Home :: Computers :: Components :: Networking :: Broadband Access  

Broadband Access

Telephony
Wired Networks
Wireless Networks
Motorola Surfboard SB5100 Cable Modem

Motorola Surfboard SB5100 Cable Modem

List Price: $149.99
Your Price: $77.99
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Motorola's name is put high with the SB5100 cable modem.
Review: I recently bought the Motorola sb5100 and it has been flawless (except for when my ISP went offline). Installation took only about 5 minutes, the network connection was done automatically.
The speed also improved very much. I downloaded a 175 MB file in 19 seconds!!!!! No kidding, whereas with my old RCA modem (rental) it would've taken at least 5 or 10 minutes. Anyway, I think Motorola put it's 50 or so years of electronic-communication experience on this baby and voila! the best Cable Modem was born. Congratulations to Motorola.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Motorola Surfboard Cable Modem
Review: I wish the installation material had said to install the modem first and then call the cable provider. My ISP said to install it and then call back. I was delayed about 15 minutes because of that.

The biggest problem I had was with my ISP. It took them a hour to get me online without my router. When I put my router in more configuration problems.

It now works!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Modem.Great Price. Would Highly Recommend
Review: I got this modem after being feed up with paying modem rental fees and boy am I glad I did! It is a solid performer and looks much better then my rental modem.

Setup was very easy and I had no problems. Took just a few minutes to get setup after providing the cable company with the MAC address and customer serial number of the modem. It has been on for 4 months now and the connection has never dropped. The standby feature is a nice extra if you will be away from your pc and want to protect it from the internet "nastiness".
The overall footprint of this modem is very small. I also love that it comes with a regular 2-prong plug and not a "Wall-Wart" block transformer plug (although it does have a transformer block in the middle of the cord.)

I also love that you can view the internal page diagnostics, which is helpful for troubleshooting. I have been able to use the internal diagnostics while going through a Netgear FR314, Linksys BEFSR41, and Cisco PIX 501 firewall (I could not do this on my previous modems.)

I have also noticed a slight speed increase with this modem over my previous Ericsson PipeRider and Motorola 4200 modems. The best part is that this modem's speed is much more consistent than the other two modems. I never worry if I will have great speed and reliability with this modem.
Overall, I'm very satisfied with this modem because it works great, looks great, and a small footprint. It is well worth the money.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: GREAT CABLE MODEM
Review: This is a wonderful cable modem. I bought it recently based on what I read in reviews and the fact that it carries the Motorola name. I couldn't be happier with my purchase. It was easy to set up, is fast, lightweight, and offers a standby option. This modem will not disappoint!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Much better than the old days of broadband
Review: I first had broad band for about 18 months in 1997-98 in San Diego with Dimension, then bought by Time-Warner.

Those were the days. There were only about three hundred thousand people in the whole nation using it so I had something ten people on my node. It was so fast it was freakin' amazing. Tho' I don't have a problem with 128/1.5 service Cox is providing, there are so many more usage restrictions. When it started there were no throughput limits (7.5GB a month?), VPNs were cool and they didn't care if you ran a website off it because your IP address was permanent. Now that changes every quarter, which I realize, is now a good thing.

And the speed! Jesus. I once downloaded a 100+MB file in less than three minutes across it. I literally clicked "save" walked out the room to grab a beer and when I came back it had finished.

And it was always like that.

The problem was the ancient Motorola Cable modem I had. It was about the size of shoe box, tho' not as tall. It was a pain in the butt. Couple that with the bad router that was in my node and it was a nightmare sometimes to get any connection at all let alone the light speed one I normally had. It was a disappointment going to work at a Real-Time computing company where I had lousy ISDN. Once, for a whole I month I could barely hit the routers for more than an hour at a time and bam! I was down. Time-Warner Tech Support was always really helpful I must say.

This new Motorola SB5100 was amazing. No drivers to install. No software what so ever. The guy just plugged the modem (to my brand new out of the box Sony Vaio PCV-RS420. Combining broadband with the 2.8 gig processor and this thing screams even with the bandwidth collars.

I have to say that, after being without broadband for nearly five years it is heaven to be back.

The only problem I had with the modem was when my dumb self decided to see if my USB 2.0 ports would get me faster throughput speed than the Ethernet card. Big mistake. I could not get an IP address or anything else tho I'd followed the fold-out that came with modem's directions to a tee.

Chagrined, the retired tech support guy had to call Cox tech support. The girl was fast, smart and very good. She had me up and running again in five minutes. Seems all I probably had to do was reset the modem and it would have worked. Once tech support had me reconnected to the Ethernet card, the modem was reset, it found the router and away I went.

This sounds stupid I know, but I thought the RESET button on top of the modem was the power button. It looks like one. And the SB5100 doesn't have an obvious power button. In fact, tech support had me unplug its power cable before resetting it (I assume so the network would re-register it).

Cox tech support (Las Vegas) told me they didn't support the USB method. Sounds like BS to me. My networking knowledge is not great enough to know whether this is true or not. I was probably kidding myself thinking USB would increase my speed over the 100Mbps card the machine came with.

I do highly recommend this product. Cox's promotion (we bought a new house in a new development) was no rental fees for a year then discount purchase. Great deal. And only 34.95 a month. Fifteen bucks cheaper than DSL. But is it really faster? Since DSL, or so I have been told, isn't nodal based (how can it be TCP/IP, again my lack of network knowledge isn't that great; even tho' I once worked for one of the Nets chief "fixers" in the early 70s when DARPANET was first being developed; in fact, his company made the cable modem router's real-time computer "brains."

Anyway, buy it. Its twenty bucks cheaper on this site than Wal-Mart where I saw it just days ago.

Cheers to all. I'm glad to be rid of all the digital modem problems of the old days, but broadband is not the wide open high it was five years ago. The bureaucrats have descended and they ain't going away.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works Great
Review: I've not had one problem with this modem since I got it. I was renting one from CableOne and I decided to save the $5/mo and get my own. It's idiot proof and problem free.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's just so easy!
Review: It's the easiest installation I've ever done. The only thing it doesn't tell you is that you need to have just about every protocol there is installed already for the connection to work. Nevertheless, it's just awesome. GET IT IF YOU WANT A SOLID CONNECTION! :-D

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome!!! The easiest install yet- open, plug in, done
Review: and run a CD rom. No problems, LOVE the thing. Why oh why have I enriched the cable provide for so long? You absolutely can't go wrong with this one

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It just works!
Review: I have had the SB5100 for over 3 months now, and had no problem with it. Just plug it in, plug your computer in, and you are good to go!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent value!
Review: Simply put this is the best value for the money (especially if you are paying the cable company $$$ a month). The modem does a great job of maintaining it's connection to the cable company's servers and works extremely well with my Linksys router. Over the past 4 months I have never had to reset the modem or my router to regain a connection to the network (something my RCA modem was horrible about). The connection speed appears to be as consistent as the modem provided by the cable company (RCA).

Overall, great value, no complaints!


<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates