Help selecting a cable modem and router

[Karl]

Hi folks. With wife on the mend I've turned some my attention to improving my internet service. I am going to switch to Comcast. They offer much faster speeds than AT&T for the same price. Hopefully that resolves some of the consistency issues I've been having operating the flight server systems.

At any rate, I have chosen to buy my own modem vs renting one of theirs. The tech is a bit different than the last time I shopped for one. Does anyone have any thoughts, experiences or suggestions that might be helpful?

TIA!

[Novawing24]

If you are going a standalone modem then a separate router then Motorola always made great modems and I used a Moto cable modem for years with no issues. Standalone router I would potentially stay away from D-Link, the quality of their routers has (in my opinion) decreased over the last few years. I liked the older versions of their routers as you could control ports better than the software lets you now, though if you are feeling up to it you can reflash them with a generic Linux OS (always thought too much work). When I was using the separate modem router combo I used Moto modem with a Netgear router and found the combination fairly user friendly and stable.

Currently I am using a combined modem/router from Netgear and has been mostly stable. I've found that now its approaching 4 years old it is needing a restart once a month or so to stay fully functional.

The new Nighthawk from Netgear is looking very reliable and has everything needed. If you need more ports in the house then you can add in a dumb switch and the Netgear will handle all the DHCP addressing for you automatically.

[Karl]

I am thinking about going with a combo modem/router. The Nighthawk series has been upgraded so it comes in different flavors. The AC1700 one is ~$150USD vs the latest one with AC2600 which is almost twice that. With the devices that I use I don't think I would get any benefit from the more expensive one. But I am really not sure.