Motorola SURFboard SB5101 Cable Modem

So I finally picked up a Motorola Surfboard SB5101 Cable Modem. Amazon.com finally had a deal for $43.99 – $20 rebate, making it only $23.99 shipped. Well, I had to pay sales tax too, but that’s because I’m in Washington.

There has been discussion on threads if the rebate is valid for Amazon.com given that the rebate form is hosted on Frys.com and that Amazon.com doesn’t actually list the rebate. However on the rebate form, it does state that Amazon.com is a valid retailer to purchase from. Then there was doubt about the UPC matching given that apparently there are 3 UPCs for this particular modem and something about the color of the box.

I got the modem today and the UPC do indeed match (6-12572-14827-3) and mine came in a blue/black box if that matters.

Previously, I had posted my results from Speedtest.net using my D-Link DCM-202 flashed with a special Comcast firmware yielding these results:

A couple days later, TekMan showed me his results:

I was shocked how much of a jump there is just based on the cable modem alone! At this point I was determined to find a deal and get my own Motorola cable modem.

A week or 2 ago, there was a Circuit City deal for $20 after rebate, but required price matching to Office Depot and the fact that I had to actually visit a store discouraged me from attempting. When I saw this Amazon.com deal on SlickDeals, I knew I had to get it.

I ordered it last week for $44.99 + tax shipped and then it dropped a dollar further to $43.99. I did get my dollar back through Amazon.com’s 30 day price guarantee. Anyway, the modem arrived today and I called Comcast to update the MAC address so I can associate the new cable modem to my account. After giving him the information, he tells me the registration server was down and told me to try back at 3am. I had called around 11pm and the thought of me going internet-less for 4 hours was a scary thought.

So I sat around filing my rebate and did a couple other things while the clock ticked away. When the clock hit 1am, I knew I had to check to see if I can register my modem yet. I called and indeed the server was back up. Registration only took a few minutes and my internet was up and running in no time. Whoopee!

Of course, the first thing I do is another speed test:

This purchase was definitely worth it. I did 3 tests with my D-Link DCM-202 and they average to around 18000Kbps down and 1500Kbps up. I did 2 tests with my Motorola SB5101 and they average to 23000Kbps down and 3100Kbps up. Quite a performance increase for just $25! Of course, this could just be the initial burst speed, but I’m still excited about the speed increase.

Now I have a spare cable modem or if I sell it, it’ll probably pay for my Motorola cable modem completely!