I recently upgraded my Comcast Internet connection to 600Mbps. But my old cable modem only supports 160Mbps. So I bought a used Netgear C7000v2 router modem combo to replace both my old modem and router. I hoped that it would make my room more tidy.
The router combo's specs is not bad. It supports DOCSIS 3.0 and WiFi 5. The setup was very smooth. And a speed test yielded more than 300Mbps.
However, I found many limitations of the modem router combo in the first two weeks with it.
- Only the ISP may upgrade the firmware. And ISP can push new firmwares without user consent. This implies that ISP might have full control over the router. A friend's Netgear CAX80 got bricked overnight likely due to an ISP initiated firmware update.
- The guest WiFi does not hand out IPv6 addresses.
- Does not support DNS over TLS or HTTPS.
- No support for WPA3.
- The management web page is sluggish and lacks many options (intentionally?). I was not able to
- Disable WiFi Protected Setup completely
- Change WiFi channel bandwidth (it always uses 80MHz on the 5G band)
- Turn off 2.4G band radio
Fortunately, the router combo has a bridge mode, which makes it a standalone cable modem. So I turned on the bridge mode and reconnected my old router.
So my conclusion is, if you are a tech-savvy person, you are not likely to be happy with a router modem combo. But if you do not know WPA3, IPv6, DNS, or wireless channel bandwidth, a router modem may be a good choice.
