FASTER WIFI — Up to 450 Mbps
CHANNEL BONDING — Fastest Cable Internet speeds during peak hour
DOCSIS 3.0 — Up to 8x faster cable Internet speeds than DOCSIS 2.0
GIGIABIT WIRED — Ideal for HD gaming and video
8×4 CableLabs® certified DOCSIS® 3.0
2.4 GHz
Four (4) 10/100/1000 LAN Gigabit Ethernet ports with auto-sensing technology
Two (2) USB 2.0 ports
| Weight | 2 lbs |
|---|---|
| Brand | Netgear |
| Model Number | CG3000DV2 |
| Color | Black, Grey |
| Package Contents | Ethernet Cable, Modem, Power Cable |
| Compatibility | Cox Communications, Spectrum, Time Warner Cable, Xfinity by Comcast |
| Additional Features | Energy-Efficient, HD Multi-Media Streaming, Preset Wi-Fi Security, WPA2-PSK Security |
| Condition | Refurbished |
| DOCSIS Version | DOCSIS 3.0 |
| Ethernet Ports | 4 |
| Wired Download Speeds | 450 Mbps |
| Supports IPv6 | Yes |
| Features | Single-Band Wireless, Wireless, WPS Enabled |
What is the return policy?
Return for a refund on any order is permitted up to 30 days after your order arrives at the shipping address specified for your order. If you need to return your order, please contact us within the 30-day return period to request an RMA.
Return for a replacements are permitted up to 90 days after the date your order was marked as delivered at your shipping address. Please contact us to request one.
If you purchased your equipment wholesale from us in a large order and are in need of multiple returns/replacements, please contact us directly for assistance.
When will my order ship?
Most orders ship within 1-2 business days, but we’ll let you know if there’s any delay with your order as soon as we are aware of it.
Check out our Shipping & Delivery information page for more information.
I changed my mind after ordering. Can I still cancel?
We can process cancellations for orders that have not yet gone into transit. If you are interested in cancelling your order, please give us a call, or send us an email & we will cancel if we are able to.
Once an order has shipped, if you change your mind, simply email us & mark the unopened order as “refused” or “return to sender” when it arrives.
Check out our Shipping & Delivery information page for more information.
You can see each product's estimated arrival date during the checkout process. During checkout, you can choose an estimated arrival date from the options provided.
Entering your shipping destination ZIP code or allowing HazelNetworks.com to use your current location can result in greater accuracy for your estimated arrival date. Certain products may require additional days to process prior to shipping. This will be reflected in the estimated arrival date. If for some reason you don't receive your product, you may be eligible for a replacement product if you notify us during your return and exchange time period.
Shipping cost is calculated on a "per order," "per item" or "per pound" basis and is based on the shipping option you select. We sometimes offer free shipping for specific shipping options in select categories, or free shipping sitewide.
Purchases of product through HazelNetworks.com are subject to a destination contract. This means that risk of loss for these products passes to you upon the carrier's delivery to your ship-to address, and Hazel Networks is not responsible for any loss, theft or damage after delivery.
J. R. Bob Dobbs (formerly ZOMG Pink Ponies) –
After watching Comcast’s gateway rental fee rise from like $4 a month to the $8 a month that it is now, I finally decided to give up an buy one for myself.
After disconnecting the Comcast gateway and hooking this one up, all I had to do was call Comcast to give them the MAC address (on the side of the Netgear gateway), and within a few minutes, it was up and running, and ready for me to set up my wifi and other settings. Then I hopped into the car, took my modem back to the Comcast office, and got a return receipt for it.
Save the receipt! Comcast has a nasty habit of insisting that people didn’t return their equipment. If they do this to you, your receipt is your proof that you returned it!
This Netgear N450 supports the standards that I was looking for, namely IPv6, DOCSIS 3.0, and wireless n.
Comcast recommended a Motorola gateway, but it was going to be about $170 for the one they wanted me to buy.
The Motorola had a 3 star certification from Comcast, while the Netgear N450 had a 1 star certification, although I have yet to experience any problems with the Netgear.
Cable modem companies hate Comcast certification. One of them was complaining that it’s basically just a way to make the time to market so bad that more people rent, and to get money out of them for the privilege of being “certified”.
Comcast’s certification is just a big joke. They brag that all of the equipment they lease out is 3 star certified, but then it crashes, resets itself, knocks you offline…. It lets Comcast get these cheap no name modems that are completely terrible, rent them out for $8 a month, and say they’re 3 star certified on Comcast’s network.
The Arris gateway they had me using seems to have no quality of service support. If you’re downloading something, it will take all your bandwidth and you can’t do anything else until the download is finished, because their modem isn’t smart enough to prioritize traffic.
The slower your internet plan is, the more that QoS support is important. At 3 Mbps, not having QoS can even make chat and web browsing impossible until a download finishes. This could be a scam to frustrate customers into paying for a more expensive plan.
