Motorola SB6120 SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0 eXtreme Broadband Cable Modem
by Motorola
|
List Price: Our Price: $74.95 You Save: $25.04 (25%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $55.19 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Motorola SB6120 SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0 eXtreme Broadband Cable Modem
Customer Review: Works great with WOW (Wide Open West) cable
Summary: 5 Stars
The one thing I couldn't be sure of before buying this was whether it would work in place of the cable modem I've been leasing from Wide Open West (WOW), our cable TV supplier. And the answer is -- YES! As soon as the package arrived from Amazon, I opened it, set the new cable modem next to my phone, and called WOW's 800 number. It took two voice menu selections to get to customer service, but then only 5 seconds before I was greeted by a cheerful fellow American who was immediately able to enter the only info she needed to set up my modem to work on their system, namely the S/N and MAC address info printed on the modem. She also disabled my leased modem, and gave me the address of where to return it locally so I'll no longer pay a monthly lease fee for it. I then simply plugged the new cable modem in place of the old one, powered it up, and everything just worked.
The modem came with a CD of manuals, but I downloaded those from the Motorola Web site instead. There are lots of blinking lights whose meanings the manuals explain, but I don't expect to worry about them so long as everything continues to work.
I hoped the new modem might be faster than the 8 year old model it replaced, but it is amazingly more responsive - at least triple the speed in a long download, and much faster to respond. Any computer system is no faster than its slowest part, and it's now clear that for us, that was the cable modem before, but no longer.
One more cheer for WOW is that the staffer at the local office who accepted my return was also cheerful, helpful and efficient. He quickly gave me a receipt for the returned modem, and removed it from my bill as we spoke.
I don't know which I like best, WOW or the new Motorola SB6120 cable modem. Both are excellent!
Customer Review: Major improvement compared to old docsis 1.1 modem
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought Motorola sb 6120 to replace my 8 year old Toshiba PCX2200 DOCSIS 1.1 Cable Modem. I have cable Internet service from Comcast in the Maryland suburb of Washington DC, and even though my account was supposed to have download speeds up to 16MBPS, I was never able to get anything higher than 5M down and barely 1M up.
After installing the Motorola Sb 6120, I am getting upwards of 20 megabit download tests and between 7 and 9 MBPS uploads, without replacing any other components.
The installation took about half an hour, and most of that time was spent trying to get the right person at Comcast on the line. I made a mistake of calling the local number listed on my cable bill, talked to 2 people there, and the first one got disconnected while asking me the modem's MAC address, while the second one said that his "computer system was really slow" and asked me to call the 800 number for Comcast support. When I got the right person finally on the line, it took about 5 minutes to give them the serial number and the MAC address of the modem to provision it in their system, and another 5 to reset the cable modem and for me to reboot my machine.
If you use a router on your home network, as I expect most people would - I recommend to temporarily disconnect it and connect the computer directly to the modem for the time of setup. This will simply save on the time needed to reset the computer AND the router to acquire IP addresses and connect to the Internet with the new modem for the first time. After you successfully get on-line with the new modem, you can connect the router, and in most cases it will work without any additional setup.
Customer Review: FAST!
Summary: 5 Stars
I didn't buy this on Amazon (got a better deal at the big box on sale) so this review is for the product, not the seller or sale process. I previously had the older Motorola Surfboard modem for about 6 years and had no issues with it. My father had an even older model so I decided to give him mine and I upgraded to this DOCISS 3 model. I bought this about a month ago and I'm very pleased! It has randomly lost its internet connection a few times for no reason, but unplugging it does the trick. This is a pain but it seems that all modems do this from time to time, however, this one takes a little longer to restart. The one thing my older modem didn't have was this kind of speed! I'm on Cox 15mb down, 5mb up connection, (not sure how accurate speedtestdotnet is) but I seem to be averaging around 25-30mb down, and 4mb up! I have seen peaks of 45mb down!
