Motorola Surfboard SB6120 and SB6121 are two most popular DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems best seller in the market

Motorola surfboard sb6120 docsis 3 cable modem

Overview

Almost all the existing cable modem is universal, meaning any cable modem used will be compatible with any wireless router you have. Amongst many cable modem brands available in the market, a wide range of cable modems from Motorola always get a very good appreciation from the user since almost all of them have excellent performance and highly satisfying. You may check in the market Motorola cable modems always become the first preference recommended by the stores.

Almost all models of cable modem by Motorola get the average customer ratings above 4.0 out of 5 stars, except the all-in-one version of SBG6580 wireless cable modem gateway receiving unsatisfactory rating from the user’s perspective.

Premium Features

Both Motorola Surfboard SB6120 and SB6121 have the following main features:

• Docsis 3.0 certified
• channel bonding of up to 4 downstream channels and 4 upstream channels
• includes Gigabit Ethernet Port
• Supports IPv6
• Supports Windows, Mac, Linux and Unix

High Speed

When many Cable service providers upgrade their infrastructure to support DOCSIS 3.0 or EuroDOCSIS 3.0, Motorola introduces Surfboard SB6120 DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem and the newest one is Surfboard SB6121 DOSIS 3.0 cable modem.

DOCSIS 3.0 technology was introduced to the market to support the demand of future IP addressing IPv6. DOCSIS 3.0 technology infrastructure increases the transmission speed both upstream and downstream but still backward compatible with DOCSIS 2.0. The DOCSIS 3.0 standard for Europe is different which is under EuroDOCSIS 3.0.

Motorola surfboard sb6121 doscis 3 cable modem

Motorola Surfboard SB6120 / SB6121 enable channel bonding of up to 4 channels downstream and up to 4 channels upstream equivalent to speeds of up to 100 Mbps. It is ideal for real time applications such as voice, video streaming especially online gaming experiences. Whatever the operating system of your computers can be supported including Windows®, Macintosh® and UNIX®.

With the support of gigabit Ethernet port, both modems can deliver maximum throughput when connected to a high-performance wireless router that is equipped with a gigabit WAN port. All models of wireless routers with HD multimedia ready include gigabit WAN port for optimum data transfer rate between the modem and the router.

Technical Issues

Surfboard SB5101 DOCSIS 2.0, SB6120 / Sb6121 DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems are modem-only devices and do not include the routing function. Therefore you need to connect these modems to the wired or wireless routers for sharing the internet. You cannot connect any types of wireless access point to these modems. Many people make mistakes in connecting these types of modems to the wireless access point in order to share the Internet and create the wireless network. The wireless access points do not have the NAT function to translate the public IP address to the private IP address and vice versa. Assure that your wireless router includes Gigabit WAN port for optimum throughput.

Networking Diagram

The following figure shows the networking diagram for home networks using Motorola Surfboard SB6120 or SB6121 DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem and the Linksys E4200 wireless router. Connect the WAN port of the router to the RJ-45 Ethernet port of the modem using the included network cable. In this diagram, you can use multiple-port Linksys WES610N wireless bridging for connecting home theater devices including HDTV, Blu-Ray and XBOX. If your current modem is SB5101, and your current router is Linksys E1200 or any standard routers, you don’t need to upgrade the modem to DOCSIS 3.0 one.

Unlike Motorola Surfboard SB6120, the SB6121 is enhanced with 1GHz tuner downstream input to increase the frequency spectrum for demanding bandwidth such as commercial services, interactive gaming and IPTV.

Customer Ratings

This Modem is getting incredible appreciations from the users. There are couples of sellers who sell the product on Amazon and none get below average rating 4.0 out of 5 stars. It’s really a very good achievement for a DOCSIS 3.0 modem from Motorola. Not just SB6120, almost all modems by Motorola both DOCSIS 2.0 (SB5101) and DOCSIS 3.0 (SB6120/6121 or SB6141) all have good achievement in regards to customer ratings above 4.0 out of 5 stars in online retails. And even SB6120 becomes best seller #1 in Amazon in modem category. Click here to see how good they review the product in Amazon.

Motorola also introduces DOCSIS 3.0 Cable modem with wireless router: SBG6850 – a single solution for high-performance wireless network in home. However, this product has an unsatisfactory rating that is averaging 3.4 out of 5 stars so far. The number of those who are not satisfied with this product almost half of those who gave 5 stars ratings.

By Ki Grinsing