Customer Reviews

Motorola SURFboard Gateway SBG901 DOCSIS 2.0 Wireless Cable Modem

5 star:		(85)
4 star:		(47)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

Installed the SB901 wireless cable modem with Comcast ISP in the Bellevue region, and struggled with it for a month. Two laptops, one running Windows XP, another running Windows 7, would sporadically lose wireless Internet connectivity on almost every session (every day). The wireless access point would remain connected to these laptops, but Internet access would fail. Restoring access involved 'kick the box' measures like re-booting the laptop, or disconnecting from and reconnecting to the wireless access point (no real idea what was restoring access). A Mac OSX laptop seemed to fare better for reasons unknown -- but this is not an endorsement of OSX over Windows (we use everything).

With a little quick & dirty research, found the following (which you can take with a grain of salt):

(1) Some users of Motorola products that combine both cable modem and wireless router functionality (such as the SB901) report having wireless connectivity issues (see the 1 and 2 star Amazon reviews for this product - you can also find similar reviews for other Motorola combo products).

(2) Unsubstantiated rumor: Motorola has a reputation for making excellent cable modems and mediocre wireless routers. Linksys and Netgear have a reputation for making excellent wireless routers, but not so good cable modems. Hey, it's a rumor, so nobody should get bent out of shape over this.

(3) More unsubstantiated hearsay: Products combining cable modem and wireless router functionality in a single unit tend not to perform as well as separate, dedicated products. Dedicated, separate products make technical support and diagnosis of connection problems easier. Separate products also enable the customer to choose best-of-breed solutions from the best vendors.

(4) We have returned the SB901 as defective, and based on Amazon reviews replaced it with the following:
i. Motorola SB6120 DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem (over 500 raving Amazon reviews)
ii. Netgear N600 WNDR3700 Wireless Router (over 350 strong Amazon reviews)

(5) Above combination is working well -- no more spontaneous loss of wireless internet access. It's blazing fast, and the Netgear wireless router is full-featured and easy to configure -- it enables the user to set an SSID and password, whereas the SB901 went the simpler route of providing a pre-defined SSID and password. Only downside is the SB6120 + N600 WNDR3700 combo was 3X the price of the Motorola SB901 unit. If we had the time to identify a more economical product set, we'd consider alternatives. Meanwhile, I can admire all the fancy LED lights on products we did buy, while enjoying reliable 24/7 connectivity.

Purchased yesterday and set it up without any problems. It is now compatible with Comcast. This was an issue previously, but Comcast has now certified its use. Performance is great and very convenient having build in wireless, no need for a separate router, especially if you are mostly wireless, which my family is. I also ran several speed tests and got up to 20Mbps download and 3.4Mbps upload. Very pleased and a dramatic improvement from my older Comcast supplied Scientific Atlanta Modem. Highly recommended!!

I use Charter cable and this is the personal-use version of the SBG941 that Charter leases for an additional per-month fee. For what I paid this item will pay for itself in 8 months with the extra money I won't have to pay in lease fees and it was ready to go right out of the box with a pre-shared WPA key and so no real advanced setup needed.

I have used so many wireless gateways over the years with average performance I expected this to be little different. My brother bought a sbg900 which he likes, but I wanted better encryption options. I took a chance on the sbg901 and have been very, very impressed. The built in firewall and optional security features are easily used, or bypassed. Port forwarding and control is really well integrated. The signal itself is the best of the wireless gateways I've used, including Netgear, D-link and others. The signal throughout the house, (two story w/basement) is a full 5 of 5. It has not dropped, or needed to be reset after a couple months. As stated earlier I love the security options compared to the sbg900 as WPA2 and better is supported. The compact design incorporating dual antenna configuration is also a huge advancement over the 900 model. If your cable system supports this unit, buy it.

I just bought two of these, for my Mom and Dad (both of which had aging 802.11g routers and DOCSIS 1.0 cable modems). Set them up this weekend with Comcast here in Oregon and no problems there, but the reason I'm coming back to Amazon to rate these is because of two really cool wireless features I've never seen on any other wireless router with the factory firmware.

First, in addition to the normal "Primary" wireless network, the SBG901 gives you the option of setting up a "Guest" wireless network that's completely segregated from your primary network. It can be open and unencrypted, or locked down with encryption and hidden so only guests you trust with the login info can connect. Guest users will have full access to the Internet (within the limits you can set in the firewall, parental controls, etc), but will not be able to see your home network computers. Neat! I've only ever seen that in hacked firmwares before, never in the factory configuration. One scenario I thought of where this could be useful is if parents used this Guest network as a way to provide access restrictions on their kids' XBox 360 without locking down the entire network.

The second feature that I really liked was in setting up the wireless encryption settings. Most wireless routers and access points make you choose your encryption framework (WEP/WPA/WPA2) and protocol (TKIP/AES), and then you have to match that exactly on the clients that connect to your network. This can be a problem when old machines can't support the newest WPA2/AES encryption standard and so you normally have to scale it back to WPA/TKIP in order to be compatible with a wider client base. I was VERY surprised to see that the SBG901 allowed me to enable both WPA and WPA2 at the same time, and support encrypting in both AES and TKIP at the same time, allowing any client I want to connect to the gateway to use the highest level of encryption that they can support. My Windows 7 laptop can connect with WPA2/AES while my Dad's old WinXP laptop connects using WPA/TKIP, to the same network using the same authentication credentials.

