powerful modem for N900?

Question

Recently moved back to USA and staying at my mother's house atm. My step dad has COX as his internet provider. they have the same modem and router since they moved into this house 8-9 years ago.. the router is a piece of crap old school G-router and the modem is Motorola thing.. I want to go out and get the Netgear N900 router but would the modem bottleneck it since its almost a decade old? Would i have to replace the modem as well or is that something COX would replace? Might be a stupid question but kinda clueless how things works here. in Norway where i was living, the internet provider issued a modem and a simple router for free..

Thanks!

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

How fast is your Cox service?

Go to http://speedtest.net and test your Internet speed.

Internet speeds are measured in Mbps, which is millions of (bits) per second, not to be confused with MB/s which is millions of (bytes) per second.

You also need to find out what Cox speed tier your step dad is paying for.

If your Motorola modem is a older DOCSIS 2.0 model and you are paying for a speed tier over 25 Mbps. then you are probably not seeing the throughput that you should.

I have Cox and have had good luck with a DOCSIS 3.0 Motorola 6120. http://isp1.us/reviews/motorola-sb6120-surfboard/

As far as the modem being a bottleneck, you need to understand how a router works.

You are connected to two networks when you connect to the Internet through a router.

The first network is your LAN. This is the connection between your computer and your router. This is where the wireless G (54 Mbps) and wireless N (150 Mbps) speeds come into play.

The LAN consists of all the computers and devices hooked to your router in your house. Connections will always default to the slowest device. For example if you have a wireless N router (150 Mbps) connected to a wireless G laptop (54 Mbps), then the laptop can communicate with the router at 54 Mbps. If you wanted to copy a file from your laptop to a desktop connected to your router via a Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps) cable connection, then you could do that at the laptop's wireless G speed of 54 Mbps.

Now for the WAN speed. The Internet is the other network connected to your router via your broadband modem. 

The Internet is a Wide Area Network or WAN. Your DSL or cable modem can communicate with your Internet provider at a maximum of (Your ISP Service Plan) Mbps. This connection bandwidth is shared by your entire LAN via your router. For example if you have a 3 Mbps DSL plan and one user is utilizing 2 Mbps of the bandwidth to stream a Netflix movie that only leaves 1 Mbps for all of the rest of the users on the LAN.

I provide a much more detailed explanation here: http://isp1.us/article/internet-speeds/

No matter how fast your router is, you are still limited by the WAN speed that is provided via your ISP.

Only real way to increase Internet speed is to upgrade your plan or get a faster ISP. 

Good Luck...

Trending News

powerful modem for N900?

1 Answer