Right, so they work just fine then. I'm not looking for anything fancy in my combo device. Just something that works. But the responses here make it sound as if a combo device is a downgrade and should be avoided at all cost. As if they're the spawn of the devil. If it works it works. If it breaks down I will be on the phone with motorola to get a replacement and, in the mean time, I can just drop by a local store to pick up a replacement. For me, the upside is worth it.
/sigh. Those verizon combo modem/router with wifi devices? The MI424R's?
They're actually *NOTORIOUS* for being absolute junk. I've personally gone through two of them myself at work in the past year. The wifi is documented as being completely unreliable forcing a full device restart, the WAN connection locks up and you cant get into the web interface to restart it frequently. Most tech forums simply suggest buying a different fios-compatible modem because the one they give you is so unreliable. Even the verizon forums are littered with people complaining about the same issues with these devices going back to
2009. Five years later and a half dozen hardware revisions, they have the same issues.
Here's why *
any* SOHO combo device is precisely littered with all the issues you're saying you're willing to spend over a thousand dollars to avoid: Router/switch/modem hardware and software are not cheap, as in "not consumer friendly" levels of not cheap. Making a
single use device, just a router, or just a switch, or just a modem cheap enough that you're still able to sell them for $60 or $80 is difficult enough without cutting corners (and reducing quality in the process). Putting two of those devices together and
still selling them for $60 or $80? Impossible in the consumer electronics world without definitely cutting corners on quality and reliability. Of course, when has a product being junk ever stopped a company from selling it anyway? As long as they're making money and its "good enough" for most people, who cares, right? But you made this thread looking specifically for
Better than just "good enough".
From a networking perspective, everyone in this thread whom you asked for advice on this, presumably because of their experience in networking, has advised that combining devices like you want is a Capital B
Bad Idea for numerous reasons. Personally, if my switch dies on me I dont want to have to backup, restore, and validate a perfectly good router config too because the whole device had to be replaced. I want to swap the switch and move on. Likewise, if there's a problem somewhere in the chain, it's *much* easier to pinpoint with separate devices that you can physically connect hardware between to test. And single devices are just more reliable.
It's all sitting in a closet nobody's going to look in unless there's a problem or a change to be made anyway, there's honestly little reason to combine devices and plenty more reasons why doing it is inviting a much greater risk of exactly the issues you're trying to avoid.
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