Motorola Surfboard 4200 or 5100?


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Hello Everyone,

I currently own the Motorola Surfboard 4200, and I am very happy with its performance. I am running on Cox HSI in Phoenix, AZ. We also use the same model at work with no problems.

I have a chance to upgrade to the 5100 for 20$ (A friend bought it, but found out he doesn?t have cable access in his area), but I know they are pretty new and I cant find a big difference except for it being smaller, black and DOCSIS 2.0 compatible.

I might be missing something, but I was wondering if anyone has had experience with a 5100, or knows a good reason why to upgrade. Thanks!

--Frank

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What else could a cable modem do? The 4200 already has a built in DHCP server, it's not like you can get a faster connection with a newer cable modem.

I have found that there are quite a few differences with the 5100 and the 4200. So far, it is DOCSIS 2.0 compliant (I don't believe anyone is using this protocol yet, but the future they may) which WOULD be faster if the service would support it. It also handles the way it logs completely different from the 4200.

I was just wondering if people found anything that I would benefit from the 5100 from the 4200. Or if anyone has had any major problems with it (like people had with the SB4220)

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The only difference I can see from Motorolas website is "Integrated A-TDMA and S-CDMA technology - capable of providing up to 30 Mbps upstream data rate". Something which you won't ever notice seeing as your cable company probably doesn't give more then 376 Kbps.

http://broadband.motorola.com/noflash/sb4200.html

http://broadband.motorola.com/noflash/sb5100.html

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What else could a cable modem do? The 4200 already has a built in DHCP server, it's not like you can get a faster connection with a newer cable modem.

True, I wouldn't waste my money on a new cable modem.

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Hello Everyone,

    I currently own the Motorola Surfboard 4200, and I am very happy with its performance.  I am running on Cox HSI in Phoenix, AZ.  We also use the same model at work with no problems.

    I have a chance to upgrade to the 5100 for 20$ (A friend bought it, but found out he doesn?t have cable access in his area), but I know they are pretty new and I cant find a big difference except for it being smaller, black and DOCSIS 2.0 compatible. 

    I might be missing something, but I was wondering if anyone has had experience with a 5100, or knows a good reason why to upgrade.  Thanks!

--Frank

I'm in phoenix part of the year.

The 5100 doesn't realistically do anything better than the 4200 FOR COX HSI. However in theory if all the head ends were running at Full DOCSIS 2.0 then the 5100 would slaughter the 4200 Modem.

COX HSI is max 300KB download. WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYy far from DOCSIS 2.0 Ability.

Even though they scream we have DOCSIS 2.0. they're not even using it where it really counts.

My Sister is from Mesa, she uses the Terayon, it was given to her when she orderd her COX HSI over the summer for the first time.

Realistically the modem runs sub par.

For example like i said COX HSI is using DOCSIS 2.0 Cable Modems, but their only putting out like 300-400KB/s Max downstream on there modems, but Me.. i'm from new youk using an almost 3 year old DOCSIS 1.0 TeraTJ-110 Modem and Pulling 1MB/s downlstream. Yes 1 Megabyte. not Megabit.

The Only reason you want a Docsis 2.0 modem is for Future Upgradability when the Cable Companies do go Full DOCKSIS 2.0 speeds.

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The only difference I can see from Motorolas website is "Integrated A-TDMA and S-CDMA technology - capable of providing up to 30 Mbps upstream data rate". Something which you won't ever notice seeing as your cable company probably doesn't give more then 376 Kbps.

http://broadband.motorola.com/noflash/sb4200.html

http://broadband.motorola.com/noflash/sb5100.html

4200 is DOCSIS 1.1 , 5100 is DOCSIS 2.0.

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