Review on Ambit U10C018 DOCSIS Cable Modem by George Bell

Bought as a temporary replacement for my regular modem. I sent my "good" DOCSIS 3.0 modem to my move to have it set up when I arrived and bought the cheapest compatible modem as a temporary measure until I'm gone. I had to call my ISP (Cox Communications) because I couldn't load the register modem page, which you are automatically redirected to when you connect new hardware. The tech told me that this modem is old enough to be on the "grandfather" list, so I don't expect it to be working at all in a few years. After it was registered and earned, I started using the internet. connection as usual. The theoretical top speed for this modem is approximately 35 Mbps, or 4.3 megabytes per second (MB/s). I've only ever seen half of it, and if I try to do anything with more than 1MB/s (8Mbps) of bandwidth, I quickly lose my connection entirely. It got to the point where I had to download software onto my computer to specifically limit the maximum bandwidth so I wouldn't accidentally break the modem by accidentally watching a video when Windows decides to download an update or something . I occasionally got 1.5 MB/s, but only in less than two hours. the 1 MB/s limit is the only way to permanently prevent the modem from shutting down. I don't really know why the modem loses connection. I'd say there's a 50/50 chance it's either the modem or the cables in my apartment. With my good modem I sometimes had the same problem (twice in a year when I was using this ISP the modem lost connection and I had to restart the modem and disconnect it) but only after I downloaded a lot of files, via torrent the highest speed I pay for (150Mbps or about 18MB/s) for any length of time. So this modem could be junk, or I have a bad cable and my good modem has better error correction. I'm not sure. In my experience this works as long as you're good at about 1/4 the speed it's capable of. If your ISP only has 12Mbps or less available, then this modem is a great and cheap way to get equipment rental fees off your bill. If I ever use this modem again it will be in a different location and I will update this review when it works better.