16 channel vs 8 channel modems 60Mbps Spectrum Cable; is their any real difference?

[VirtualLarry]

I second the FIOS recommendation. They are still superior to Comcast, IMHO, in terms of customer service. (Although, they can be sneaky with billing too, or rather, maybe not "sneaky", but more like, "they can make errors too", or sometimes "the web site doesn't match up with what I was billed" - which seems almost like a rule with Comcast.)

Only real downside of FIOS that I see, compared to Comcast, is that Comcast has IPv6 dual-stack deployed through pretty-much ALL of their footprint, by now, at least for non-business accounts. FIOS has yet to deploy IPv6, although, you can configure a (still free?) IPv6 tunnel through HE.net.

 

[mnewsham]

I second the FIOS recommendation. They are still superior to Comcast, IMHO, in terms of customer service. (Although, they can be sneaky with billing too, or rather, maybe not "sneaky", but more like, "they can make errors too", or sometimes "the web site doesn't match up with what I was billed" - which seems almost like a rule with Comcast.)

Only real downside of FIOS that I see, compared to Comcast, is that Comcast has IPv6 dual-stack deployed through pretty-much ALL of their footprint, by now, at least for non-business accounts. FIOS has yet to deploy IPv6, although, you can configure a (still free?) IPv6 tunnel through HE.net.

The IPv6 situation is overblown in my opinion, almost every single thing you'd regularly want to access is going to be IPv4 anyway, or both IPv4 and 6. For the VERY rare occasions you might need true IPv6 support free tunnels work just fine, and if you're really NEEDING IPv6 on a daily basis there are paid tunnels that are very cheap.

 

[MtnMan]

If you have "charter" internet, call them and tell them you want "Spectrum" internet. That will boost your speed from 60 to 100 with no price change. I just wish it would have bumped the upload speed a bit, as it is still 6Mbps'ish.

SB6121 modem (4 channel) and my speedtests average around 114Mbps. The upper limit for this 4 channel modem is 195Mbps.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

@MtnMan has the correct point in this thread. Your modem may have an upper limit, but it is the ISP that determines how the channels are provisioned. Some ISPs use more channels than others for the same tier. Charter only uses 4 channels for their 60Mbps service. So it doesn't matter if you have a 8 Channel or 16 Channel modem, it's only going to use 4 of them. Spectrum networks double that, and request an 8 channel modem for their 100Mbps plan.

Either way, a 16 Channel modem will make no discernible difference on Charter / Spectrum networks.