C7800

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 After poking around online I found that the SMB1 protocol is out of date and using it opens you to vulnerabilities, I almost gave up and then decided to try to reset the router to its default configuration.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.

We currently use Cox as our internet provider. The gateway Cox provided was constantly dropping out. There was very little consistency in the service plus paying a monthly rental fee wasn't worth it. So, we decided to move to this router/cable modem combo. I have used Netgear products in the past and wasn't too impressed. But this particular combo was super easy to set up. I transferred my wifi information over and had very few issues getting devices to reconnect. Since installing a few weeks ago, we have had no interruptions of service. Plus, I like that there are 4 ports to hardwire devices, supports speeds over 1gig, has dual bandwidth (2.4 and 5) which is necessary for newer devices and has a much stronger wifi signal. Yes, it costs more but will pay itself back since we are no longer paying the rental fee which was about $130 a year. For now this is a good choice for us.

DO NOT BUY netgear products. I bought this router and it started to disconnect from internet after 2 months. I tried to reach out to teach support and it is almost impossible to get any kind of help from netgear support team. First they make you register and create an account with netgear. They verify where you purchase the device and if you are past 90 days, you will have purchase a support contract which is like another $70 and valid for 2 years extended support. Even after purchasing the extended support, you will have to options to contact netgear either chat or phone. If you choose Chat you will be placed on queue. It said I was second person in the queue and if your phone locks it screen automatically while you wait to connect to a chat agent, the session on the app closes on you. I tried again and kept my phone active for more than 25 minutes and it said you session timed out and please try again. So next time I selected phone support, it doesn't directly take me to phone support you have to submit a case online and they will send an email with a phone number and you will have to call them within 48 hours of opening the case. I called the number and stayed on line for 45 minutes even though there is one person a head of me in line. Anyway it connect to support person finally and turns out it was warranty department and they put me on hold for another 35 minutes while transferring to extended warranty department. Finally they tried to troubleshoot and tried to convince me to go check with my internet provider. I already worked with my internet provider, they verified the line and they found no issues with the line and determined it was due to bad netgear router modem. I even borrowed a router from a friend and tested it for couple of days and there were no disconnects with my friend's router. After multiple conversations for 2 weeks with the support team they finally agreed to replace my router but they said they can send the replacement only if I send them the defective one first. That leaves me with no internet not sure how many days or weeks so I tried to request them to send the replacement first and then I promised to return the defective piece but they were not ready to send replacement without the defective router at their warehouse. Very frustrating process! I would never buy netgear again

This device worked flawlessly for approximately 2 months, to include almost 20 devices. Then it stopped working properly. All bands continually would disconnect, drop, lag, or just stop working. I spent well over 25 hours on the phone with the manufacturer/warranty company over a 3 month time period allowing them to trouble shoot the device. Cable company physically inspected the line and measured readings at 1000mbs. The company knows it is a defective product. The company sent me another refurbished item and it was just the same problem over and over and over. Next they tell me to return both, and they will refund my money, I send them back. They receive them and then tell me in writing they will not refund the money and will be physically sending me back the original unit I just sent back. I can not beleive the amount of money and time I have spent on this modem/router. Utterly the essence of stuck on stupid. BEWARE.