So, the Netgear N450 is a better device than what you’re renting from Comcast right now.
It’s an investment that will pay you back over the years that you use it. It will pay for itself after one year, and then you can probably use it for 7 or 8 more years, and save $700-$800, as well as avoiding any future rental price increases, which is important, because it seems to be where Comcast is sneaking in service price increases these days.
“Oh look, your service price has only gone up a dollar this year!” *Raises the modem rental fee another $2 a month…*
So, I’d say that this gateway is a definite BUY if you plan on staying with Comcast for a while.
Scott Robinson –
I read multiple reviews warning against getting a combined modem/wireless router. I am sure there is experience guiding that advice, but so far my experience does not concur. My computer, TV and audio equipment are all within 10 feet of each other, so use 2 wall outlets. Anything I can do to eliminate another plug to the wall, I’ll take it.
My old modem was supplied by TWC, and was only DOCSIS 2.0. I did not realize what an impact this upgrade would make. VOIP was choppy, and at times my devices felt slow, despite a 15/1mb connection (not great, but should be good enough). I have now upgraded to 30/5 (38/4 effective), which obviously helps, but I believe DOCSIS 3.0 on my old plan would have been most of the battle.
I have not had to reboot this since I bought it over 1 month ago. Although I had an ‘n’ wireless before, I am getting 5 bars in places that would only give me 3 before. I have tested full bandwidth on tablets through a couple of walls and 40+ feet. Basically, this does what it is supposed to do well, and eliminated a device.
BCRREVIEW –
I use this with Comcast and a Macbook Pro (mid 2010) and it is fast and reliable. I signed up for the 25Mb/s download and 5Mb/s upload plan with Comcast. Here are my speeds so far: ethernet connectivity reliably gives 29.5Mb/s via Speedtest.net. Now, when it comes to wifi, people need to realize that there can be interference with the wifi networks of neighbors, especially in an apartment building. When I started using wifi with this router, I was getting about 12Mb/s download. After switching wifi channels to ‘non-overlapping’ channels available on the Netgear N450, I am now getting about 25-27Mb/s download speeds. This is even faster than the speed I signed up for with Comcast. Watching Netflix I can stream HD video every time I try, even on a Sunday evening. This is my experience.
The only significant criticism I have of the N450 so far (I have owned the drive for 3 weeks now) is with its NAS functions. Firstly, the USB port of the N450 is still USB 2.0 (should be USB 3.0 by now). When you format a NAS drive with this router, it must be in MS-DOS or FAT format. You will have problems if you try to use a Mac OS journaled format external hard drive. The FAT-formatted Western Digital external drive I use as a NAS will read/write just fine, but it will not wake up on command. Probably the Netgear N450 firmware does not work properly in this respect, since the firmware is what controls when the NAS drive will wake up. FAT-formatted drives are also limited in that they cannot handle files larger than 2GB, whereas a Mac OS journaled drive can do this.
As a very minor criticism, the N450 looks nice but is made of thin plastic. I would have preferred it if it was made of sturdier material like metal. On the other hand, it doesn’t weigh very much so it is easy to pick up and move around.
the Gorn –
When not accessing the Internet, it will manage to maintain state for a long time; however, with even moderate Internet usage, my device restarted consistently every 10 to 20 minutes. It was extremely frustrating, especially considering that the rest of my routers and switches are netgear. I also really liked that the device could be wall mounted. I have promptly returned the device and went with another make & model from a local store to get back online ASAP, however that model is only a modem, and I’m using my old netgear router & firewall along with it. This device also buzzed a bit loudly – perhaps that should have tipped me off.
Despite my poor device, which may have been a one-off occurrence, consumers ought to consider the wisdom of using an all-in-one DOCSIS cable modem & router / wifi from any manufacturer. Despite the convenience of a single device, DOCSIS 3 standards leave control of the firmware upgrades to your ISP. I wasn’t aware of this when I purchased the device. I am not confident that my ISP will update the firmware promptly, thus potentially leaving the security of my firewall in someone else’s hands.
Aaron Poole –
Simply an amazing and easy product to setup and use. Comes with product literature with built in IP for telnet to system setup. You will need to connect a laptop or desktop with the provided CAT 5 to the unit to set it up. The GUI created for the setup is clean and has 5 different areas that allow the most typical password, parental and shaping controls.
As a WOW (Wide Open West) customer in Indiana we had been plagued with extremely poor performance by the provided Arris cable modems through the years. Ping tests for the Arris unit wired were (1.6/5.8 Down and 3 Up) and wireless (.89/1.32 Down and 2.2 Up) on a 30mb feed. Now, those stats were the absolute worst I had ever seen from the Arris and WOW, but regardless they are real. Typically, we would get 8-10mb wired and 4-8mb wireless. When I connected the Netgear N450, my results were (34.5/33.9 Down and 3.4/3.2 Up), again my service is 30mb down and 3mb up. So the improvement from the Arris unit to the Netgear 450 is simply remarkable.
