Review on 🔌 NETGEAR N600 (8x4) WiFi DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem Router (C3700) – Xfinity, Spectrum, Cox & More by John Ortiz

I recently moved to a new location in Los Angeles and needed a reliable Time Warner compatible wireless cable modem and router as I work from home on my computer, do remote software setup and do a lot of network sharing meetings. Daily. While some advise you to buy a separate modem and router instead of a combo box, I decided to try this modem/router combination ("gateway") and after 2 months of use it turned out to be very fast, reliable and perfect for my needs. For those who aren't sure what "dual-band" means, when you want to connect to a wireless network, you'll see two signals from this router that you can connect to (see below). specified using the default password on a small sticker on the device itself). A connection on the 2.4GHz band is slower and likely to be more congested since most of your neighbors are likely to be using that band, but it has a greater wireless range than the 5GHz band, which is likely to be much less congested, as it requires a 5GHz capable router as well as a 5GHz capable WiFi card in your computer or device and much faster (twice for me) but with less range. Unless you change them using Genie software (see below), they'll likely show up in the list with something like NETGEAR for the 2.4 band and NETGEAR 5G if your wireless card supports 5GHz. It's usually a good idea to change them to something more unique so potential hackers don't know what router/gateway you're using. Continue with my personal results. . .I don't like cables so I only connect wirelessly and I can only tell you what the results of my wireless connection are: I live in a 1000 sqm 2 bedroom apartment. Walking in the heart of downtown Los Angeles where I can now see 16 more 2.4GHz wireless networks and more 5GHz networks. Range - although the range is less for a 5GHz signal, it only drops 1 bar for me when I move to a different room, but this depends on your own floor plan, the walls between rooms and how congested your area is by others connected to the same band and channel etc. Speed – I was just doing a test when I was writing this review and got a download speed of 104.14Mbps and an upload speed of 11.10 on the 5th -GHz band received. I typically go from around 80Mbps during the busiest times of the day to almost 110Mbps on the 5GHz band and 40-50Mbps when uploading to the 2.4 band and around 10Mbps consistently /s. Download speed on both bands. Again, keep in mind that the speed you can achieve depends on what speed you pay your ISP for, whether your WiFi card is capable of receiving a 5.0 signal to get the higher speed, that this modem is capable of, network congestion, etc. Oddly enough, the card in my new computer doesn't support 5GHz, so I don't see that network connection in my list when I log in from that computer while the wireless card supported in my old computer 5 GHz. Neither does my old iPhone 4s, but my iPad 4 does. But for me it's pretty consistent, getting around 50Mbps on the 2.4 band in a congested area with 4 devices connected (without my wireless printer) - far more than I need for everything I do with my computers make. Reliability - what was most important to me was reliability with no disconnection during operation, and so far it has been reliable. I've had a total of once in over 2 months where it would disconnect around midnight for about 10 minutes and then reconnect on its own without me having to do anything. I suspect the drop was the cable company and not the device. I have never had to restart the device. Another thing I'm happy with is that my Brother MFC-7860DW wireless multifunction printer (in a different room than this Netgear Gateway) has no problem scanning wirelessly. I was a bit concerned because I was temporarily living in another apartment for 2 months while waiting to move into this one, this location had a Netgear Gateway and I couldn't get it to scan wirelessly which I've never had a problem with had when I was using my AT&T wireless DSL modem. This is important to me because sometimes I need to sign and scan documents in order to send them and it seems like everyone has taken to emailing scanned documents instead of faxing them. I found the Netgear Genie software to be intuitive and easy to use/navigate. To log in, simply type 192.168.0.1 in your browser's address bar or "routerlogin.net" (works the same way). There you will see a place where you can enter your username and password. The default username is "admin" and the default password is "password" (unless/until you change it) and you're in! From there you can do almost anything, including scanning your neighbors' channels so you can pick a less congested channel. I let the program choose the least busy channel for me (choose "Auto" for this). You can also change the default connection password from the one on the sticker on your Netgear device if you want, view the status of your wired connection (good, fair, etc.), a network map that shows the number of devices connected to the router. /gateway, which it is (if you see something unknown, it's possible someone is on your network), set parental controls, and even enable a "guest" wireless network for guests to connect to , separate from your own, so put it on you don't need to tell them your password to connect. And the last. From other reviews I've read, you can't connect to a VPN (Virtual Private Network) with this device. If you don't know what it is, you probably don't care. Until recently, my job required using a VPN for certain purposes. Fortunately, this is no longer the case. Otherwise this device would not be suitable for my needs. I hope this review helps those who have either already bought it or are considering buying it. Again, I can only report on my experiences with this device after 2 months of use. Your results may vary.