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TWC Extreme

Upgraded my broadband plan to TWC Extreme.

Arris DG860A

With the price drop and a free WiFi modem included, it was only a few dollars more than the Turbo plan I was on, which incurred a modem lease. I felt a bit queasy giving up the Ambit U10C018 cable modem, that had served me well for 8 years, for an Arris DG860A.

My plan was to hand off the wireless ‘N’ clients to the DG860A and leave the wireless ‘G’ clients on my WRT54GL. The plan was thwarted by the DG860A’s wireless range.

The DG860A, on wireless ‘N’ mode only, could barely send a signal to the computers on the second floor of my house. This particular Arris modem was new in the box, so it wasn’t a case of old equipment, just inferior. The only thing left to do was to set it to bridged mode and let the WRT54GL keep handling the weight of my network.

TWC Extreme is a 30/5 best case scenario, fearful the WRT54GL wouldn’t keep up, I fired up Firefox pointing to testmy.net. The wired desktop gave me a result of 32.9/4.2, the wireless laptop on my desk reported 18.4/2.8. A sigh of relief came over me, my old router still had it in him. The computers on the second floor are reporting speeds of 14 to 18 down and 4 to 6 up.

After making a survey of all my computers, the wireless cards in all of them work on the 2.4GHz band. So a dual-band wireless router won’t do me any good, and I’ve read the 5GHz band is weaker penetrating walls anyway. I’ll keep reading smallnetbuilder for a suitable replacement for the overclocked WRT54GL running Tomato.

Inferior cable modem/router aside, I like being able to run DOCSIS 3.0, there is no apparent slowdown in the evenings as I was experiencing with the DOCSIS 2.0 Ambit modem. My internet speed tests are consistent any time of day they are run, but why did I have to upgrade my broadband plan to get these benefits?

Maybe TWC will offer cable modems with better WiFi in the future, I’ll keep checking, but I won’t hold my breath. Seeing as how Charlotte is the home to TWC, you would think they would treat us to better equipment with better speeds, but hey, breathe in, breathe out.

I’m paralyzed
Process information
At the speed of light
I’m frozen
In motion
Desensitized
Over stimulated matter
Over mind
Knowing I have become
Comfortably dumb
I have become
Comfortably dumb