Review : High Speed Internet, Cable Modems, Linksys Router
Published 10 Jul 2002 ~ revised 06 Dec 2006
High Speed Internet & Cable Modems
A few weeks ago, I decided that it was kind of sad for a geek like me to be without high-speed net access from my apartment. I always knew this was the case, but the ever-increasing price of residential DSL kept me from taking the broadband plunge. I had heard about cable access, but was still of the 1990's mindset that cable was slow, unreliable, and generally not worth the investment. So I starting researching a bit, and looked into what my cable company, Cox Communications, had to offer.
What I discovered was quite surprising. The comparison below offers a glipse of some relevant differences between what I could get with DSL versus cable (and conventional dialup). These figures are based on my distance of 17000+ feet from my phone company's central office (CO); this distance limits the maximum DSL bandwidth.
| DSL | cable | dial-up | |
|---|---|---|---|
| price/month | $89-185[1] | $35 | free (employer isp) |
| max down speed[2] (kbps) | 144 | 1500 | 56 |
| max up speed (kbps) | 144 | 192 | unknown, but slow |
| static IP | yes | no | n/a |
| multiple IPs | yes | yes[3] | n/a |
[2] up & down speeds are under ideal conditions only; actual speeds vary significantly
[3] with Cox Internet, only one dynamic IP is given, but additional IPs may be purchased
Those are the basics. When I saw this comparison for myself, the choice was clear. Why pay nearly $100/month for 144/144 when I could get nearly 10x the speed for half the price? Yes, I was a bit unfortunate that I couldn't get a static IP address, but I wasn't planning on running any critical servers or what-not. This service would only be used for home and home office purposes. In addition to these figures, Cox Internet usually charges a pretty hefty installation fee, if you do not choose to install the activated service yourself. That normally costs over $100, but I caught them on an special promotion, and had the install done for only $10.
Finally, I had the option of renting the cable modem itself (the hardware that actually receives the signal from the coax drop in the wall) or buying one myself. Because I didn't know how long I would have this service (with the wedding coming up and all), I took the rental for an additional $15/month.
So far, broadband has been great. I can almost always count on average down speeds of 700-1000 kbps, and my up speeds, as promised, are in the high 100's. I have yet to suffer any downtime or lack of service, and actually my only complaints are around the dynamic IP addressing. The Cox DHCP server apparently isn't the fastest thing in the world, because renewing sometimes takes a few minutes. For the record, leases are 24-hours, but since I leave my machine on throughout the day, I can usually keep an IP until I reboot. I have noticed that since I bought the LinkSys (see below), IP renewal has been more stable and transparent, thanks to the router's automatic DHCP refresh.
For more information, check out my local cable company's site or contact your own cable provider.
Broadband rating : B+ (affordable, fast, & reliable, but still no static addressing)
LinkSys EtherFast© Cable/DSL Router with 4-Port Switch
With the purchase of broadband net access, it was necessary to have some sort of security infrastructure in place between my home network and "the world." This was an element that was overlooked by consumers for far too long, but with the increasing popularity of residential broadband, providers began to take security a bit more seriously. Still, people JUST DON'T KNOW how open their systems are when they hook up that DSL or cable. Because I didn't have the systems available to build a dedicated firewall server, I went the shareware route with a free product called ZoneAlarm (zonelabs.com). This is a widely-acclaimed software firewall, and an all-around great product. It works under the premise of "close first, ask later" security, so therefore locks out all access in and out of your computer until the user gradually allows access to specified applications.
In the tech world, word gets around fast; and word was, as hardware firewalls go, LinkSys knew their stuff. So I purchased a LinkSys cable/dsl router with 4-port switch and integrated firewall and DHCP server. What's all that mean? First, a router is a piece of hardware that sits between the open net connection and in-house systems (it does a lot behind the scenes, but that's not important here). The "switch" part lets me split one net connection among four computers, so I could share my broadband access to any other machine hooked up to the network. The built-in DHCP server gave out internal IP leases to connected machines; therefore, if anyone got my IP address (from Cox), they'd only be able to play with the LinkSys router, not any of the four machines on my network. That's where the built-in firewall came in handy. Like ZoneAlarm, Linksys closes ALL inbound access; nobody can get in. All DHCP, routing, and firewall configurations are maintained via an internal web-based administration tool, but I was up and running without any tweaking. It was stable and secure right out of the box. Very clean. Very easy. Perfect for the average home user who doesn't need to know a thing about networking.
For more information, check out the product detail page care of LinkSys.com.
Router rating : A+ (a perfect security solution for residential broadband)
Update, 23 Jul 2004: Some changes to note since I first wrote this review. First, my cable provider has upgraded residential speeds significantly, doubling both my up and down capacities to ~230kbps/~3.2Mbps respectively (for the same cost). Outstanding. I've also finally joined the 21st century by going wireless. I bought the Linksys BEFW11S4, which is the exact same thing as the wired router I originally had, but wireless. Architecture (below) remains the same.
Update, 06 Dec 2006: Significant changes in the past two years. First, I upgraded the aforementioned Linksys wireless router (which was 802.11b) to a D-Link DI-524 (which is 802.11g). I didn't get rid of the Linksys, though, because not all of my wireless devices are 802.11g compatible. So I disabled DHCP on the Linksys and am now using it as an access point off the D-Link. 802.11b devices connect to the Linksys, but get an IP from DHCP server on the D-Link. Next, I'm not sure why I missed this with my last update above, but I also bought my own cable modem, the Linksys BEFCMU10. Interesting side note about that: I first bought the cable modem back in early 2003, which had a firmware version of "2". A few months ago, my cable signal would simply drop intermittently, and a Cox rep informed me that they had recently upgraded their network for greater speed and reliability - an upgrade that the version "2" firmware didn't really know how to deal with. So I bought a new version ("4") of the same model, and all is well.
Home network architecture:
