modem – Graves On SOHO Technology

Owning The Comcast CPE

August 5, 2015
Michael Graves
networking

Motorola Arris SB6141 cable modem For the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about the Comcast issued CPE that lives in my office. It’s a modem/router combination from SMC. We’ve had the service a long while. All the while we’ve been renting the device for $12.95 a month.

I can’t recall exactly when we transitioned from consumer to business class service. If I assume that it was five years ago, then we’ve paid over $750 in device rental! This for a device that can be purchased outright for under $200.

Clearly, this makes no sense at all. So last week I replaced the Comcast CPE with a Motorola/Arris SURFBoardSB6141. The choice of the SB6141 was made by consulting Comcast’s list of approved devices, and cross-referencing the SmallWall forums where Lee Sharp had some helpful advice to offer.

Comcast Business Class Internet Access Installed

February 27, 2009
Michael Graves
Broadband

The deed is done. We now have Comcast Business Class internet instead of their consumer offering. This is in addition to our realiable old Covad DSL.

The tech finally arrived about four hours late. Prior to that Comcast actually called to tell me that he was going to miss the 11am – 2pm window for the installation. That was nice.

The Karl-ification of My Home Office Broadband

February 24, 2009
Michael Graves
Broadband

The great thing about the weekly VUC calls is that there’s just so much to learn from the various participants. I sometimes struggle to know if I prefer when we have formal guests vs those weeks when we just ramble aimlessly through the seemingly endless universe of VoIP geek minutia.

comcast256 Here’s a case in point, some weeks ago VUC regular Karl Fife indicated that he had Comcast Business Class internet service…to his home. This got me thinking. When we added the cable modem about a year and half ago we just ordered it through Comcast’s normal consumer channel. That seemed simple enough. It’s how we had the similar service from Time-Warner Cable long, long ago. I simply never occurred to me that we could go through the business services office.

Comcast Post-Ike: Just As Helpful As Centerpoint

It’s been very frustrating dealing with the utility companies with respect to restoring service in the post-Ike period. At issue is their inability to get and redistribute information about who’s on, who’s not, and routine progress reports. Today for a short while my focus turned to Comcast as our cable tv and cable modem service remains down.