The second test was the signal distance and degrade issues on 2900 square foot house. For this I used my Apple IPhone with the WIFI signal capture and measured bars throughout the home. The power of the unit puts out max bars in 98% of the home, while in the basement, 2nd floor or garage, I still get maximum.
For the third test I looked at user loss and signal buffering of data, video and audio content. For these I used (2) IPhone units, (1) Android tablet, (1) wireless port for a desktop computer, (1) Wii U game console and (3) peripheral devices that stream updates to them for TV guide and data sourcing. All units were engaged at the same time and again, I went to a ping test and was able to pull the following (31.8/31.5 Down and 2.97/3.1 Up). This while streaming Netflix on the Wii U, playing a game on the tablet and phone, streaming audio from the computer and searching internet with the 2nd IPhone.
Overall, we are extremely happy with this unit. The seller delivered it in three days and I highly recommend it to others. if I had to write anything at all negative about the unit, it would be the lights, they are a bit bright. So, placing a cover on the unit or putting it out of sight may be a requirement.
S. Fine –
Frankly, I was putting off setting this thing up until after I did my taxes, had plenty of time, etc. etc. Come to find out, I got everything done in less than an hour!
I followed the instructions on the quick reference guide that comes with it, and called the Dreaded Comcast–only to find out they were very helpful, and very polite! The process on their end took about 20 minutes after I hung up–the information is given to another tech to complete, but I was assured that if the connection didn’t go through, the gentleman I spoke to would give me a call back. As it happened, no problems there.
Downloading the manual is probably a good idea, but like another reviewer stated, it wasn’t really necessary–and was somewhat technically burdensome. The screen that comes up when you start your installation is pretty straightforward, and even though the instructions tell you to enter in information, the correct info is already there, unless you want to change something.
Setting up two laptops, a printer, and an internet radio was a whole lot easier than I thought. There is a button on the modem/router that helps link to equipment that has the WPA function. I am not sure if that would have worked for me, but my wi-fi ready hardware found the Netgear, and all I had to do was punch in the password/key.
Incidentally, for all you not so technically minded,(like me) there is a facimile of the modem label on the back of the set up guide where you can write in all those numbers(SSID, key, serial #, MC MAC); I suggest filling it in before you start, as you will need various information as you complete installation.
When I was using Comcast’s modem/router, I got a somewhat mediocre signal strenghth in certain parts of the house and a weak one if I tried to take my laptop outside. Now I get an EXCELLENT signal everywhere!
The only thing left to do is to take the old modem back to Comcast and get a receipt. I am betting I will stand in line and wait a lot longer than it took to install the new one!
One more thing–it lost the connection once or twice while I was first setting it up, and the signal was shy a bar on one of the laptops at first, but then every thing came in “loud and clear”. Also, both my computers as well as my Norton needed an update, so I think that might be in order if you have a sluggish start.
StrictbutFair –
I was sick and tired of paying rent to Time Warner cable for garbage cable modems over the years and when they finally allowed customers to bring their own, I jumped on the opportunity. This Netgear cable modem is far superior to any cable company offers and we found immediately the we get better internet bandwidth than with any previous rented cable modem. This cable modem is blazing fast with the ability to manage many network security features to prevent DOS attacks. Additionally, this cable modem has wireless ability that exceeds most wireless modems. Having dual bandwidth ability and excellent range, this modem has the ability to connect at 450Mbps speeds. If hard wired is your preference, then it has 1GB ports to connect devices at blazing speeds. I leverage both hard wired and wireless ability and have never had any bandwidth issues internally. Since I am forced to use Time Warner cable as my only available internet provider, I still see bandwidth issues with their service at peak times of the day but at least I can guarantee that nothing in my network is causing the problem.
Alex –
Perhaps this is a great device, but it’s no longer in the list of supported devices by comcast. The description is misleading, with all the xfinity labels and stuff, wasted time believing in “easy self-service activation” and then on the phone with comcast, just to learn that. here is the device http://mydeviceinfo.comcast.net/device.php?devid=395 and End Of Life: 09/2015, and it’s no longer here http://mydeviceinfo.comcast.net (comcast support can’t activate your device without it being present there) and one interesting thing: comcast certification status is only 1 star of 3 possible. NETGEAR – Not Nice! returning and not sure if I ever recommend NETGEAR products to anyone after such a shady practice.
Freddie A. –
This item replaces the COMCAST provided router/gateway [ARRIS/Motorola] and it eliminated the built-in xfinity public wifi. The xfiinity wifi effectively slows down the internet speed I’m paying for. In addition, i don’t have to pay monthly rental of $10 through Dec 2015 and $12 thereafter. This will pay itself out in 9 months. One nice thing is I didn’t have to call Comcast for equipment provisioning. I connected the Netgear cable modem, hooked up my laptop in one of the LAN cable ports and it automatically opens Comcast’s website for equipment activation and requires me to log-in into my account. That’s all there is to connect the Netgear cable modem router.
