buy, you will be able to select something rather than buying online and taking a risk. Best Buy will take it back with no fuss.Points to consider:1. If it will work with Comcast2. If you can find one with built in Wifi so the cost is virtually half.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 14, 2020, 03:16:31 am
content: No matter what modem you use, they will have to provision it to your account in their headend. You can't just plug it in and have it work, each modem has a unique MAC address, serial number, etc that they will have to set up in order for it to talk to their system. I used to work for a company that made cable modems and had to provision them, we had our own headend that was used for testing. It's been several years now and I've become quite rusty on the specific details.Personally I much prefer the modem hardware to be separate from the wifi router but whether that matters to you depends on how much you tinker with that stuff. I have my network heavily customized but a lot of people just do the minimal setup and use it as is.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 14, 2020, 06:31:56 am
content: You should be able to get what you need from any Walmart. Expect to pay about $60 or so for a Motorola/Arris Surfboard that'll be good enough (around 800+ mb/s). You can pay more if you want. As long as the Xfinity logo is on the box, it'll work, though any DOCSIS 3.0 should be okay. I won't use an all-in-one, prefer a separate router. It's better. I even use a separate access point for WiFi.The Ubiquiti Edgerouter X is a decent router, also about $60. It does require a bit of knowledge and thinking, but they do provide software updates and security patches. Or you could just get a cheap consumer grade combo wireless router, $25 and up. Don't expect any updates though.And as james_s said, you will have to call comcast and give them the MAC address so they can set it up. It's no big deal.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2020, 05:24:30 am
content: Get a router that supports OpenWRT or DD-WRT, that way it can be updated until it's so old that the developers are no longer willing to put in the effort to continue support. Keep in mind there are lots of 2.4GHz only 802.11n routers still getting active support, which should give you some idea just how long the popular ones stay supported.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2020, 06:08:06 am
content: I prefer Tomato myself, I've been using it for more than a decade now and they are still updating it regularly.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2020, 07:33:55 am
content: same problem, I almost shit a fucking cinderblock dealing with cable visions default bull shitcablevision has a compatible routers website. all in one highly integrated piece of shit. i don't know why i put up with it for so long. feel like im in nazi germany with this 'device'

author: andy3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2020, 07:51:28 pm
content: While we are on this subject, I have a question to the expert members here.I have been using a MagicJack with Comcast for as long as I can remember. End of September early October, the MJ started showing "No line."Called MJ support and I was told that it has something to do with Comcast and I should have ports 5060-5070 open and SIP/ALG disabled. I was travelling to San Diego and I put it off and took the MJ with me. Usually, I just plug it there and all goes well. This time it did not. Convinced that the MJ was faulty, I ordered a new unit. When I got it, I just hooked it up, ported the number from the old unit and with no further configurations, it worked. This confirmed my suspicion on the old unit. However, when I returned to the bay area, the damn thing did not work! It is new and it worked in San Diego. That tells me that it has something to do with my local router or modem or Comcast. Spoke with a great Comcast tech who really tried to help but it was still no use. I took the MJ next door who has Comcast and it does not work there either. The neighbor has a combination modem/router which is a bit different to mine as I have a Linksys CM 3024 modem and a Netgear WNDR 3700v4 router. The router has the latest firmware as well.I logged in to the router and did the port forwarding and disabled the SIP as per MJ support and it still doesn't not give me a dial tone. I was thinking the router has some sort of an issue but don't want to replace it just yet in case that does not resolve the issue.Any ideas will be much appreciated.Thanks.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2020, 07:58:14 pm
content: yea make sure the magicjack did not break, I had mine break before and do weird stuff. The first symptom was when it was hanging up on longish calls randomly. I think it over heated, when I touched it the thing was hot. It seriously could have brokenagain, these things gave me LOADS of problems. Are you sure the power source is good?I would say the reliability of this device is really suspicious.And of course did you change cables and whatnot, it could be an signal issue.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2020, 08:12:28 pm
content: Wow, MagicJack is still around? I remember getting one of those as my very first experiment with SIP, I soon ditched the hardware and used the service with a proper standalone VOIP adapter. Later I switched to SIPGate which later went out of business, there are lots of other SIP providers though.If you are having weird problems with your router I would suggest doing a complete factory reset on it, I once had a router start doing some very weird things with my network, stuff seemed to randomly work one day and not the next. I eventually wiped it and started over and everything was fine.