An added bonus, though much less important feature-wise, was the ability to change both the username and password from defaults. Usually you're allowed to change the password only, which is not as secure (because anyone who's read the manual for your router already knows one half of the username/password authentication pair - what's the point of a username if it's always "admin"??) So that was nice to see.

All in all I'm very impressed with this cable modem/wireless router. As soon as Motorola releases their SBG6580 DOCSIS 3.0/802.11n wireless cable modem this summer, I'm absolutely going to buy one for myself, on the assumption that it will have the same build quality and features this one has.

Never have bothered to write a review before but maybe this will help someone. You know how reviews usually go, half the people love it and half the people hate it and you still have to flip a coin. Anyway, hating to rent anything I bought the SBG 901 to replace Charters SBG 941 which was doing a fine job running download at 10 to 13+ Mbps and upload at 3+. The unit never dropped me off the net requiring a reboot. The SBG 941 is apparently not available to consumers but I had read in one of the reviews the SBG 901 was a consumer version.

Anyway, for a non geek type the setup was easy, install the disc, follow the screens and finally call the provider with the MAC address. Ok, I'm up and running but have lost speed. Several days later speed is half of what I had and I'm getting dropped off the Net and having to reboot the router several times a day.

Had decided to send it back but then thought maybe I can get tech support from Motorola. Can't find a number on line but Amazon has it. 847-523-5000 Motorola tells me that the SBG 901 will do everything the SBG941 would do with performance. The problem may just be that that I have to try another channel on the router. (it has 11 channels) Great patient support guy who showed me how to get into the router and change channels. He would have stayed on the phone with me but once I understood what we were doing I said thank you and good by. Spent about a half hour changing and speed testing all channels. Am now back to running the same as the Charter rental unit and not being dropped off the net.

If you want to try it yourself the router address is 192.168.0.1 username: admin password: motorola On the first screen click "Wireless" at the top which takes you to screen were you can change channels

Update and more learning. 1/2/12 Been using now for weeks and still doing a great job but had company and no one could get thier stuff on the network with the passcode I gave them. This has been a learning experience. The few wireless routers I had set up in the past there was only one password/secuity key and if I remember I created my own number. When I set this up on our three computers and not really understanding what "should work" I kept at it till I got it to work.

After intial setup on my first computer my other two could "see" the network but I could not sign on to the network with the passcode. I ran the installation disc on both and all was well, I thought.

Called support again. Only needed to use the installation disc on one computer which sets up the router. The number on the label just to the right of PASSCODE only works with the setup software. The 20 digit number on the label just above PASSCODE is the security key. I'm 66 and trying to learn, my grandkids probably would not have had to work so hard at it !

I heard that the SBG901 fixed everything that was wrong with the SBG900 when I bought it.

I was wrong.

I got the SBG900 and was infuriated with the most peculiar error: while on my laptop connected to the modem wirelessly for a number of days, the wireless receiver on the modem abrubtly shuts off and from that point on refuses to be functional.

After several months, I purchased the SBG901 as my current NetGear modem was getting on in years and heard postive things about it. Well guess what? I get connected, I have the Xbox connected via the ethernet cable, and my Wii and Laptop connected wirelessly and they work fantastically.

For a day.

Sure enough while I'm browsing youtube, the wireless features on the modem proceed to turn off and cannot be budged, even rebooting with the reset button in the back or going into the modem's control panel to restart the wireless broadcast to no avail.

What makes this especially frustrating (aside from the fact that the big selling point of this device will simply stop working for no reason despite me not doing anything to it) is that all my efforts to get help via the internet, email or calling tech support just leads to people talking to me like I'm an infant who has never done any form of networking. Yes, the wires are connected. Yes, I've powered it down and restarted it. Yes, I have a WPA keycode for anything to connect wirelessly. Yes, I've put it in correctly (how can you screw up copy and pasting??) for my laptop and the Wii. I have used 2Wire, Linksys, and Netgear modems with no issues whatsoever. Only Motorola modems choose to not work for no reason.

My point is, the wireless features on this modem (or any modem for that matter) should only go haywire if I manipulate the settings badly, not work one day only to stop for no reason when I haven't done anything to the modem's settings.

Buy this only if you have an exceptionally tech-savvy person available to you who will physically see the modem errors for you and will actually believe you when you explain the problem.

Over all this is a great modem. However, when I used the WEP security setting, my modem would disconnect or die every half an hour.

I finaly got fed up and tried WPA2 TKIP. It's been working fine ever since.

My complaint that's unrelated to this modem: Charter Cable has AWFUL customer service and is extremely over priced. If you have a choice, Comcast is the lesser of two evils.

I have Comcast's basic Internet 15Mbs and was using the Comcast supplied modem with a wireless router to use in my home. I was getting speeds of 4-6Mbs. The Comcast installation guy told me that he couldn't hook up my new modem for me, because I needed to purchase the faster Internet which downloads up to 20Mbs. As soon as he left I called Comcast tech support, gave them my MAC address and they hooked it up for me. Now I get speeds in the range of 14-16Mbs download, 4.75Mbs upload. Noticeably faster and way less clutter around the computer. I recommend this modem to anyone that is trying to go wireless throughout their home. If you have Comcast just call the tech support and they will do everything for you. Save the extra 5 bucks a month as well.

I recently switched from Verizon to Comcast. I bought this modem so I don't have to rent from Comcast. The installation tech told me that it's not compatible with comcast at the time of setup, but I called the internet service number, they help me to set it up in 15 min. If you ever have trouble with any tech, just call and give them the mac number, easy installation, no problem since.