I just came back to Mediacom for internet service after not having an account for about a year, and I decided to step up to the new Ultra 100Mbps service (up to 150 offered in my neighborhood). I want to own my modem to save the $5/month bill involved with renting one from Mediacom, but I'm on my 3rd modem now after activating service last week and I absolutely cannot get anywhere close to 100Mbps downstream. Upstream seems relatively consistent at 10Mbps.
I started by purchasing the internet-consensus #1 modem...the Motorola SB6141, but I had nothing but problems with firmware and even keeping the modem powered on. My wife told me that the tech saw the modem reboot almost 15 times trying to auto-apply the latest firmware when first connecting to Mediacom's network. Even though it eventually worked the modem also completely shut itself off and rebooted 5 different times in the 2 hours from when the tech left my home and before I got home from work.
Seeming defective, I took the SB6141 back to the store and replaced it with a Zoom 5341J. I had never heard of the brand, but since it was also 8x4 and DOCSIS 3.0 I gave it a shot. The modem stayed powered on and never shut itself off, but now downstream speed was all over the place. 50Mbps here, 12Mbps there, then 70Mbps...all over the place. Called Mediacom support and scheduled a tech to come out and investigate signals.
The tech come out today to take a look at things, and he found that there was a filter on our line that needed to be taken off to improve our signals. Unfortunately the variable downstream speeds weren't fixed with the removal of the filter. Since all signals and everything looked good through diagnostics, the tech pulled up the modem diagnostic page and saw that only 4 of the 8 downstream channels were getting "locked in", and and he concluded that was probably the issue in getting consistent connection speed. He suspected that things could be fixed with a firmware update, but since it was my own modem he couldn't flash it for me (understandable). The tech left, and then I waited on hold for an hour to talk with Zoom's tech support to see if I could get a firmware update pushed to my modem. While on hold I Googled around to see what the latest firmware was, and I already had it installed on my unit. Did a factory reset just to see if that would work...no dice. My call was suddenly disconnected before I could talk to someone (on hold for 60 minutes mind you), so I wiped my hands clean of that company and their products and took it back to the store.
Running out of options I returned to a Motorola Unit, but this time I went with the SB6121. It is only a 4x4 unit, so I am a bit uncomfortable about its potential for "future-proofing" our connection speed to match up with Mediacom's aggressive infrastructure rollout of late. I will take it though if it means getting a semi-consistent 100Mbps downstream. In the first few hours of having it connected, Our downstream speeds are still all over the place...anwyere between 30Mbps and 75Mbps.
What are my options at this point? I feel like it shouldn't be this complicated to get internet service up and going, and I also feel like it shouldn't be difficult to deliver consistent 100Mpbs when it's not even the fastest speed available in my area. Are there any other modems/brands I should try? I've tapped out the options I can try locally, so I'll be stuck with what I have until I can get something delivered from Amazon or Newegg.
I just want consistent 100Mpbs.
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