Cable Modem Docsis 2 vs Docsis3?

[muddpuppy]

has anyone here upgraded to the Docsis 3 modem if so have you been able to notice the differance in speed? I have 20mb service and am running into slight bottlenecks when the wife and I both work from home. COMCAST said I should upgrade the modem for the gains.

[spearchucker]

I think your cable service has to support DOCSIS 3. The only way you are going to get more bandwidth is to pay for more from COMCAST. 20Megabit should be more than enough for the 2 of you. What router are you using?

[upnorth]

I don't know about the modem, but 20 mb should be plenty for 2 people. We run a 5 mb solution where I work for 500 + people. You may have some internal network problems.

And just cuz they say they are selling you a 20 mb service doesn't mean they can deliver it at all times.

[asdfdrew]

Yeah like spearchucker said, make sure DOCSIS 3.0 is available in your area (I'm sure they'd love to sell you a new one even if 3.0 isn't available there yet.) On the technical side 3.0 is definitely an upgrade to what speeds are available through 2.0. It allows for multi-channel bonding by a single user whereas 2.0 only works on 1 channel.

I haven't seen the difference in person but I don't think that would necessarily solve your bottleneck issue. You're still paying for the 20mb service so that's the bandwidth you're allotted. I would think 20mb service could handle 2 VPNs into work while both streaming hi-def netflix/youtube plus some HSO forums. What are these "slight bottlenecks" you're experiencing?

[muddpuppy]

I my laptop with IP softphone, She runs her laptop and IP phone off her works router. I also have 3 personal computers and stream Netflix and or pandora depending on where in the house I the wife or kids might be.

I think the issue is with her work router I was playing around with the setup an noticeced if we setup they way the company want us too through their router it cuts the 20mb in half tested on Speakeasy. If I bypass her work router and connect it through my router my speeds increase and hers stays the same.

My thought is with the 4 channel vs the one we would see improvements when everyone in working/playing. Comcast did just upgrade according to the techs I was talking with. seems my connection is fine

[upnorth]

It sounds like them may have the work router setup for a LAN to LAN VPN and routing all the traffic through the VPN tunnel to their site and then to the internet. VPN has a fair overhead and also they may not have that big of internet pipe and that could be choking things down.

[asdfdrew]

I'm not an expert on VOIP just dabble a little bit...if your speeds are cutting in half it sounds like that work router may be setup to guarantee full duplexing and the whole other half of your bandwidth is being set aside for Quality of Service VOIP feature, or something similar...

[upnorth]

VoIP doesn't take up the much bandwidth. Normally you are talking 56 to 80k per live phone connection. You can do full reserve for a percentage of bandwidth but most cases the set aside for bandwidth for EF (express forwarding)is 20 to 30 %. But it can be configured to most anything. If someone set aside 505 on a router with roughly 20mb that is WAAAAAAYYY overkill.

[muddpuppy]

Well I did the upgrade to Docsis3 I must say I am impressed with multiple downloads at the same time both of us working no lags. I have her Juniper router attached to a dedicated port on my router instead of my network going through her work router. They do have thier router set to throtle down my end for QOS So the issues before were do to thier router setup and the slower internet speed.