I previously subscribed to Comcast’s Blast with rated speed of 150 mbps for a number of years but the actual speed was only between 30 – 42 mbps (wired or wireless). Then, i received a notice from Comcast for another increase on my subscription as well as the equipment rent effective Jan. 2016. Since there are not a lot of internet providers in my area that offer similar speed, i decided to step down my subscription to 75 mbps and at the same time replaced the supplied cable modem. Can’t be happier with the move as the current internet speed with the Netgear cable modem is 70 mbps (LAN) and 42 mbps (wireless). Note that the Netgear cable modem has 8 channel download and 4 channel upload.
Customer –
Connected to COX cable system just fine. One quick phone call to cable customer service and it connected right up. Cox had no problem activating this Modem Router. Streams movies just fine, EZ User access to modify settings, better range than old stand-alone Cisco router, no drop outs or re-boots, good download speeds. (But this is what’s expected when buying a new modem router.) So it ‘meets’ advertised expectations.
One issue: multiple VERY BRIGHT blue blinky / flashy lights. Like a disco or night strobe flashing all night. Terrible! Distracting as all get-out. Had to close bedroom door, until I put black electrical tape over those useless obnoxious LEDs. Even then, turned the modem router LEDs toward the wall to subdue the lights. Netgear should greatly reduce the brightness and / or provide the user an option to turn them off.
The Swami –
I was extremely skeptical this would work well or set up cleanly with Cox Communications. I had nothing but trouble getting my last cable modem working with them a few years back, and the router add-on to it barely ever worked at all without constant resets.
I plugged this cable modem in, went to their online activation website (make sure to select the CG3000D Netgear modem in the drop-down box, no CG3000Dv2 was there) , entered my account info and it said it was going to activate, which I laughed at.
2 minutes later, it was fully operational. unbelievable. First time ever no phone calls required to the evil empire.
This was installed in a condo with heavy 2.4GHz wireless traffic all around. It gave a full speed signal anywhere in the 2 level condo with zero problem. The router menu was very user-friendly and easy to navigate to set up the WiFi network as well. It goes without saying, but in a heavy wifi place, set the channel to AUTO so it can surf around and find the best frequency channel for you, or use an app to see which channel has the least interference to manually select. That will help a lot with wifi speed you get on your devices.
For once, a device that actually does what it says. Connection and setup took barely 2 minutes, WiFi network maybe another 2 minutes to set up. Bravo, Netgear!
My router menu pages came up as fast as any internet pages (fast), so I didn’t have that problem. Maybe a newer firmware release?
Only unknown is durability since it’s only a week old. But usually when dealing with Cox it takes me a week to get operational, so this is like found money.
Darrell Grob –
We recently signed up with Comcast, but were unable to get much of a signal from the router provided by Comcast (an ARRIS TG862G-CT). I even purchased my own ARRIS TG862G-CT with the same miserable results. While I could get decent internet on my Toshiba laptop (if it was in the same room), my wife barely received a signal with her Vaio sitting right next to the router. The signal was so iffy reading her email was a challenge. Videos were a pipe dream. Then we ordered the Netgear N450. Wow! What a difference! Even though it was released back in 2013 it has produced blazing fast internet on both our computers anywhere in the house! Upstairs, downstairs, the back porch, it’s true WiFi. For once, a product that fulfills a claim from Comcast–No Customer Service Required. (This seller even included a instruction guide to connect it through Comcast’s web site). Note: the Comcast installer had an app on his phone that measured the WiFi signal from the Arris router. As he walked away from it, the signal degraded quickly to the point where he just shook his head and recommended we drag the coax and router upstairs or downstairs depending on where we wanted to use it. No, just buy a Netgear.
Julia –
This router is terrible. It has to be restarted every single day. Netgear support is also terrible and painfully difficult to access. Finally got through to them and they had me change some settings. Now, it randomly stops working. It worked all day yesterday, then suddenly in the evening the wifi kicked off all my devices and won’t allow them to log back on. I can get it to work temporarily by restarting the router, but then soon it stops working again. The LAN connection still works at least, but this is supposed to be a wireless router as well. Now starting on my second support ticket.
I have set up lots of routers in the past but I have never had this many problems with one. Unfortunately I had a several trips right after I purchased it, so I did not realize how bad it was until it was too late to return it.
Update: after 6 support contacts in the past month, the wifi still fails almost every day. Now netgear says the support warranty is expired and they will no longer talk to me.
