General

[comovartia]

I have had my internet through my cable provider for over 10 years. I bought my modem about 7 years ago. My question is has there been advances made on cable modems that would make it worth spending $80 for a newer modem? Would I see better speeds or would I not see a difference?

[Rayodder]

Nope, the Advances are on the ISP side, you will need to upgrade to a higher level service before you will see any increase in speed.

[onecaribou]

Hang onto your cable modem for as long as you can. The devices they are offering today are truly garbage compared to what was available 7-10 years ago. The quality of parts used has really fallen off as the devices have become more and more mainstream.

My guess is that you have an early Motorola Surfboard.. probably one of the most stable cable modems out there.

[comovartia]

yes I have a Motorola Surfboard. I will keep it then. I just didn't know if with all of the advances in technology if a new one would benefit me.

[Harbinger[TG]]

Originally Posted by onecaribou

Hang onto your cable modem for as long as you can. The devices they are offering today are truly garbage compared to what was available 7-10 years ago. The quality of parts used has really fallen off as the devices have become more and more mainstream.

My guess is that you have an early Motorola Surfboard.. probably one of the most stable cable modems out there.

I would not call a surfboard "stable" in any sense. I probably fried over 10 of them over a few years.

[Lrrpie-CT]

Originally Posted by comovartia

I have had my internet through my cable provider for over 10 years. I bought my modem about 7 years ago. My question is has there been advances made on cable modems that would make it worth spending $80 for a newer modem? Would I see better speeds or would I not see a difference?

Well, yes, there have been improvements made to cable modems in the past seven years. The older specification for cable modems was DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) 1.0/1.1 which had certain data rate limitations. In '02 or so the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) ratified DOCSIS 2.0 which increased the maximum possibly upload rate on modems from 10 Mbps to 30 Mbps. Download with both standards is a max of 42 Mbps.

Recently ITU ratified DOCSIS 3.0 which introduces a standard allowing for max download rates of 171 Mbps or even higher and upload data rates of 122 Mbps! I'm not aware of any cable networks deploying DOCSIS 3.0 data rates yet.

So, your cable provider might support a newer standard but it most likely won't have impact on you. If your Motorola Surfboard is working properly then don't bother. I've found the Motorola's to be the most reliable of the manufacturers that I've used or supported. There is a chance that your provider offers premium data rate packages above your modem's capabilities but it's unlikely...

[onecaribou]

If you've fried 10 of anything over the last few years then perhaps you have an issue with your electricity. I've found that using a UPS for my Gateways, Routers, NAS, etc helps keep failures to a minimum.

[Surestick]

Originally Posted by Lrrpie-CT

Well, yes, there have been improvements made to cable modems in the past seven years. The older specification for cable modems was DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) 1.0/1.1 which had certain data rate limitations. In '02 or so the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) ratified DOCSIS 2.0 which increased the maximum possibly upload rate on modems from 10 Mbps to 30 Mbps. Download with both standards is a max of 42 Mbps.

Recently ITU ratified DOCSIS 3.0 which introduces a standard allowing for max download rates of 171 Mbps or even higher and upload data rates of 122 Mbps! I'm not aware of any cable networks deploying DOCSIS 3.0 data rates yet.

So, your cable provider might support a newer standard but it most likely won't have impact on you. If your Motorola Surfboard is working properly then don't bother. I've found the Motorola's to be the most reliable of the manufacturers that I've used or supported. There is a chance that your provider offers premium data rate packages above your modem's capabilities but it's unlikely...

Given the upload speed caps most ISPs put on their broadband service it's doubtful a home user would be able to take advantage of the 10Mbps upload let alone the higher speed.
My connection for example is 10Mbps down & 1Mbps up, even then, if I'm using the full upload capacity downloads slow down to the point that they become unusable.

Spend the $80 on paint!

[Harbinger[TG]]

Originally Posted by onecaribou

If you've fried 10 of anything over the last few years then perhaps you have an issue with your electricity. I've found that using a UPS for my Gateways, Routers, NAS, etc helps keep failures to a minimum.

Nope. Only the modems got fried.

[Amoryl]

i've never had a surfboard that didn't suck, my current one will just fubar itself at least once every night, usually 3 or more and won't right itself until i unplug everything for at least 5 minutes, sometimes it requires i do that 2 or 3 times before it works.