modem advice -- motorola's SB6141?

i'm moving to a new place and just purchased internet service yesterday. 25Mbps down with a 5Mbps "powerboost" for the first 20MB of a given download if the derpwith's available. i've had my eye on motorola's SB6141 for awhile now, and it looks like one can be had for $60-70 on ebay. i think $67 is the cheapest i've seen it retail for brand new. the ISP, cox communications, apparently only offers wireless modem combo units to rent -- and at their $10/month rate, the surfboard would pay for itself in 6-8 months.

my question is basically would the 6141 be overkill? i called my ISP to ask how many channels are bonded to this so-called "preferred" package and they seemed to have even less of an idea of what that means than i do. my guess is the four additional downlinks are superfluous and the SB6121 would be just fine, but does future-proofing come into play at all? i'm partial to the surfboards, but does anybody have a totally different recommendation?

(for needless background, it'll be paired with a netgear WNDR4000 at least until the ASUS 87U and linksys's new WRT are released.)

 

SB6141 is not that really overkill. There are places where 150 Mbps cable connection isn't too expensive and only SB6141 can provide that throughput. I own the SB6121 since it was $40 sale when I got but the SB6141 was upwards of $89 at the time of purchase. For the most part, the ISP won't even bother using the other 4 streams of the SB6141 unless your plan is around 75 - 100 Mbps. If the price difference for 6141 and 6121 is under $20, then get the 6141 without hesitation. Also if you find SB6121 under $50, then I would prefer that over the 6141 unless you absolutely need to go over 100 Mbps in the future.

 

I have the surfboard SBG6580 - it's a combo router/modem. I have comcast in S.E. United states, i get 50-60mps down and 10-15mbs up. Haven't had any problems with it and it beats the heck out of what the ISP would give me.

 

I would just go with whatever docsis 3 modem you can find that gets decent reviews and supports the highest speed you think you will need, and a good router to go with it. While there is nothing wrong with modem/router combos, I don't really like them as I find the router and modem parts are seldom anywhere near as good as even a basic stand-alone unit of either type, particularly on the router front. For example, one of (or several of) the surfboard models is "dual-band", but you have to manually switch the bands from 2.4 to 5 yourself. So if one device on the network doesn't support 5, you can't use it at all. It's literally the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life.

 

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