surfboard 5100
 

Tonight my modem reset and i was upgraded from 10 to 20 meg as per the "free" upgrade thing.

My virgin page now tells me I have 20 meg and the green box says I need to upgrade to the hub to take advantage of it.

however, speed tests on my venerable and so far rock steady 5100 surfboard also indicate that this is happy to do the 20 meg too.

can i run this modem with 20 meg? I would in all honesty prefer to do so if possible as this modem has given me 7 years of trouble free use up to now. I see little point in fixing something which ain't broke.

cheers
Steve

Re: surfboard 5100
 

It seems that VM want any one have the newest SH that is why your green box have the suggestion so may be different opinions here

can i run this modem with 20 meg?
If your current modem got the update and you getting the updated speed should not be problem
As far i know this modem can go up to 38mb
However if i am correct this is docsis 2.0 so will not work good if you ever change highest tariff

Re: surfboard 5100
 

get the SuperHub in mate and put it in modem mode if you currently use your own choice of router. The Motorola is outdated. It wont be able to handle increased upload and it wont be configured to run 30meg+.

Re: surfboard 5100
 

That modem is absolutely fine for 20 meg, people have used it on 20meg for years.

Re: surfboard 5100
 

If you are happy on 20mbit (the tier) and you are happy with the speed you are getting then stick with it dude. The modem can probably only use use one or two downstream channels so if you ever do have a problem with speed (congestion) or want to move up a tier you will have to move to the shub which is docsis 3 and it can load balance across more channels.

Re: surfboard 5100
 

Another one on 20meg, just like myself who doesn't bother with games.
Just another means of communication for me, saves on the travel costs?

Re: surfboard 5100
 

not a big gamer now, no. I used to be a WoW player and that worked absolutely fine for me at 2meg let alone 20meg :) games I found were much more about "ping" and latency than bandwidth throughput.

I am just an middle aged luddite now who really just wants his kit to work and not to have to grapple with some buggy new stuff if i don't have to :)

Re: surfboard 5100
 

the SH runs fine in modem mode. the combo is no longer forced on a customer.

Re: surfboard 5100
 

Pardon Sir…but I think you'll find that the Motorola SB's Broadcom BCM 3348 chipset was limited to a single tuner albeit (euro/cable labs) DOCSIS2 certified upto 55mbps downstream (upto 1024QAM) and 30mbps (256QAM with S-CDMA) upstream. However even though quite impressive originally with it's 200MHz 32bit processor it's 2002 legacy architecture is now starting to show it's age and single stream is all you'll get whether your approaching the enemy from the front or enfilading with a rear flanking tactic, albeit good for upto 860MHz!

Re: surfboard 5100
 

so how does that differ from what I said other than that you have clarfied that it only uses the one channel?

Re: surfboard 5100
 

Stay as you are. God knows who needs more than 20MB. 30MB will hardly be any different, even if you manage to get it with the Superdud. Plus you don't want to waste your valuable time on these forums trying to get the thing to work.

Re: surfboard 5100
 

This is a Local Forum for Local people, we'll have no trouble here......

Re: surfboard 5100
 

Good for you, Mr K - you know so much more than all the telecomms companies and all the consumers in multi-user households who are often HD streaming, gaming, downloading/uploading, Skyping, VPNing, and all the other internetty stuff that people do...

Your user case obviously should be the model we all should base our usage on.

Re: surfboard 5100
 

Cheers Hugh, you're too kind ;)

Actually most of the above happens in my household and 20MB seems to be more than enough. Reliability is equally, if not more important than speed, and as the OP says no point in fixing something that ain't broke. Still each to their own...

Re: surfboard 5100
 

Re: surfboard 5100
 

Apart from speed, upgrading to 30Mbps also gives you higher allowances before STM kicks in, meaning in some situations you may be comparing 30Mb with 10Mb

Re: surfboard 5100
 

The devil's in the detail - if my garage offered me 1 or 2 courtesy cars while mine's in for service I might be tempted to take one for the wife as well!
Mind you if you'd seen her driving….perhaps not! :rolleyes:

Re: surfboard 5100
 

I'd just like to say that my 50meg service has been largely faultless in the 3 or so years I've had it (Area outages notwithstanding).