Getting Spectrum was going to buy own modem and router

I got a TP-Link TC-7960 gateway (modem+router+WiFi) for Spectrum a few months ago.
It's working great.

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Wireless-Communications-Spectrum-TC-W7960/dp/B01EO5A3RQ/

As long as the modem is on the list of acceptable devices in your area it will work. It also depends on the speed of the connection you are getting, some of the spectrum connections use 24 bonded channels so you would need a better modem since that one only does 16. I think it only matters if you are getting the 300mbps connection but spectrum is a combination of a number of older cable companies so again it depends what they offer where you live.


The routers you have listed are both solid basic routers and are good choices for people that do not have end equipment that can use the more advanced features

The TC-W7960's wifi is only 802.11n at 2x2 MIMO, so at best I'm guessing you can pull down only 120 Mbps from your Internet plan (using the 40% Phy to throughput average). And it's an 8x4 modem, so Spectrum recommends it only for its 100 Mbps plan and not higher (which would require a higher bonding profile). Spectrum in my area used to offer a 300 Mbps plan and 8x4 can't be provisioned for that, much less for the gigabit plans that are coming in 2018.

Yes.

But it was $60 to max out my current plan ATM vs spending a few hundred $ to do things the right way (separate modem, router, WiFi) for a future upgrade that may never come and I don't know what it will be.

That's a good point. BTW, Spectrum is apparently going to start swapping out subscribers' modems in Jan/Feb for the latest round of upgrades happening this month.

Since Spectrum offers their modem for free, the only reason you might want to pay for your own is if Spectrum's is somehow more error prone. I bought a Zoom modem with Time Warner Cable before the Spectrum transition, and it was nice to not have to worry about DHCP, there were few reboots due to uncorrectables or high SNR, etc. All the 60 Mbps plan needs is an 8x4 modem. You can try out Spectrum's free modem and see how it goes first.

A large part of the problem with consumer reviews is people have unrealistic expectations....then again manufacture try to make them think wireless can run at those magic high numbers.

The main factor in how a router performs in the house it is placed in. It is almost impossible to say that just because it works in one house it will work in another. The second issue is the end equipment is 1/2 the problem. So you could have the best router made and a crap end device and your connection will still be crap. The largest issue with wireless end devices is the vast majority are portable running on batteries so they tend to favor longer battery live over high output power on the radio.

Future proofing is very hard to say. The cost of these routers have come down a lot and likely will continue to come down. Used to be you paid a fortune for simple 802.11ac.

You have to also evaluate how likely the feature is to be on future products. Things like mu-mimo likely will be since that is mostly firmware. Still even that will not come fast because people will be resistant to replacing a expensive cell phone just to get that feature.

The 4 antenna/feeds are much less likely to be on many devices. 4 antenna take up too much room in a small device for the extra benefit. It is also very hard to get the spacing correct for them to work. Pretty much you only see this on some hi end internal PCI-E cards that go in desktops.

Then you have feature like the 200mhz encoding on the 2.4g band. This is a non standard extension of the 802.11n protocol. They used a encoding used in 802.11ac on the 2.4g band. Although many manufactures do this and they are compatible it is not part of any official standard. Some devices....like apple products...refuse to build device that do not follow the standard exactly so you never will be able to use that feature. It only works when you are very close to anyway.

This is a hard call on future since the price has come down. Routers that claim 1200 speed (ie using 2 antenna feeds) match most current devices. The issue is a router that uses 3..ie 1450 is about the same price even if the equipment can't actually use it. I suspect another couple years and you will be able to get 4x4 mumimo routers for under $100.

One bad thing about TP-Link is that they have a reputation for minimal QA testing during initial firmware releases, so I notice some dismal reviews for the model circa 2013. It's hard to grok what the average semi-literate Amazon consumer identified as the problem, since they'd inevitably blame the router even if the problem is from in-band congestion caused by their neighors. But I will say that the C2600 does very well for throughput (https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/32871-tp-link-archer-c2600-ac-2600-wireless-dual-band-gigabit-router-reviewed?showall=&start=4) and is one of the most affordable MU-MIMO wifi routers.