New setup for appartment

[Silas13013]

Alright, so college is back in session and my apartment is currently without internet. We have 1 choice of cable provider and that is comcast. Anything else is too slow or too expensive. Now there are 6 people in my apartment, each with laptops, cell phones and even a desktop or two. Basically, we will be using our internet quite a lot. Comcast has offered to rent us a modem for the low price of $7 a month but one of my roommates wants to buy his own and then take it home at the end of the year. Since it will save the other 5 of us money, we decided to go for it. However, none of us knows much about modems in general so I have come to you OCC seeking advice.

 

Basically, we are getting 20Mb/s down from comcast and need a modem and wireless router to support it.

There will be 6 of us with laptops as well as several cell phones. The apartment is very sectioned off so wiring each laptop is not an option.

We are willing to do a modem/router in one option but it still must be robust enough to handle ~10 wireless connections at once for the majority of operation.

We aren't too willing to spend more than $200 for the combined total but will if its necessary.

 

So any advice?

[wevsspot]

If cost isn't a constraint you can't go wrong with the Motorola SB6121 cable modem. I use them exclusively and have always been happy with the performance, reliability and uptime. If you're in a budget crunch then take a look at the lower priced Motorola cable modems. I've tried Actiontec, Zoom and Netgear without much success, so I always end up going back to a Motorola for cable modems.

 

Routers are a whole other ball of twine. Guess it might be best to know what your budget is for the router. There is a huge selection and prices are all over the place.

[Silas13013]

If cost isn't a constraint you can't go wrong with the Motorola SB6121 cable modem. I use them exclusively and have always been happy with the performance, reliability and uptime. If you're in a budget crunch then take a look at the lower priced Motorola cable modems. I've tried Actiontec, Zoom and Netgear without much success, so I always end up going back to a Motorola for cable modems.

 

Routers are a whole other ball of twine. Guess it might be best to know what your budget is for the router. There is a huge selection and prices are all over the place.

Actual performance is more important than cost but we don't really want to spend over $100 but we will if we have to.

[Waco]

An SB5100/5101 or 5120 will work just fine for super cheap.

[d6bmg]

IMO there is no need of spending $200 over a cable modem. Any of the cheaper ones will do.