C7800

Excellent modem/router and works with WOW. I purchased this because WOW sucks and their modems suck. I was renting their modem for $11 a month a getting ~15 mbps and 90 ping download despite paying for 70. The last month I’ve been calling and complaining that I’m only getting 0.1-1.0 mbps (yes, that low). They told me there has been an outrage for over a week. I hung up and called a competitor who is willing to give me gig service for the same monthly price. I took that as an opportunity to set an install date and ditch WOW.Step 1 was to buy a modem/router to handle the new gig service. This one looked very capable and it’s all in one. Netgear makes fair products so I jump on it. The specs and reviews look favorable.Step 2 was to get it set up until my install date. I get it in the mail and open it up. Chunky boi. I like it. I unscrew the coax from the old one and plug this one right in. I call up WOW and give them my new MAC address. I go from no internet to internet within 10 minutes of unboxing. Too easy.Step 3 was running a speed test and realizing I NOW GET WHAT I ACTUALLY PAY FOR. 65 mbps downloads all day.Step 4 I call WOW back and tell them their hardware is garbage. They tell me it’s due to an outage. I tell them I just bought my own modem and it solved my connection issues. I cancel service with them.The new ISP just set up and I’m running 870 mbps with 10 ms ping. WOW sucks. Their service sucks, their hardware sucks, the business model sucks.The 8700 is great. Meets every expectation I had. My back room where I had 2-3 bars of WiFi is now a full strength. Full strength everyone in the house. My devices can now fully utilize 5ghz WiFi. I get WiFi out to the edge of my property (router is on an exterior wall). A+. Recommended.

Update 02/27/21 - It's been a little over a year since I bought this router and I thought it would be time to post a quick update. The router has been nearly flawless since I solved the initial READYSHARE issue. It's used probably 16 hours a day for work and school from home, streaming video from the connected external hard drive and more.Update 05/11/20 - A day after installing a Seagate 8TB external USB 3.0 drive to the C7800, it stopped being recognized on the PC via \\READYSHARE. I was still able to connect to the drive using VLC on my Samsung Note 9, but I was getting an SMB1 error on WIN10 which didn't make any sense as had been working just fine. After poking around online I found that the SMB1 protocol is out of date and using it opens you to vulnerabilities, I almost gave up and then decided to try to reset the router to its default configuration. In doing so, it upgraded my firmware from 3.01.40 to 3.01.43 and it also fixed the \\READYSHARE issue - go figure.ORIGINAL COMMENTS BELOW:So far, so good. I am getting strong WIFI on 2nd floor of house with the router located in basement. The 1st floor sub-flooring in our home is concrete and steel (1930's junior beam construction) and I had previously had issues getting any signal to 2nd floor even with WIFI extenders. My setup was painless as well as the Comcast installer called it in and had them activate it while he was onsite doing the cable install. I am connected to Comcast 100mbps service and am seeing slightly over 120mbps speeds on Speedtest via a Cat6 ethernet cable.. Roku and Tablo are flying along now. Will update as we get more time and use out of it.The 114mbps screen grab was done on my Samsung Note 9 using 5G wifi from the 2nd floor of our house. The router is in the basement and the signal has to go through steel I-beam and concrete subflooring on the 1st floor. We have Comcast 100mbps service, so it exceeds what we are paying for and the range is phenomenal. We used to need a wifi extender to get any signal bars on the 2nd floor of the house.

I bought this C7800 to hopefully replace a separate modem and a Nighthawk R7800 router with just one unit. Weeks into the purchase, I noticed issues with the device. The Wifi, especially the 5Ghz channel is spotty and drops out frequently and the speed is nowhere near half of what I should be getting. To verify, I plugged the R7800 into the C7800 modem/router combo via ethernet and turned off the C7800's wifi. Sure enough, the R7800 was getting screaming fast speeds, exactly what I was paying for from Cox.Since May of 2020, I have been on the phone with Netgear easily 20+ times, totalling over 30 hours of my time. Each call is usually an hour or more, because each time you call, the foreign outsourced customer support reps take you through the exact same steps as the previous call. This eats up about 45 minutes of wait time. And since their support loves to respond to negative reviews on here with a blanket statement to make it seem like they care, here's the deal Netgear: YOUR CUSTOMER SUPPORT IS HORRIBLE!!In what world is it ok to tell the customer that you will call them back in 5-6 weeks with a response? Especially after they've spent numerous hours and have logged about half a dozen support case numbers from being bounced around so many times and for so long. It is now past the 6 week mark (7 months from initial purchase) from the last phone call, actually more like 8-9 weeks. Still waiting for that call. I go in periodically and request a status update on their support portal, just to keep my ticket alive. I was supposed to hear back from another tier of support just before Thanksgiving. Nothing but crickets. If this sounds like a fun time to you, go ahead and buy a Netgear product. Be warned that if you have a hardware issue, you'll just get a refurbished unit with the same problem.I'm moving my patronage to another brand... I suggest you do the same.