No more sitting and waiting. No more busy signals. NETGEAR's Broadband Cable Modem gives you an always-ON connection plus lightning-fast speeds for streaming music, online gaming, and sharing digital photos so you can be involved and productive anytime and every time you want. Combined with a router, it lets you share your ISP connection among multiple PCs. It's DOCSIS certified, which means no worries because this cable modem is guaranteed to work with your local cable service provider, both now and if you move. And its streamlined design saves valuable desk space å? you can position it vertically or horizontally. Up to fifty times faster than dial-up, it vastly improves your streaming audio, video, and gaming experiences. You can send and receive digital photos in the blink of an eye. Web pages pop up instantly. Always ON, with immediate connectivity that doesn't require a separate, dedicated telephone line for Internet access. Whenever your computer is on, you're already connected. And your connection won't get dropped as it can with dial-up. Easy to set up and run, this cable modem works seamlessly with NETGEAR Cable/DSL routers, and it features both USB and Ethernet interface options for non-limiting flexibility in how you connect to a PC. It also maximizes your investment in Ethernet because it works with both 10 Mbps and 10/100 Mbps Ethernet products. DOCSIS certification guarantees compatibility with your local cable service provider.
1 Not as bad as they say here
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.
2 Pretty BAD
Like others..........wish I had read the reviews on this item before buying. Bought Jan 04......dead Aug 04. $15 to send me a new one after getting through the long help desk procedure. New one lasted a week and a half. Have had the cable folks out three times and it is definately not the cable. Guess I will chalk this up to experience and go down to Fry's tomorrow and buy someone else's C/M that will hopefully work a lot better.
3 Bad product and bad customer service
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.
4 works for me
i've had this modem running on my Mac for over a year and it's never given me the hassles listed below. bought it, plugged it in--it connected immediately, and since then i've pretty much forgotten it's there. been a solid performer (knock on wood). the case even complements my Mac nicely.
5 AVOID THIS MODEM LIKE THE PLAGUE!!
Stopped working after 3 months. Netgear customer service is a joke.
6 Frustratingly bad experience
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.
7 5 months then dead
Same as everyone else. Dead after a short time, long hold time to foreign customer service. $15 fee for them to ship replacement and for box to ship dead one back.
No mention of this problem on their website support center.
8 Do not buy this product.
I was too taken in by the cheap price. My modem worked for 2 weeks before burning out. I now bought a motorola and is working fine.
BUYER BEWARE ON THIS MODEM!!!!
9 Get out your pooper scooper
Lasted just 3 months. What is up with that? 3 months and it's condition rhymes with the word plucked. After reading the other reviews I don't think I am even going to attempt returning it.
Oh, and I don't know if anybody noticed, but the two good reviews were written by employees/officers/directors of Netgear. Check out the wording. One was "commissioned" and the other was "provisioned" !!! Hello ! Not even techies use those words.
10 same story
I purchased the modem 9-1-03 and it died 11-17-03. Gave up trying to call Netgear, terminal hold..... 15$-$30 to have a new modem shipped is not worth the hassle. Avoid this modem (&netgear)
11 Expiration date: 3-6 months
Had the same "orange light... modem reboots" issue described by others here. Since they know about this issue (although they won't openly acknowledge it) tech support will be glad to ship you another for $15. (Avoid their wireless USB adaptors too... bluescreen issues with WinXP).
12 junk
DO NOT BUY THIS UNIT!!!
I wish I had read the other reviews prior to purchasing this unit. I'm having the same issues as everyone else.
My first unit stopped working after 1 week. I thought it was the cable connection, so I had Comcast check it out. No issues with the line. My second unit stopped working today. Same issue... solid orange light indicating it's broken. Unfortunately, it's after 30 days so I can't return this unit. The reason I chose this unit is because it's cheap. Don't be taken in with the rebates associated with this unit. Pay the extra and get a unit that will work.
Also, the fact that I have to pay to ship their defective unit to them is just insult to injury.
If you're at all curious about the performance (hope you've been turned off to this notion by now, but just in case)... it's what you expect from a cable modem. Although, I found the upload to be limited to around 210KBits versus the Motorola SB5100 to be about 250-300KBits. Like all cable modems, it's basically a plug-and-go (until the orange "Cable" light stays on and constantly attempts to restart).
Hope you learn from my (and just about everyone else's mistake) and stay away from this modem.
UPDATE: MY THIRD UNIT DIED YESTERDAY. Same issue as before. No way do I want a replacement. One can only be so patient...
13 Item Broke within a Month
I purchased this cable modem just to have it break within a month. Netgear's tech support staff was incredibly unhelpful and it took 2 days of calling them just to convince them that it was in fact broken. They told us to ship it back and that they would ship us a new one once they received it. However, they expected us to pay the shipping to return it to them, and they were only going to ship it via regular USPS Parcel Post, thus leaving me without an internet connection for over a week. They did say, though, that they would overnight me a new one that say day for a $30 fee!!!! I will never do business with this company again.
14 No vents
The product works fine but has no ventilation and it runs very hot.
15 Bad Product!
Two modems quit working in two months! The first one in two days, the second two months later.
As for customer support? Not existing. After three (3) hours on the phone in three days nothing has happened yet. Try it for your self: 1-888-638-4327 and the sequence for the customer support is 3-1-2-2-1-2. Lets see how long you can wait.
16 works well, nicely designed for home use.
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!
17 Netgear stuff is easy to install
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!!!!
18 Netgear stuff is easy to install
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!!!!
