NETGEAR Cable Modem DOCSIS 3.0 (CM500) Compatible with Major Cable Providers Including Xfinity, Cox, for Plans Up to 400 Mbps

So I've had this modem for a few weeks. I used to have a Motorola Surfboard 6141 I believe (going off memory). That modem at times would randomly drop speeds down to 1mb/s maximum for no reason, then throttle back up. I tried to research this and found out it might have been related to the Time Warner Maxx internet package I have (I'm grandfathered into a package that currently doesn't exist). No idea how or why that would matter but it seems to be the reason why my old Surfboard was having problems. So a deal hit and I dropped cash for this modem in hopes I could solve this problem fairly cheaply and so far its working. I haven't noticed any lag, no strange behavior like dropping to 1mb/s speeds, its been consistent and constant fast speeds, even above the stated speeds I should receive. The unit is well ventilated so the concern of heating up is not an issue. It's barely warm to the touch. I think as others have stated, if you put this in a confined space, for example an entertainment center with a glass door, then it'll heat up more than likely because there's no internal fan. But if you provide adequate air circulation then it'll function perfectly from my point of view. Also I wasn't able to successfully hook up the unit and remotely update to Time Warner that I am switching modems (Mac address) so I had to call them. The tech was able to get me going and took about 10 mins. All in all its so far a great intermediate modem.

The modem arrived early, it worked perfectly after a call to COX, telling me to contact NETGEAR, because it was a modem issue is why it would not connect to my desktop or router. Netgear said it was my router, wrong. The next day a COX tech spent 4 hours at my home. He left telling me that I needed a new router and the internet to my desktop worked on some sites, did not work on other sites at all. For any COX internet customers, once you connect this modem, or any other brand, you HAVE to call the COX Sales department to have it activated, I repeat, call Sales. Also, I use Windows 10, you absolutely have to be logged in as the administrator, That is what I did, my desktop connected to the internet and I then connected the modem to my router and my desktop from the router and the modem has worked perfectly since then. I would buy from the Seller again, without a 2nd thought, I couldn't be any happier with their service. The modem has been an excellent buy and I am happy that I purchased it.

Great product and easy to hook up

I got this for Xfinity service, because I hate paying them to rent their device. After 10 months, this thing will have paid for itself. I have a pi hole (DNS level ad-blocking), so it's nice to have a device where you can point to a DNS server of your choosing. Solid device, with no real issues. Pros: - Pays for itself after less than a year. - Prevents you from being controlled by Xfinity. - Allows you to not have other folks connecting to your device if you don't want them to. - Fast enough for basic packages. - Stable/reliable. - Allows for custom network settings (including, but not limited to DNS). Cons: - Uh.... I can't think of any right now. It's literally done everything I've needed it to do so far. If I REALLY have to pick something... I'd say that it gets a bit warm for my taste. They could definitely have designed it with better air flow in mind. Not that it really matters, because even when it's hot it still works better than the modem Xfinity provided. Other thoughts: - Don't let them bully you into paying for their equipment rental, or scare you into thinking this device is somehow going to wreck your life. It's literally their job to try to get you to pay more money.

I hate this new world of product reviews and the "online" experience. Every time I say to myself, "I won't put a lot of time into this". So what do I do? I put a lot of time into researching these things. Why? Because there's this inherent need to read reviews and look at the negative before the positive. There are always more negative than positive reviews, simply because those who are pissed will write and those who are happy, move on with their lives. In this case, the negative review percentage was small in relation to the positive reviews and therefore a viable purchase. So after 2 hours of researching and reading, I made this purchase. Yes, I did all the research to make sure this would work with Time Warner/Spectrum 200mbps service. BTW, the only reason I am upgrading from my 50mbps UBEE which gets me 73mbps, is because Spectrum took me from 100mbps to 200mbps for free. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gone through all of this. Now yea! I ordered on a Sunday and received it Sunday night! Really, who cares. Well some might I guess. But since they felt the need to get it to me so fast what the hell, I took it. However, 3 days later I finally found the time to waste another 2 hours (and more now that I have to do this all over again plus spend time writing this review - ugh). So now on with the nightmare. Call on my magic jack which is hooked to my internet (of course) with my cell phone handy (which is a tracfone which is why I don't want to waste minutes). After 30 minutes of the preemptive strike,it was time to make the switch. Already I was feeling like this wouldn't work as the tech was having issues with the MAC address and it took way too long for this prep time - shouldn't take more than 10 minutes perhaps. Okay, the tech called me back on my cell phone. Now the minutes are ticking. 20 minutes later, the steady green simply would not happen. 40 minutes later, the tech did the "clear quarantine" even though I told him that they needed to do this last time I did this (a different long story). 60 minutes later, nothing, 80 minutes, nothing. Time to call it. Time of Death, 10:45am. Now to re-hook up my old modem. All of 2 minutes! Again, tried and true UBEE rock solid modem. Switching to a different modem altogether. Good luck to all those deciding on this model. I refuse to try again. I cannot say this was a problem with the modem or with Spectrum. In my 40 years in the IT world, I've seen almost everything. However, if this modem gave such problems, why bother. In this "new age" plug 'n play went out a long time ago and devices just work or they don't. Oh - BTW, I read some reviews where this modem got really hot to the touch. I did leave this modem turned on for the 3 days before I hooked it up and yes, it was quite hot. Much hotter than my UBEE modem, but then again, this modem is 1/3 the size with much less vents than the UBEE. I won't say this was the issue, but it did cause me concern as I leave this modem unattended upstairs and out of site. If I kept it, I probably would have put a smoke alarm near it. To those with success using this, may you have many uninterrupted happy years of service. Time to shop - oh joy...

People are saying this doesn’t work with Xfinity anymore. As of August 2025, that’s not true. You just have to download both the Xfinity and NETGEAR apps on your phone and make sure you go through the full setup for both. This modem does indeed want you to go through the phone apps for setup, as does Xfinity, so I suppose if you’re an older customer and not as comfortable with apps, you could run into trouble. But it’s pretty straightforward, you just may have to jump back and forth between the two apps once or twice. My modem does get a little warm, but certainly hasn’t overheated yet. We’ll see if that changes as it gets older, but, considering this modem is well priced, I’m quite satisfied so far.

A bit disappointing that it didn't come with a full manual (you have to download it), but otherwise it's a fine modem; easy to connect and set up. No notable performance improvements over the modem that Spectrum supplied me, but this one allows me to actually communicate with the modem, view incoming signal status, or change settings, which was why I ordered it. With the Spectrum modem you're pretty much blind: you can't view the status on your computer, and there are no meaningful status lights on the front of the modem. If you're having connection issues, it's nice to be able to tell your cable provider what your signal status is when you call for tech support.

When working great. If you lose connection for any reason it becomes, unplug - plug, unplug-plug over and over hoping it will ketch.