Customer Reviews

3Com OfficeConnect External Cable Modem

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This is the 3Com 3CR29210. A sticker on the modem says to use the 3Com 3CR29220 settings for @Home service. 3Com has discontinued all their consumer cable models but they are still honoring the 5 year warranty according to their website.

This modem uses the Broadcom chip used in high-end models like Motorola, Nortel but it's half the price.

I read a review saying that there are still engineers in 3Com who are still working on their discontinued cable modem products and these should not go outdated any more than the other cable modems.

It "locked" in about 3 seconds the first time I plugged it into my cable outlet, which is probably really good because the cable guy was telling me to wait for 15mins to an hour. I get a max downstream bandwidth of 3800 Kbps with it and my ATT Broadband service.

(...)

I was very pleased to obtain this modem (3CR29210) and installed it without any problems. I transferred the cables from the previously installed modem and the new modem picked up the cable connection in less than 5 minutes.

The only negative is that the package had a sticker on the outside that indicated a different model (3CR29220)should be used for installation on the ( @home ) cable setup.

I called the 3Com installation number, listed in the "getting started guide" and a very capable person informed me that for home use the models were interchangable. That turned out to be the case and I highly recommend this as a replacement for an ISP supplied rental modem. The manufacturer also has a 5 year support warranty for this modem.

This is probably a very fine modem on systems that support it . After reading the other reviews and noting that the "shark fin" modem I was leasing from At&t in St Paul, Minnesota was also the 3COM 3cr29220 I decided to call At&t tech support and see what was up . They wrongly informed me it should work great . When I installed it it went through the whole locking on process and appeared to work because all the status lights say okay . After 51/2 hours tier 5 tech support admitted it was not provisioned with the proper firmware at the head end . If I sound like I know what that really means , well don't be fooled , I don't .

The bottom line is that The 29210 and 29220 are not usually interchangeable . The 3com tech said he'd seen a few cases where it could be made to work if configured as a 29220 but that the downstream rate was slowed to 10% of what it should be . The maddening thing about this ordeal was I did call my local service provider prior to purchase and they said the 29210 would work fine. Even today when I was calling in the new serial number for the Toshiba 1100/1100U modem replacement the tier 1 tech I spoke to couldn't see why it hadn't worked . I figure they wiped out 6 months profits on this one case not counting my time , The Toshiba by the way was online almost as fast as I could plug in the various cables.

While looking for a cable modem to replace the one I currently rent I saw this inexpensive model and decided to investigate. It may be an excellent cable modem but according to the 3Com website: "This model is not compatible with the @Home cable setup." Since I have excite@home I could not use this modem. Just wanted to let others know.

After five minutes, I was up and running on AT&T Broadband formerly MediaOne's RoadRunner service (i.e. mediaone.net). Like prior reviews have stated, this modem is 3Com's 3CR29210. Throughout the documentation, you are told to use the settings for the 3Com 3CR29220. This modem offers simple setup and excellent performance.

I was leasing a 3Com 3CR29220 from AT&T and (...) this modem makes financial sense if you plan to use the service for a year or more. It is too bad 3Com couldn't stay in the retail cable modem business and continue to offer inexpensive modems.

Got one of these brand new ... Hooked it up to Optimum Online, but took over 5 minutes to sync. Had their tech over here to test the line, had about 4 techs on the phone also. They could clearly see and test the modem but couldn't understand why it wasn't getting an IP address assigned. They kept blaming the modem and telling me to go to The Wiz to get a Motorola. Eventually I demanded to speak to a Tier2 tech and explained that this is a 3Com CMX modem and that it *IS* on their approved list. Finally, they realized it needed a firmware upgrade. Once this was done, the modem synced up within 30 seconds and got its IP address. Everything works great. Getting approx 1500/500 on DSLReports speedtest and over 350k/s to some sites. Definitely a good buy if you take the time to sort out issues.

First off, this modem does work well with AT&T Broadband in Seattle. 1400 kbps downloads, and 110 kbps uploads, very close to ATTBI's maximum speeds. Technically, the CR29210 is not an "approved" modem for ATT Broadband in Seattle, but the box is stickered that you should treat the modem as a 3CR29220 (which is approved.)

That said, getting this modem to work was a bit of an adventure. The first problem was that the modem came with a non-US (230V AC) power supply. Luckily, I already had another compatible power supply.

The second major problem was after provisioning the modem with ATTBI, the speeds were very slow. It turns out that the step during provisioning that was supposed to set the modem to it's ATTBI-approved connection speeds did not work (I'll bet this is very common with this modem). Only after reading up on the topic in the forums at DSLReports did I figure out that I'd have to manually reset the modem. Using a paper-clip to press the manual reset button caused the modem to download the correct config. files from ATTBI. Now it works great!

Like I said, though, a taste for adventure is required!

I bought the 3CR29210 and kept my fingers crossed. The price was the best I had found anywhere. The installer came to my house and I made sure he knew to tell AT&T the model was 3CR29220. After he called it in, it picked up the signal in less than 5 minutes. I ran some online internet speed test and it rated it the same as a T1 line! The installed said he had seem problems with what slower speeds in the past with these modems but I think it was because of older firmware than what is shipping with this one or he called it in as a 3CR29210.

3COM cable modems apparently have firmware problems that cause the connection to your cable provider to time-out, so you get a tempermental connection and have to try a bunch of resets to get it going again. My cable provider sadi that as long as it was DOCSIS compatible, it shouldn't be a problem - now I know why not a single 3COM was listed as "supported / approved" on their website (for anyone who cares - I'm with Cox Cable in Northern Virginia).

Get something else that'll actually work. Sure wish I'd known better...

For those of you complaining about firmware and low bandwidth, I had the same problem iniitally. If you don't go through the registration process via the ATTBI-provided CD, then you only get about 128kbps (10% bandwidth). I didn't want to put unnecessary softwre on my machine so I set the CD aside since I got a net connection. Then I tried downloading a 2MB file, and the damn thing took forever. the DSLReports.com speed test showed my connection at 128kbps (very slow for cable modem). So I tried the CD to see if the diagnostics would tell me what was wrong. The CD takes you through a bunch of configuration checks and diagnostics and then registration. Everything checked out ok. So I decided to go back to the speed test and I noticed a HUGE difference. After the registration and reset modem step, I was getting download speeds of 1.3-1.4Mbps.

In short, register the modem