K & D –
The modem/router works just fine with our Time Warner service. Speed is fine. Setup was not difficult. I only had one problem in setup and that was with the Wi-Fi password. On the label it is printed in an all caps format. I kept entering the password as Netgear had labeled it but the Wi-Fi wouldn’t connect. With some help from a Netgear tech, I eventually discovered that one of the letters WAS NOT supposed to be capitalized. The tech and I checked this detail out a few times and it was fact, that one letter was suppose to be lower case and entered that way as the password in order for the Wi-Fi to connect. Netgear should look into this to correct the error on their device labels to make sure no other consumers run into this problem. It was frustrating but solvable. Not a hardware defect. The hardware is great and I am very happy with my modem. I bought this model because of the 4 Ethernet ports on the back. I needed three of the four. The USB ports are very handy too. I only use Netgear equipment and it has always worked great. The embedded security is excellent. I would recommend this product to anyone but with a word of caution regarding the wi-f- password as it is printed on the device label. I believe it is worthy of 5 stars.
Jace –
I got this Cable Modem/Router hybrid because I was tired of paying the monthly rental fee for Comcast. Doing the math… yeah I’d save out in the end as long as this product doesn’t bug out on me.
Set up was simple. Plug and chug.
People complain that they aren’t getting speeds anywhere near the max speed of their service. Here’s why: You’re on the same channel as everyone else around you!!!
When I opened the web browser and logged into the modem/router settings “username: admin. password: password”, I saw that the default channel it was set to was Channel 6. On wifi with a laptop, I had 32ms on the ping and was only getting 32mbps/105mbps max speed. Weak!
I toyed with the channel number until I got a good wifi download avg speed of 75-90mbps. That’s not bad considering that’s wireless!
Now onto range:
– wall density and material affects range
– N450 seems to carry strong strength about 25-30ft in my apartment
I’m just happy I can get pretty good speeds at a decent price point. Yeah there are some other cable/modem routers out there, but Netgear has proven solid in my experiences so far. Let me know if you have any questions.
Customer –
I found this product and looked through a lot of reviews. I saw a lot of older reviews both claiming this product worked and did not work for Charter. I saw Netgear commenting back on the reviews saying it did not work that they assure the product should work. More recent reviews generally stated that the product worked for Charter and I did not see any recent ones saying it does not. I assumed that this compatibility issue was resolved and that I would be fine if I purchased one as well. On the day of moving into my new apartment, I scheduled a Charter technician to setup the internet with this modem router. Unfortunately no matter how much he tried or who he called (company lady and DOJ), it would just not work. Everybody he called from Charter claimed that this modem router is NOT compatible and that only 300/350 models work (this sounded ridiculous). Nevertheless since they still tried to see if it would work and failed, I was forced to rent a modem+router from them until I can figure this all out. I drove to a Charter service center to ask about this modem router. The employee there assured that this product should indeed work, especially since he stated that their standards for compatible modem routers were recently updated to be easier. Unfortunately he said there’s nothing much else he can do if the DOJ tried and failed. He gave me a ‘self-install instruction sheet’ and suggested I try installing the modem router on my own if I wasn’t satisfied. I have tried numerous times so far and with no progress I have finally given up. Unfortunately I cannot return this product anymore since it’s past the date of return eligibility. Do not be a fool like me and purchase a modem router early, trusting the description and reviews that it will be compatible with your ISP. Beware it is NOT guaranteed to work with Charter
LD9000 –
I bought this cable modem about 1.5 years ago. I was using as recommended by Cox Comm., and by reading the reviews on the unit, which for the most part, were positive. The set up was simple, I was up and running in no time, and have not any issues with the unit since, until now. About a week ago, I started noticing that the items I had wired directly into the ethernet port were not connecting. After many attempts to figure out what was happening (changing wires, changing ports, etc), I realized that all 4 ethernet ports were not lit up. The entire 4-port board was not working at all. I could not call Netgear, as the 90-day warranty period was up, and they wanted $49.99 for a phone call. I checked some of the Netgear community forums and could not get help there. Cox ran some tests for me, and it was determined that the 4 ethernet ports were not working. For the 1.5 years that this unit worked, it provided excellent signal and coverage. Needing a new cable modem, I was not enthusiastic about buying another N450, much less another Netgear unit. After doing some more research, I settled on an Arris Surfboard cable modem, which installed easily and runs superbly, let’s just hope that it lasts longer than 1.5 years.
jeffrey –
It still works and gets better with every firmware update .I bought this box to get out from under the monthly rental fee my cable company charges and 2 years later its paid for itself a few times.I love the network usb drive feature I’ve accessed files like music and video from out on the road several times with out a hitch. It isn’t capable of running tomato as of last time I’ve checked but to be honest I’ve never sen the need for it . Keep up the good work Netgear and thanks for the great product.If this review helped you in your decision or gave you a bit more insight on this product . Please go ahead and click the “Yes” button. Thank you for reading my review.
Big Blue Fan –
I love this router – it’s fast and was compatible out of the box with my Comcast service. I get over 90mb for download speeds using WIFI and Comcast Blast service. It pays for itself in less than a year and you can set it up easily. I live in an area where the electrical goes out with some frequency and so far the unit has come back up everytime – it’s been almost a year since I purchased it. I would purchase this again and highly recommend it.
