Customer Reviews

Netgear CM212 Broadband Cable Modem

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Based on my (and apparently others') experience, I am astounded that Netgear continues to sell this substandard product. I have had the same experiences that several other reviewers have had, both in terms of the poor performance of the CM212 and the ridiculously underqualified technical support in India.

My modem worked fine for the first year or so. But about a week and a half ago, the modem was no longer able to find a signal and about every 15 seconds would go through a "restarting" procedure. I explained this situation to Netgear tech support, but they insisted that it had to be a software issue. I explained that I had a technician from my ISP come out and establish that it was definitely a hardware issue...but the Netgear tech would have none of it (which is pretty amazing considering this seems to be a common issue with this model). After about an hour and a half of holding and persistence, she referred me to their "premium support" line to discuss the issue. The "premium" technician finally agreed that it was a hardware issue and, with a $15 charge to me, shipped me a replacement modem.

I received the replacement modem and enjoyed my internet connection again for a full two days before it began failing in the same fashion as my first modem. After another 30 minutes on the phone with Netgear support, I anxiously await yet another replacement modem. Three times is a charm, right? I'm not holding my breath....

Same as everyone else. Dead after a short time, long hold time to foreign customer service. $15 fee for them to ship replacement and for box to ship dead one back.

No mention of this problem on their website support center.

I purchased this to replace a leased Lan City modem that got smoked in a lightning storm. Comcast (f/k/a ATTBI, f/k/a MediaOne) said it would take them ten days to send a tech out to replace the leased Lan City modem, so I bought this.

This product popped out of the box and came right up on my network connection. Their tech service people were able to provision it immediately, even without my computer being turned on.

It's nice. The Netgear people paid attention to the design. You'd think a little box like this would be unwieldy connected to a stiff and heavy coax cable, but it's fine especially on the little stand. The manufacturer throws in a crossover Ethernet cable and a USB cable as well as a power supply with a separate power cord.

It has useful front-panel status lights. Plus, it runs a lot cooler than the old Lan City modem.

Comcast charges three bucks a month rent for a modem like. This thing after rebate costs, therefore, thirteen months rent. So, if lightning doesn't strike again soon, I'm a happy camper!

Like others, I've had a bad experience with this product. After less than a month, it refused to synchronize with my cable company's signal. The cable company brought out a new modem of its own that worked just fine. A month later, I tried the Netgear CM212 again and it worked--for no apparent reason. Last night, I accidentally bumped it and it stopped working again. If I tap the right spot on the case, the lights will come on for about ten seconds indicating that it has a signal, but then it goes back to the "searching for signal" routine. There are no moving parts in this thing. I opened up the case; it's just a circuit board with components and connectors soldered to it. And all the solder connections looked fine. Yet just a tap makes it behave differently!!

Netgear's support was a joke. Even after I gave them lots of details through e-mail, they insisted that I call a technician to get authorization to return the modem. After sitting on hold far too long, I got to deal with a technician who didn't want to hear what I'd done for diagnostics and didn't care that I had the modem plugged into a router. Instead, he wanted to lead me through a flowchart that applied to people who had the modem directly attached to their PC.

All in all, this purchase has been a waste of money and time. So I just bought a Motorola Surfboard SB5100 modem after reading great reviews.

Over the last year, we've had increasing connection troubles. I always assumed it was just a temporary glitch with our ISP. After seeing the orange failure light way too much over the last month and especially last couple of weeks, I finally had a tech from our ISP come out to determine what was the problem. He was confident that it was the modem, not the high-speed Internet service. I don't know how he determined this, but he thought there was something wrong with the power supply to the unit. The thing had begun power cycling just if you touched it. Of course, this product failure happened just a heartbeat AFTER the warranty expired. I bought this cable modem back when the reviews were better, around 3 years ago. Maybe 3 years is a long life, but I would expect longer for something that just sits there, with no moving mechanical parts. What an eye opener to come back to this review page and see so many people experience the same troubles.

My experience was my CM212 worked flawelessly for more than a year and has just now begun intermittent drops. Read other modem reviews--seems they all do this after a year plus of continuous use. (The RCA I replaced did this too). Tech support expert I know says they're not meant for 24x7x365-they will all burn out.

Since they're all disposable, so by the cheapest name brand and plan on yearly replacement.

The product failed after one day of serivce. For the next week it would intermitently connect to the Internet for a few hours and fail again for a few hours until it died completely. I called Customer Service, which seems to be overseas, and their technicians were terrible. In two calls I had conflicting answers and they did not seem to know how to troubleshoot the problem; they kept asking me to ping addresses unrelated to the modem and they kept refering to it as a router. Once they decided that it is defective they asked me to pay for shipping charges to replace my brand new modem which amounted to 25% of the cost of the product. I would never buy a Netgear product again.

Lasted just 3 months. What is up with that? 3 months and it's condition rhymes with the word plucked. After reading the other reviews I don't think I am even going to attempt returning it.

Oh, and I don't know if anybody noticed, but the two good reviews were written by employees/officers/directors of Netgear. Check out the wording. One was "commissioned" and the other was "provisioned" !!! Hello ! Not even techies use those words.

Bought this modem for my Adelphia powerlink hookup and works like a charm. The modem is small & looks good next to my Netgear wireless router. Just plug it all in and called Adelphia with MAC address to have it commissioned. After 15 mins I was back on the web!!!!

I purchased the modem 9-1-03 and it died 11-17-03. Gave up trying to call Netgear, terminal hold..... 15$-$30 to have a new modem shipped is not worth the hassle. Avoid this modem (&netgear)