Motorola Surfboard modem free after rebate

[morkinva]

Inspired by this thread, I went into Circuit City tonight (Philadelphia) and bought a Motorola Surfboard SB4100 cable modem for $149.99 and the Comcast quickstart kit for $0.01. Two rebates are printed for a total of $150 ($100 Comcast rebate and $50 holiday broadband rebate - both rebates have different offer numbers and po boxes, but both are sent to 'youngamerica')

This is for new subscribers only, which includes me because it just became available on my block (jeez, its about time).

The guy at the store said its good 'till 12/31/01, but the rebate forms say 1/31/02 - both items must be purchased on same receipt.

You need to send in a copy of your first month's service billing statement. Here in Philly, Comcast has free self-installation and the first month is free, then $39.99 monthly thereafter. You have to have the service for at least 30 days. Since my first month is free, do I need to wait for a statement on which I'm being charged?

Boy I hope this isn't a repost:disgust:

 

[blakeatwork]

*blah* not to thread-crap, but the Surfboards aren't very good for any type of gaming, or for that matter, web-surfing. They have high latency, and huge knock-off rates. Working for two ISP's that use the Surfboards, I can tell you that even if they were free, it still wouldn't be worth getting one. Avoid the hassle.

 

[jonnyfin]

surfboards are great modems! don't listen to this guy

 

[lotust]

<< *blah* not to thread-crap, but the Surfboards aren't very good for any type of gaming, or for that matter, web-surfing. They have high latency, and huge knock-off rates. Working for two ISP's that use the Surfboards, I can tell you that even if they were free, it still wouldn't be worth getting one. Avoid the hassle. >>



its a freeking modem not a video card. Lol

its a deacent modem. works like a charm for me.

 

[morkinva]

Is the USB connection problematic? I have yet to get a network card, so I was going to try the USB first. Comcast keeps saying "our systems are down" and cannot yet set me up :disgust::|

 

[nooch]

morkinva - There was a similar deal last month at Best Buy's in the Philly area, except they gave a $100 rebate instead of the $50 rebate. This was on top of the $100 Comcast rebate. On top of that, some of the Best Buy's were giving a $25 GC if you signed up during a couple of selected weekends in November...I know the ones in Fairless Hills, Willow Grove, and Plymouth Meeting were doing this.

I signed up in mid-November...got free service until January or February but missed out on the $25 GC.

I just sent in the rebate form needing the billing statement. It showed $0.00 on it...I don't think it matters if it shows an actual charge on it, but the expiration date is a couple of months away in case you feel like waiting (I didn't).

They had a choice between the Motorola and the Toshiba for $149.99. I chose the Toshiba. But still, I'd like blakeatwork to explain why the Motorolas are crappy. Unless it's one of those no-name-free-after-rebate-dial-up modems that really are pieces of crap, I would think they perform similarly.

 

[HeinekinMan]

The Motorola SB4100 cable modem is FANTASTIC for web surfing; I've been using one for almost a year without a glitch. I was getting upwards of 5 Mbps downloads on att@home before the 1.5 Mbps cap was put in place. Needless to say, I'm seeing a steady 1.5 Mbps now. Uploads were capped at 128 Kbps and I'm still seeing 100-110 Kbps on a consistent basis. This is without any kind of tweak.

I can't vouch for gaming but this modem is worth every penny I paid for it ($99.00)...and you're talking FREE after a rebate!!! Definitely a Hot Deal!!!

 

[jimmyhaha]

bah..
youngamerica rebate is hightly reliable IMHO..

u are getting a modem free After MIR....

 

[Maximin]

My experience w/ this modem is more or less the same as HeinekinMan.

 

[ECHO]

<< *blah* not to thread-crap, but the Surfboards aren't very good for any type of gaming, or for that matter, web-surfing. They have high latency, and huge knock-off rates. Working for two ISP's that use the Surfboards, I can tell you that even if they were free, it still wouldn't be worth getting one. Avoid the hassle. >>



blakeatwork, what modem would you recommend then for online gaming? (quake, quake2)

 

[TheCableGuy]

Blakeatwork,
What systems are you working for? Every Motorola/General Instrument I've installed is great!!

We take out the Toshiba, RCA, and Com21's that have "slow-speed", and intermittent connect issues with the 3100 or 4100 from Motorola!!

Guys, the Surfboard is an excellent modem. I'm not sure what blakeatwork is talking about, but as a technical manager for online systems, I HIGHLY recommend this modem.

TheCableGuy

 

[Lark888]

I'm going to second (or is it 10th) the recommendation on the SB4100 modem. I picked this up from Circuit City in September when I added Comcast@home service. My download web surfing speeds have been in the 1.5-2.5 range and Quake2 pings close to the lowest on the servers I frequent. I saw an improvement from 70-80pings to the 40-50 ping range when I went from ISDN to this cable service/modem shift. If there is a better modem for gaming - I also would like to know and would probably consider getting same. All the reviews I've seen havn't pointed out some unique gaming modem advantages of another brand.

 

[breweyez]

where is a good place to see reviews/comparisons on cable modem performance????

 

[Poochy]

You need to send in a copy of your first month's service billing statement. Here in Philly, Comcast has free self-installation and the first month is free, then $39.99 monthly thereafter. You have to have the service for at least 30 days. Since my first month is free, do I need to wait for a statement on which I'm being charged?

I don't think it will matter, since Comcast charges one month in advance, so your first [cablemodem] statement will contain the charge for your 2nd month of cablemodem service. In my case, I had two free months, so my first statement actually contained a charge of only $5 for cablemodem service (pro-rate for part of the 3rd month). I asked them about this and they said make copies of everything, just send it in, and they'll call you if there are any problems. Didn't sound too good to me, so I'll wait for my first full charge statement. We have until March or so, plenty of time.

Oh, and as far as the SB4100 goes, I get ping times of 11ms to my work machine, which is 13 hops away. I'm happy with it.

 

[blakeatwork]

LOL... I didn't realize the Motorola's had such a huge following. I can only speak from my experiences running ISP's in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, here in Canada. Perhaps the ones we got here all had problems, but we've since gone from using the Surfboards to Cisco uBr904's for our res. account subscribers. I just found that they did not work with the service, no matter what configuartion was used. Since going to the Cisco's, overall system latency has dropped 15%!!!

(puts flame suit back on...