Xander –
While using this device’s WiFi router, my roommate and I lived in constant fear that one day, one of us would snap. We had fantasies of lighting it aflame and flinging it out the window before pulverizing it with a sledgehammer. I terrorized Comcast, blaming them for the internet that was so slow as to almost be worse than useless. My cell phone data cap was obliterated when the useless WiFi was about as useful as a brick to the head.
Fortunately, in a fit of rage (and briefly working WiFi) I was able to order a refurb Asus RT-ACT87R for a steal. A quick search for how to put the N450 into bridge mode later, and we were up and running. Where I previously got 60ms ping/1.2 Mb/s down/0.8 Mb/s up across our postage-stamp sized two bedroom apartment, I now get 9ms/120.8/6, respectively. My blood pressure and the stress levels of the Comcast reps are in Asus’s debt, and frankly, Netgear almost owes them an apology letter.
TLDR: Modem good. WiFi might be worse than an inert brick labeled “WiFi hotspot.”
HonestJoe –
Like other reviewers, the primary issue here is connectivity.
I live in a small apartment, so I’m always looking for space-saving options when it comes to appliances, furniture, etc. So, I very much liked the idea of having my router and modem in one single, space-saving design. I also enjoyed the idea of having just one point of connection, limiting the mess and tangle of lots of wires.
To its credit, it is compact and sleek. I think its visually appealing. However, a “good looking” modem/router is really now what any of us are in the market for, am I right?
For reasons known only to the gods and to the engineers at Netgear, this bloody thing produces a painfully week signal, and connectivity drops intermittently. I would say it was worse in the first weeks I was using it, as if there were a learning curve, but that doesn’t sound likely, does it?
It was my own lazy fault for not returning it within 30 days, so I’m stuck with it until I can pony up the not inconsequential sum it will take to purchase a quality modem and quality router.
By the way, do not take this as a slur against Netgear products as a whole; I have enjoyed other products of theirs that I’ve owned.
Jesse E. Stark –
This modem/router combo was fine until TWC pushed the latest update to it. Now the wifi drops out completely every day and requires you to unplug the device and plug it back in. When contacting both Netgear and TWC, they both blame the other party, so it doesn’t seem my issue will be resolved anytime soon.
Time Warner Cable did update their compatibility list and removed the wifi functionality – its just unfortunate they did this 5 months after I bought this and now I am stuck buying new equipment.
BooBee –
In my mind all these years I thought Netgear = Quality but boy was I wrong! When I purchased this thing it was a little slow but in fairness the firmware was out of date straight out the box so I waited a few days for cable company to push firmware update which did happen. Modem delivers very fast speeds upwards of 90Mbps per my ISP subscription of 100Mbps. My biggest complaint and problem is that lately I have to literally unplug/reboot the modem on a DAILY basis because it looses it’s connection to the internet for some unknown reason. Once I perform a reboot I’m back in business with blazing fast speeds again but I think its crap that I have to keep rebooting daily to enjoy this product. This is only just over 3 months old and initially I didn’t have this problem.
Naturally I went to Netgear website to contact support thinking I had some kind of standard 1 year coverage/support but I was dead wrong. I literally passed my 90 day premium support period by two weeks; UGH!! So now for a price I can get support, Ha! Yea right, I’m not giving Netgear another dollar! For the price of this modem I guess you get what you pay for but I will ride this out for at least a year to get my monies worth (saving me $10/month modem rental) then I’m going to go with a different brand. Maybe I’ll buy one of those brands that actually gets good reviews but I’ve never heard of them before.
Eric –
This wifi device is terrible. If your devices are hard wired into the router it works great. However, everyday I must unplug the router for the wifi to begin working again. I have to do this exercise atleast once to twice a day. I call NetGear tech support and they have me change a channel setting. Works great for 2-3 days and back to square one. I am on my 3rd call since purchasing this, I have been on the call for an hour and the tech told me after December 4 I must purchase a tech package to continue the coverage; that package is another $100. They won’t send me a replacement router and keep over talking me. Clearly I have a defective product and they won’t help. When you ask for a supervisor they don’t get one and tell you they are not on the floor. Stay clear of Net Gears products.
ciscokid1 –
It worked great for about 15 months. Then my cable provider pushed Netgear’s new firmware V3.01.06 and now not so good. The wireless dies after 2-3 days and I must power cycle to recover.The wired connections will also die sometimes. When I try to login to the Genie to investigate it reboots. I suspect the firmware as there are numerous blogs with users complaining about the same behavior after the firmware update. Some say that a factory reset will fix the problem but it didn’t work for me. My cable provider says they will not downgrade the firmware. I have used Netgear products for years but no more. I will now purchase a separate cable modem and router from a different manufacturer and if my cable provider pushes new firmware it will go to the cable modem only.
