Motorola SURFboard SB5120 Cable Modem

Pros: Okay when it works

Cons: Not reliable, poor support

Summary: I've had two of these modems in the last 9 months. Both of them have failed. Both became intermittent, the worst kind of problem to debug.

With the most recent one, it took me over three hours to deal with the problem because Motorola customer support kept pointing the finger at the ISP. Two customer support reps insisted that the modem was okay, and didn't seem to understand the nature of an intermittent problem, namely that the fact it works on some test doesn't prove it works.

Only when I forced the second rep to so some additional testing, and after the second rep had already tried to dismiss the problem, did the rep admit that the modem was failiing.

The return policy is not responsive to the needs of a customer that needs internet access to handle daily work.

I finally sent the modem to Motorola for replacement. But I bought a LinkSys modem to replace it immediately. I will sell the Motorala replacement at a discounted price on EBay or Craigslist, and never buy another product from Motorola. Demonstrated bad support always slams the door for me.

By the way, when shopping for a replacement I found that the stores didn't stock any Motorola cable modem, including the store where I had bought the second one in April.