Faster internet will cost you
Getting the fastest service available is one thing, paying for the necessary hardware can be another
Bleeding-edge internet service bleeds wallet, one way or another.
As happens each March, I recently got the notification that my Comcast internet bill was about to go up, this time by about $20 a month. It was time to call and negotiate a new deal — an annual dance that I both dread and, strangely, look forward to. It’s my own personal rite of spring.
This time, though, I got a surprise. The Comcast representative I spoke with offered me the company’s 1-gigabit-per-second service, saying there was a “special” in my neighborhood. It would cost the same as I was paying for my 275-Mbps service, and the price would be locked in for two years, though the contract would only run for one of those.
This seemed like a nobrainer at the time. Gig speed for the same price? And with 35 Mbps uploads, vs. 10 Mbps on my old plan? I’ve always chafed at Comcast’s stingy upload speeds. Sign me up! (And no, AT&T’s fiber service isn’t available where I live.)
Little did I know the offer would send me down a rabbit hole that would cost me a lot in hardware. In the end, I learned some things, and the lessons were expensive.
Rather than rent Comcast’s equipment for my internet-only service, I own my cable modem and router. It has paid for itself over time, since Comcast charges $14 a month to rent their combo unit. Plus, it lets me update each component individually if necessary.
In order to use Comcast’s gig-speed service, I needed to upgrade my modem, which uses the DOCSIS 3.0 cable standard, 3.1. to a DOCSIS The older modem was reasonably priced, selling usually well below $90. DOCSIS 3.1 modems are significantly more expensive. I chose a Netgear CM1000, which cost $165 when I ordered it.
But when it arrived, the best WiFi speeds I got were around 300 Mbps. Connecting directly to the modem with an Ethernet cable, I got close to 700 Mbps. It turns out that my 4-year-old Netgear R6400 router, which uses the common 802.11ac WiFi standard, couldn’t deliver the speeds I was now paying for. You can guess what happened next. I went looking for a new router. And I decided that, since I keep my routers four to five years, I wanted to get ahead of the curve.
The WiFi world is in a transition between 802.11ac, which is used by most routers and the devices that talk to them, and 802.11ax, also known as WiFi 6. My wife and I have iPhone 11 Pro models that are WiFi 6capable, and chances are the next computers we buy will support it. So, I decided to go with a WiFi 6 router.
Like DOCSIS 3.1 modems, these are not cheap as they are bleeding-edge hardware. Looking at recommendations and doing some research, I settled on TPLink’s Archer AX6000, a WiFi 6 router that I bought for $269. Its specifications are impressive, even if its price is painful.
Once the router arrived, I began testing. My iPhone 11 Pro Max, which is WiFi 6-compatible, gets the fastest connection and at one point I got well over 630 Mbps. Other devices are getting between 300-400 Mbps.
I had one annoying glitch, though. Modern routers have at least two radios, sending signals at 5 GHz, which delivers the fastest speeds but doesn’t travel very far, and 2.4 GHz, which has better range but slower speeds, and is subject to interference from other electronics. My 2012 Mac mini was having a hard time with the 5-GHz connection, which typically delivers the fastest speed. It did very well on the usually slower 2.4 GHz connection, which was weird.
This was driving me nuts, so I asked about it on Twitter. ZDNet tech writer Adrian Kingsley suggested “futzing” with the channel settings for the 5-GHz radio. Sure enough, the default was set to one particular channel. I changed it to
Auto, so the router would choose the best channel, and voila! My Mac mini is now as speedy as everything else.
I checked in with Comcast tech support last week once I knew all my devices were working properly to see if I could get the 960 Mbps, which is the maximum speed supported. Via chat, a technician ran a diagnostic check on Comcast’s signal to my modem, and I’m getting the best I can, apparently.
Was it worth it? It will take about 32 months before the new hardware pays for itself at Comcast’s current
$14 equipment rental rate.
Conventional wisdom says you can save money by owning your modem and router. But if you are using a gigabit-speed service that requires a state-of-the-art modem and router, you may be better off using the company’s rental equipment.
And here’s another wrinkle: DOCIS 4.0, the next version of cable modem technology capable of speeds up to 10 Gbps, will be tested soon and could be common in a few years. There will be a new bleeding edge, and my wallet’s in pain just thinking about it.
This story originally appeared in Dwight Silverman’s Release Notes newsletter. Sign up at houstonchronicle.com/ releasenotes.