Switching from a Comcast modem to a NETGEAR Nighthawk

I currently pay $75 / mo for a 75mbps down / 12 mbps up plan from Comcast. Until last week, I was using their Triple Play package, for TV, Phone, and Internet, but I couldn’t justfiy the price, which continued to creep up each month. The cost for my internet was $65 at the time, and I was only getting 25 / 10, so I wanted to make some changes.

From there, I dropped TV and Phone, but paid $10 more to go from 25mbps -> 75 mbps. Big difference, and I immediately noticed the change!

I have a number of devices in my home network though, and I felt that my Comcast provided modem / router combo was the bottleneck in my home network speed. Additionally, I was paying $10 / mo to rent the modem. It was time for a change.

NetGear Nighthawk
After asking some friends on Twitter, they recommended the NETGEAR Nighthawk 7000 router ($185 on Amazon) and an Arris / Motorola SB6121 DOCSIS modem ($70 on Amazon).

Motorola modem

To install these devices, I simply unplugged my Comcast devices, and plugged these two in. Connect to the new network (NETGEAR something) and open your browser, and it will begin to configure your Comcast credentials with the modem. Two minutes later, I was up and running.

Comparing Speeds

I went to SpeedTest.net to get a feel for the changes. Here is the before and after:

With Comcast: 81 / 12

Speedtest Comcast

 

 

Nighthawk / Motorola: 126 / 12

Speedtest nighthawk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The results speak for themselves! If you have devices which can connect to the 5G network offered by the router, then I highly suggest using that. Needless to say, I’m excited to have speeds athat are 5x better than what I had only one week ago. I’ve also gotten rid of that $10 / monthly fee for renting the Comcast modem.

What have your experiences been like?

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7 thoughts on “Switching from a Comcast modem to a NETGEAR Nighthawk

    • Yup, that’s it. One Cat5E going out from the modem and plugged directly into the single input port on the router.

  1. Are you able to change your DNS settings on the new combo? My Comcast supplied modem/router will not let me access that in the Gateway.

  2. I just did almost the exact same thing as you. I got rid of the Comcast Modem/router unit and got a Netgear Nighthawk and Motorola DOCSIS3 modem. Before, with the comcast Modem, i would get around 90mb down whether i was on my phone via wifi or laptop via ethernet. Now with the new combo, i’m getting 90mb with my laptop hardlined, but on anything wifi, the speed has gone down to 30-45mb…what am i doing wrong? I’ve tried to go through wifi settings and try to figure out what to change. Any suggestions would be welcome!

    • I’ll be trying to do this change within the next few days, not 100% sure why your speed went down, but my guess is your phone probably didn’t connect to the 5G band, and it’s maxing out on the 2.4G band.

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