SDcoupe_guy –
Have had this product for about a year. Seemed to work fine up until recently where, like many, I have to do a hard reset every couple of days. Sometimes more frequently. I’ve done many tests to determine if it was the router/modem or my ISP. At first I thought it was my internet service provider because recently Time Warner cable had become Spectrum and so I thought that my service had become questionable at best with the changes they might be implementing. My final conclusion is that although I think Spectrum is rolling out updates this router/modem can’t handle/push through…I think the greater likelihood is that this product has planned obsolescence after a year (which is really bad on netgear’s part) or just sub par performance relative to today’s broadband demand or the inability to allow ISP firmware updates to push to this modem/router.
A. Sheth –
I bought this to use it with TWC to avoid monthly modem rental costs. But as a modem, this has not worked out well. Among the issues I have had: (a) it keeps on dropping the connection and requires frequent reboots, (b) 90-day customer service timeframe is too short– often one discovers issues after the expiry of this term, and you are out of luck. About a week ago the modem started to refuse my WAP2 password, and cannot figure out what to do. I am getting by connecting older, still working Linksys router to this one and using SSIDs set up for that router. Finally, I expected to get better performance, but I see no difference compared to my older modem (I admit the modem may not be the culprit and the culprit could be TWC service– but it is hard to tell).
Bena –
Does the job it is designed to do. Is great to have both the modem and router all in one, but I also have separate equipment as a backup cuz if one part quits working and the whole thing quits. The best part is that for the cost of this piece, I no longer need cable and was able to drop it. After the initial investment, am able to just pay the monthly wireless internet fee, monthly subscriptions to whatever services (Amazon Prime, Netflix, Qello, etc.) and have more freakin’ TV to watch than could be done in a lifetime…for far less than what I used to pay just for basic (no frills) cable.
RichardWA –
Why oh why do I continue to buy Netgear products? They’re cheap. And I’m cheap.
But you get what you pay for….
Like so many other reviews here… the wireless part stops working at least once a day. For no apparent reason, ALL connected devices get thrown off. Sometimes the connections stay up, but the connected devices will lose all internet connectivity (but can still see and interact with each other; it’s like it loses DNS or something), other times the connection simply drops.
The wired portion of the router still works fine and to get the wifi back in business, you don’t even NEED to restart the device.
That’s because Netgear is apparently aware of the issue: they have placed a wifi On/Off switch on the front of the router. All you do is press the switch, wait about 5 seconds and press it again. And PRESTO, all your wireless devices come back to life again while your wires devices kept on working.
So… piece of junk, but it was cheap. Wired works fine, so I’ll still give it 2 stars.
I’m going to have to look for something else that does NOT have Netgear on the front. Any suggestions that won’t break the bank?
Savvy Online Consumer –
I bought this modem to prevent Timewarner (now spectrum) to charge for monthly modem rental. It worked fine for the most part but after a while I noticed that my internet is keep getting disconnected. Such that it would look as if it is on with the corresponding lights flashing when in fact it was not broadcasting. This cause my cellphone data usage to skyrocket every month as it would disconnected on its own and sometimes connect on itself and other times it wold work after disconnecting it form the electricity and reconnecting it (even then sometimes the problem still would continue until it would fix by itself or after a long time not using it). I’m a very tech savvy and during all this time changed so many settings such as channels but I was not able to fix the issue. All these time anytime I would call the internet provider they would tell me that there is no problem on their part and it shows that service is being provided. There were times that they could see that the modem is offline and there where times that the modem was online but still was not broadcasting. The firmware is not upgradeable so what ever was the issue whether software or hardware after a long time of fighting with this modem I am giving up on it. If you have to buy this modem do yourself a favor either find another compatible modem from the list of qualified modem on your internet provider website or if you do buy it return it as soon as you see unusual disconnecting while the return window is open.
Jason G. –
I can only give this modem/router two stars. While setup was easy & signal strength very good, the router will periodically – randomly – disconnect a device from WiFi & refuse to let it reconnect. For example, six devices will be connected & working just fine. One device will mysteriously lose the connection to Wi-Fi while the other five continue to surf the web effortlessly. Not sure if it’s an issue with overheating or some other problem, but I’ll have to disconnect power for a minute & let the modem reboot. Then it will be fine for a day, three days, a week, or 10 days. And then another device will mysteriously disconnect. Sometimes it gets disconnected from the router; other times it will connect to the router but not the internet, making troubleshooting a nightmare.
Harry Potter –
Purchased the refurbished unit and it worked fine with Xfinity on first attempt. However, the performance degrades over time (both modem and the wifi router performance) and it requires frequent restarts (once every 2-3 days). Tried setting up automatic restarts using the UI and by trying to write some scripts etc and none of that worked very well. Finally, when my christmas lights came down, I just used the (indoor)timer I had used to light up the tree, to schedule a restart. The (christmas light) timer/plug has been setup to restart the modem every night and keep it down for about 30 minutes (my timer does not have a setting for less than 30 minutes). Appears to be working fine now and get about 30-40 Mbps download speeds on a 60 Mbps Xfinity cable connection, which is pretty good for a 2.4 Ghz router in a crowded sub-urban area. I have this modem connected to another 5 GHz wifi router as well, and that router gives me about 40-55 Mbps download speeds.
