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mmorse's avatar
mmorse
New Contributor

what do I need?

I just upgraded to premiere from approved. with approved I was getting the full 50mbps with my existing equipment. with the upgrade i'm still only getting 50-55. I connected one of my macs directly to my modem (surfboard 6141) and was able to get 96. I have an ancient netgear rp614 router and two second gen airport base stations. one for upstairs and one for downstairs. the base stations have Gb ports and have a theoretical 300 throughput so I'm guessing they will handle 100-150. i'm thinking the issue is with the old router as those ports are only 10/100. I called cox tech support and she told me what ever i was getting wired would be cut in half by wifi. the fact that i got 96 wired direct and 55 wifi it makes sense. problem is with my old 50mbps service I was getting 50 on both wired and wifi on a regular basis going through the old router. she had no real answer for that. my question is should i just replace the router with a new wired router or would I be better off going with a modem router with wifi like the arris 6900? i dont know much about networking. if i go with one that has wifi, how will it perform dealing with two story house with the modem upstairs at one end of the house and most wifi devices downstairs at the other end of the house. the house is 2000 sq ft. opinions welcome.

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  • StephanieS's avatar
    StephanieS
    Moderator
    mmorse

    Your current older router is more than likely causing the slow speeds wirelessly. The Arris 6900 that you're referring to is a great wifi modem, it also has 16 channels which is great too. You may want to make sure that you keep your receipt if you do make that purchase and try it out to see how it works for you. If it doesn't work so great, you can return it and try something else. Since we cannot control a wireless signal it's very tough to guarantee any specific wireless speeds.

    StephanieS
    Cox Support Forums Moderator
  • mmorse's avatar
    mmorse
    New Contributor

    I am thinking of doing just that. the problem is I'm a little leery of what I can expect regarding wifi speeds. Because of where all the wired equipment is located, the modem must be located upstairs at the front of the house but all the wifi devices are almost always located downstairs at the rear of the house. I'm afraid the distance and the walls and floor will greatly compromise the wifi speed. If I do get the 6900, do I have to contact Cox to have it added or is it plug and play?

  • StephanieS's avatar
    StephanieS
    Moderator
    mmorse

    You will need to contact us, we will need the serial number and the MAC ID number to get the modem added to your account correctly. Once you've got the new modem you can email us the information at: cox.help@cox.com. Adding the modem only take a couple of minutes.

    StephanieS
    Cox Support Forums Moderator
  • mmorse's avatar
    mmorse
    New Contributor

    can you have more than one modem on the account? the reason I ask is if the new modem is no faster than my old one, I will return it and go back to my old modem. FYI, i just ordered an arris 6900. hope it solves the issue.

  • ReneeG's avatar
    ReneeG
    Former Moderator
    Hi mmorse,

    You can only have one active modem per internet service level.

  • mmorse's avatar
    mmorse
    New Contributor

    ok. checked my speed again going direct to my cable modem and i was getting 168mbps from my imac. when I go through my older apple wifi base station, it drops to 95 and when I add on an even older router, the speed drops to 55. i will be dropping the bottlenecks from my network by adding an arris 6900. thanks for all the responses.

  • JonathanJ's avatar
    JonathanJ
    Former Moderator
    @mmorse

    Please let us know if you have any further concerns and you're most welcome.