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2020, 08:52:18 pm
content: Quote from: andy3055 on November 15, 2020, 07:51:28 pmWhy would you use a majic jack? Free international long distance? Why not just use skype which I think is free.What the advantage of using a separate modem and wifi? I live in a studio apt and so I dont need to extra range and wall penetration that 2.4 offers. I'm on a budget plan so I dont need high speeds, although my MS surface supports 4k and I have even seen 6k in the setting of a youtube video once, does it really do 6k? Its a two year old top of the line surface, this is actually the 3rd one I have owned because the charging port keeps breaking. BTW if you plan on buying a surface you cant have it repaired ANYWHERE. After 12 months you have to pay 650$ USD REGARDLESS of the issue and they send you a new one in the mail. I had to pay the 650$ used it for 2 months and a damn charging broke. I tried three different adapters so the charging issue isnt some mechanical issue, I leave mine plugged in 24/7 and rarely plug/unplg it or even seperate the keyboard making it into a tablet, even when you have it in a tablet it still wont charge off that charging port so its not the connector or the two batteries. The key board has a battery in it so you can double battery life or plug in the key board when battery gets low which is a pretty cool feature. Unrelated note anyone try the pen with it? What does it do and whats the big advantage /deal having it, MS gives it lots of hype.

author: andy3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2020, 10:07:04 pm
content: "Why would you use a majic jack? Free international long distance? Why not just use skype which I think is free."Our landline number is very old and it is listed in everything that we have to deal with. It is very cheap. I pay $35.00 for a whole year that includes whole of the US and Canada. It is also cheaper than making Skype when making international calls. This way, I retain the original number.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2020, 03:07:20 am
content: MagicJack is just SIP, back when I had one IIRC it was a USB dongle that needed a PC, I used a separate SIP adapter that was a box that plugged into my router and had a phone jack on it, no PC needed. I don't know if that's still the case though.Regarding separate modem and router, it's the same reason I prefer to have a separate printer and scanner, a separate TV and streaming device, etc. With a combination device the different functions are permanently married together, if you ever want to replace your router, replace your modem, change from cable to fiber or DSL, or whatever because something craps out, becomes obsolete, stops getting firmware updates or doesn't meet your needs in one way or another you have to replace the entire thing. When you have separate components you can upgrade or replace any individual part without messing with the rest. For example when I upgraded to faster internet a few months ago I found that my router was incapable of sufficient throughput so I replaced it with a faster router. I hate multifunction combination units and don't like to encourage manufactures to make the stupid things by buying them.

author: andy3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2020, 06:38:33 am
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on November 15, 2020, 07:58:14 pmIt is a new unit and the cables are also new. For all purposes, it has given me good service before this. I have sent one abroad and they use it with no issue with just a DSL connection. They can call me for free. For the most part, it gives more value for money.

author: andy3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2020, 06:52:48 am
content: Quote from: james_s on November 16, 2020, 03:07:20 amJames,Yes, it is very much alive! In fact, MJ seems like the only one that offers this pricing/service. You can easily port the number over and it works like a charm. One can't beat the price! Unlike the old dongles, these are stand alone-after you set it up.When you say it is just SIP, do you mean to say I should not disable SIP in the router? MJ support guy said otherwise.With all this, I still can forward the calls to a cell phone. The best is they have a "Magic App" that allows you to use the service on a cell phone while you are travelling. I realized this only a few days back as I never paid any attention to what they had on the web siteSo, for now I can still get by. In fact, I do not miss any calls. May be this is even better! Only issue is that that the better half will want to use my cell phone all the time as she hardly keeps her phone on! In any case, I like to know what went wrong. As you say, resetting the router will be the last thing to try.

author: andy3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2020, 11:39:28 am
content: OK, the mystery is solved. The idea from James made me poke around further and instead of resetting the router, I just changed the SSID name and put it back to the original name. In the process, I had to reboot the thing a few times. This made the hiccup go away although I cannot imagine how it could have anything to do with the MJ which is connected to an Ethernet port with a cable. My thought is that the router somehow was hung up for whatever reason.Thanks James and all who contributed to this solution. Now I can keep my cell phone to myself

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2020, 08:22:41 pm
content: It was probably nothing to do with the MJ itself. More likely something got in a bad state and the packets just weren't being delivered to the right place. There's a lot of complexity going on under the hood in a router, it's kind of remarkable that they work as well as they do.

author: andy3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2020, 12:08:44 am
content: Yes, you are correct. I am sure the old MJ was not bad as well. But however, it did not work in San Diego as usual and that made me buy the new one anyway. Through this experience I found the App and now I don't need to take it with me at all. That is a plus.But all in all, the old unit was in use for over 5 years and at some 30-40 bucks, it has served well I think. Thanks again.

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2020, 05:02:14 am
content: TP-Link 16x4 AC1750 Wi-Fi Cable Modem Router | Gateway | 680Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 - Certified for Comcast XFINITY, Spectrum, Cox and More (Archer CR700)Sold by: Skytech$89.70This is what I* ordered from amazon for some reason they gave me a 30$ giftcard that lowered the price to 59 bucks not bad kind of generic but should work.

author: andy3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2020, 05:23:39 am
content: Did you try the link I sent earlier? I believe they have specific models based on the service address. At my location that model does not show up in the list. Yours may be different.Even if the box or Amazon says it will work with Comcast, if it is not in the approved list from the Comcast web page, you might have an issue getting it registered with them.

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2020, 06:14:36 am
content: Quote from: andy3055 on November 17, 2020, 05:23:39 amI saw the list and assumed that any new docsis 3 would work. I can always send ut back thanks for the list.