Slow Cable Modems - Everyone Please Read

I am a Broadcom employee. Broadcom makes cable modem chipsets. Some of these chipsets have a slight design flaw. I am not at liberty to divulge any technical details. However, I can tell you that using a cable modem containing one of these chipsets with your Mac will result in slow internet speeds. Apple is not at fault. I'm sorry to say that fixing these design flaws, which only affect Mac users is not a priority at this time.

I am a Mac user myself and am just as frustrated as you are with incompatible products. This is why I am coming forward and informing you of this problem with our products. Our chipsets are used in almost all of the most popular cable modems. I am including a partial list of the most recent and popular cable modems that use our chipsets which have this problem. I am unable to find any information about older and less popular cable modems. Please understand that I can not and will not divulge any more information. Thank you.

All Linksys Cable Modems
All Motorola Cable Modems except for the SB5120
All Scientific Atlanta Cable Modems

Posted on Aug 25, 2006 12:07 PM

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62 replies

Mar 15, 2007 10:48 AM in response to Broadcom

I called the Comcast High Speed Internet customer support number today and asked if he knew of any issues like this that would introduce speed slowdowns for Macs, and he said he hadn't heard it before. I referred him to this support thread.

He did a test, said he could see the modem okay, and that he wasn't seeing any packet loss. But he did say that I could swap out my current cable modem for a SB5120, which I'm going to do today at one of the Comcast service centers here in Seattle.

I'll post some speed numbers before and after.

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Slow Cable Modems - Everyone Please Read

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