Review on ARRIS SURFboard SB6141 Cable Modem - Enhanced DOCSIS 3.0 Speeds - Retail Packaging, White by Clinton Youmans

*** 2 Year Update *** Well, after two years of using this product and a series of unexplained service outages, Comcast Tier 3 Support and I have finally determined that this modem was to blame and not Comcast Internet. We don't know exactly what the problem is, but the modem hangs (and requires a reboot) every time it receives a lot of traffic. For example, I could easily and reliably freeze a modem simply by running two or three Comcast SpeedTests. I've had some extremely important, high-bandwidth video presentations for the past two weeks and found the modem to hang about once an hour. A very serious reliability issue that caused my presentations to not look smooth to my clients. So I did a little research and found that several people are complaining about the same intermittent crash (just look at other Revain stellar reviews and you'll see a pattern). This modem has either a serious firmware issue (not fixed by regular Comcast updates) or a hardware issue. All I know is that it didn't work under pressure. The modem does one thing and one thing only. And apparently the Arris SB6141 doesn't do that very well, much to my chagrin. I have since replaced this modem with a Zoom 8X4 modem which is in the same performance class as this modem (ie has eight channels and can handle connections over 200 Mbps). Not only did the Zoom modem not fail, but the methods I have used to reliably cause the Arris modem to fail simply do not have the same effect on Zoom. So far, Zoom has been rock solid - and cost half the price of Arris. Installing the Zoom 8X4 modem and running it with Comcast literally took less than five minutes from unboxing to getting online. I originally bought Arris because of their partnership with Motorola, but I've now lost confidence in their products. Check out Zoom instead. Btw, I have an additional Arris SB6141 for sale at a really great price if you're interested. =============== I bought this modem on the recommendation of Comcast to get away from the standard cable modem and router configuration ($10/month and not being able to use Wi-Fi with higher using subscription speeds - that's a long story). The device arrived a day after I ordered it. I called Comcast Technical Support and told them I would be replacing their modem with my own Moto Surfboard 6141. Her first comment was "Great modem!". She then went through her setup steps and directed me when to install the modem. Once the modem was powered on, it was properly configured using the Comcast Configuration Manager and was fully functional. No fuss no fuss and very professional (American) staff. Five minutes and no hassle, so from that perspective it was a great buy. What I didn't realize is that this modem actually carries twice as many channels as the Technicolor modem it replaced (communications channels, not TV channels). This means it is designed to operate at twice the bandwidth of the modem it replaces. So I ran a SpeedTest and in fact I was able to get download speeds of 120Mbps - WOW! My previous modem could only receive about 45 Mbit/s. Now I can take full advantage of the bandwidth that Comcast pays for. It was one of those purchases that was so good, so easy, and setup so easy and painless, I can't recommend it. higher. An absolutely fantastic purchase that exceeded my initial expectations both in terms of performance and the way Comcast would treat the device. Five stars.