Rebecca A. –
There is nothing wrong the item, but it is not compatible with Dish Network television in the Philadelphia area. Spent hours on the phone with both Dish and our cable provider Xfinity and they can’t tell why, but it just will not work for satellite television. Not returning it because it wasn’t expensive, and this is not the seller’s fault, I just want to make other customer’s aware. For our internet it worked perfectly fine, just could not use for streaming netflix thru our television or downloading/streaming on demand television thru Dish. I’m sure it works great if you have Xfinity for TV and internet.
BobCat –
Just cancelled ATT DSL; unreliable and slow. So I purchased Comcast and bought this Netgear N450. After the Comcast installation tech ran the wire to the house inside and to the location of the modem/router installation of the modem/router was fairly quick and easy. No hassle.
After everything was powered up the install tech asked for the CM MAC number on the back of the modem/router, did a few things on his phone and poof, internet!
When the internet light went on I searched for the new WiFi connection on my pc, clicked it and pushed the WPS button and I was hooked up to the internet. I went to the modem address and checked all the settings. I checked the speed of this new connection and WOW! The upload is as fast as the ATT DSL download!! And the upload, double WOW!
I have TP-Link powerline adapters (AV500 Nano Powerline Adapter) that connected immediately without any setup; I did have to setup my TP-Link Range Extender (RE200) by pushing the WPS on the gateway then press the WPS on the Extender; it took a couple of minutes but it did connect; the wireless printer connected almost immediately.
Later I tried using the USB Port but found out from Netgear Support it only works with compatible USB HDD (there is a list available online; the Netgear support tech will give that webpage info). That is the only downside as far as I can see right now and why I gave it only 4 stars.
MK –
Don’t waste your money. I’ve had this for ALMOST a year and trust me it was great until recently.
WiFi suddenly stopped working and wired service is spotty. The worst part is that Netgear support is useless; they charge $90 (NINETY) just to speak with their support, which is totally useless if the hardware itself fails. I power cycled it, hard reset it, checked with my ISP, everything. It’s the device that’s just randomly shot. I would care less about this since I only spent $70, but Netgear’s support policy makes me spite them for this piece of garbage experience. I’m not the only one with this issue; don’t waste your time on a company with bad products who don’t care about the customer.
B Quiroa –
UPDATE TO THE UPDATE (one year later):
It’s still going strong! My FPS rates have gone down from 40-50 to 30-40, but I still have a smooth internet experience. I still play video games with it too. Over the last year, ~10 of my games disconnected. Not too bad imo. This router has definitely saved me money!
UPDATED REVIEW:
Okay, so initially my streaming device (similar to that of Roku) kept disconnecting or slowing down whenever I streamed. What I realized though was that the internet was always fine when using my computer, phone, and tablet. I finally looked into my fake-Roku and read reviews on how it struggles to connect with certain routers. So the issue wasn’t with the router, but with my streaming box. WHOOPS. I’ve been meaning to update this because I’ve had it for about 5 months and it hasn’t given me any trouble. I’ve been able to play GTA V and OW just fine. I’m in grad school so I do a lot of research at home and no issue. My speeds are usually between 40-50 FPS.
I would definitely buy the router again! I would encourage others to buy the protection in case you’re on the fence.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I was really rooting for this modem router and so far it’s been disconnecting like crazy.
A lot of the reviews mentioned this yet my stubbornness took the best of me. I like to be hopeful, you know? But I hoped too much for this product, which is my bad. Now I must hold myself accountable and deal with the repercussion of getting this thing. It had perfect uninterrupted connection for the first day. Everyday since then it’s been dropping every 5 minutes or so. I watched a movie and it disrupted the flow of the stream about 6 times. I know this is materialistic. I’ve lived without internet, but I was finally excited to have this thing and it’s just been a mess.
You’re welcome to give this thing a shot, but I reaaaaally advise you not to. I’m gonna return it sometime this week.
Carol Moss –
I bought this less than a year ago as I was tired of paying $15.00 a month or so to rent a modem from Comcast. It took a bit of help to get it set up but it seemed to work great until a couple days ago. My wifi wasn’t working. It took a few calls to Comcast before a tech ran a diagnostic showing it was my modem/router. I was advised to call Netgear tech support. The agent had zero personality and was absolutely useless. He told me that he couldn’t help me with a re-set unless I purchased a service package. I told him I paid around $90 and that it stopped working within a year. Their product is garbage and they want to shake you down to re-set it?! Why would I waste another nickel doing business with these a-holes?! Colonel, the agent “helping” me sounded stoned to boot. Anyway, I went on YouTube and watched a video on doing a re-set so don’t waste your money buying their service plan. The re-set didn’t help either. If anyone knows of a decent eouter/modem with a respectable company, please let me know!!!