I would argue that the majority of the comments/reviews are probably not made by the most informed people (just informed enough to buy their own modem). Since t

I would argue that the majority of the comments/reviews are probably not made by the most informed people (just informed enough to buy their own modem). Since they're installing their own modem they may have unaddressed issues such as needing a coax amplifier, not having the modem on the right coax jack (i.e after a couple splits). They may also be complaining about WiFi speed, etc. Reading a couple independend reviews and benchmarks by reputable blogs/fourms is probably a much better bet. Tech support is going to always suck so it's probably a better bet to just invest the upfront time to understand how _your_ modem & router works over one weekend/day and reap the time savings not dealing with support over the rest of your life. Getting a seperate router+modem will push the cost to $150+ for the combo but you'll be able to upgrade the router independently in the future which greatly increases the number of routers you have to choose from.