Update: I have been using this modem everyday for the past few months and it has been great! I don't know if this was a coincidence or possibly a firmware update by Cox, possibly that I got an "Airave" cell phone signal tower 2 months ago (plugs in between the modem and my router) but ever since I got this Airave, I have not had a single disconnect! ROCK SOLID performance... I don't see how the Airave could have any effect on the modem keeping a connection it previously dropped, so I can only assume that Cox issued a firmware update. While my connection is still fast and solid, it is not nearly as fast as it was when I got it (still faster than what I'm paying for). Currently seeing 18-20mbps on wireless and about 20-23 Ethernet. I guess Cox was on to me and throttled my connection back a bit and maybe they decided to keep me connected nonstop to make up for it? Haha jk
Customer Review: Motorola SB6120 modem works great on Comcast.
Summary: 5 Stars
Tired of paying the obscene Comcast modem rental fee ($7/month) I decided to buy my own modem. Before buying, I checked-out reviews for several DOCSIS 3.0 (the latest standard) cable modems. The Motorola SB6120 had good reviews, but apparently "some" Comcast users had trouble with this modem. To avoid problems, I called Comcast and asked if they supported the SB6120 modem? They said they did, and told me there shouldn't be any problem using the SB6120 on Comcast, as long as I notified them (tech support) after I installed the modem.
So, I ordered the Motorola SB6120 from Amazon, and it arrived in good condition in just a few days. The SB6120 comes with good simple instructions that would allow even the technically challenged to make the few necessary connections. After connecting-up the new Motorola modem I called Comcast tech support. They asked me for the MAC (Media Access Control) address, that was clearly listed on the modem. Then there was a brief initialization of the modem, by Comcast. After that I was ready to go, all in less than 10 minutes.
In summary, the Motorola SB6120 modem works fine for me on Comcast. In general, I've found Motorola products to be better than average. NOTE: make sure you get a receipt from Comcast that shows the serial number of the Comcast modem you returned. Even though I did this, I still had trouble getting them to stop charging me a rental fee for the modem; as well as various other problems from Comcast. If you aren't currently using Comcast, I suggest you keep it that way. However, for me, the Motorola SB6120 works great on Comcast. To date, no problems of any kind with the Motorola modem. If needed, I would buy another Motorola SB6120 modem.
Customer Review: Improved My Download Speed. 40Mbps!
Summary: 5 Stars
I had a DOCSIS 2 modem from Comcast that was costing me $5 a month. When I realized I had paid for it for about 48 months, or $240, I figured I could do better. I also wanted a speed boost, and know that Comcast upgraded my area to DOCSIS 3 a year ago, so I bought this modem.
I upgraded to this modem easily, by swapping the cables with my old modem, then calling Comcast to have them activate. Easy. Return old modem to save $5 month fee :-)
I am on a $52/mo data plan that offers 16Mbps/2Mbps sustained, and 20/4 with the short spurt of "Powerboost". I was happily actually getting a bit more, usually seeing speeds around 24/4 under Powerboost.
Powerboost note: If you don't know, Comcast offers users a burst of fast data above your paid rate, to help you complete your downloads faster, but if you use it in a sustained fashion, they will limit you back to your paid rate. This is actually quite useful for average day-to-day use. The idea also behooves Comcast, because it helps them look much better in speed tests, since speed tests usually use a small amount of compressed data, they usually are fully Powerboosted.
Anyway, after upgrading to the Motorola modem, I got download speeds of 40Mbps!!!! I almost always test above 35Mbps. So, while my sustained quoted speeds are still 16/2, I'm getting over double that under Powerboost, and notably more than with the DOCSIS 2 modem. The downside is that, for whatever reason, my upload speeds have decreased to around 3.7Mbps from the prior 4. Can't win 'em all.
Conclusion: Money saved, speed increased. Easy upgrade. Good times. 5/5. Almost -1 star for slower upload, but not quite.