Canadian Broadband → Wish to separate modems from routers

Newbie alert. I presently have Bell FibeTV with the Alcatel 7130 Gateway.
My internet speeds are now 6.11/1.5 (today via Speedtest)

But I'm considering decoupling myself from any given ISP as much as is reasonable. So if I want to switch I can do so without the need to rent their hardware. Just get the "pipe" over cable or cat5.

So it seems to me that I could buy a capable router (no modem) and either a modem only ADSL2 or Docsis3 box.

Questions:
(0) What is your advice about this approach?
(1) What in your opinion is the best router (no modem)?
(2) What are the best ADSL2 and Docsis modems (no router)?

Tia for your advice

Peter

Separates are always better. It is almost never complicated to set up and almost always offers you many more features

Personally I think 'future proofing' is a fools errand. Things change way too quickly. You can save a lot of money buying used and/or older gear.

This is especially true for the modem, which you will have to switch when going between different technologies anyway. Add to that the various lists of officially supported hardware, and investing in future capabilities becomes pointless. Just buy the cheapest (or best value) modem that will do the job you need today.

I don't think you should be future proofing your router either, but.. You may be sticking a lot of custom configurations into it, so duplicating that work more often than needed might not be great.

I second what Teddy said.

Whatever modem you buy today has no guarantee that it will still be (officially) supported later so no point in spending more than you really have to on it. Same for routers where buying a router that is capable of a lot more than what you need in the foreseeable future is pointless since cheaper yet more capable routers will likely become available by the time you'll need their new features, not much point in spending twice as much as you need to just to have the features you might never need before the device dies.

If you want to "shake" Bell and sign with a third party isp with adsl2+ do it soon as 12/1 and 16/1 may be phased out for good. Until third party subscribers can buy their own (and not have to rent) VDSL modems most people will switch to cable internet. As speeds catch up to western speeds of at least 250 megabit then everyone left will flock to cable internet.

I avoided these points because I sell that stuff. Others should probably take a stab at it though

Also, if you say some more about what you do online, and what internet speeds/packages you are considering now or in the very near future, that would help too.

 
I fully support separate (non-combo) units.

Even when there used to be enough price difference to make some folks choose combos (and there is not anymore), I still avoided them.

I agree with IE that buying too far ahead can be a waste of money and/or time.

One exception is that I wholeheartedly DO suggest that if you choose CABLE, that you spend the moderate extra which a Docsis 3 (D3) modem costs (or rent one, if that suits you better), as D3 modems are going to improve your performance (download speed) during peak periods in most neighbourhoods.

Even if you choose a slower speed tier, a D3 might benefit you, and will hold its value much better than a D2 modem, if you later wish to resell it.

Note that to continue to have FibeTV, you need to subscribe to Bell internet, and continue to use a Bell gateway.

On (2), for Docsis you will be limited by what the Cable ISP supports.

Teddy Boom said:
"Also, if you say some more about what you do online, and what internet speeds/packages you are considering now or in the very near future, that would help too"

Bottom line is I am researching using just the Internet and dumping TV subscription. So looking into no-cap pipe either cable (good bandwidth) or DSL (limited bandwidth) or other possibilities. of which I am not aware.

Present apt setup is Bell land line phone, Fibe6 Internet and IPTV (VDSL).
In my office there are 2 baseboard boxes.

The left one has 2 jacks - one for the POTS, the other for the VDSL connected to the Alcatel/Lucwnt 7130 Gateway VDSL port. WiFi is WPA2 enabled for the convenience of visitors.

Also connected to the 7130 Ethernet ports are 2 Macintosh Desktop computers.

The other baseboard box is a cat5 or 6 LAN from the office, around the living room to the TV room. In the office it is plugged into an Ethernet port on the 7130 Gateway.

In the TV room the wall jack is plugged into my Gigafast WF719-CAPR which is in bridged mode with WiFi disabled. Plugged into it's Ethernet ports are the Toshiba TV, the Sony BD player, and the Bell Motorola VIP 1232 PVR.

With this setup I have access from the BD player to Netflixand other streaming video. Also I have Handbraked much of my 200+ DVD collection to my Mac Pro and can stream it to the TV using either Serviio or (later this year) using an Apple TV2 and iTunes.

This is all proven and working. So now I am listing which of the infrequent TV shows we watch so that I can stream them via the Mac or directly.

Thus the idea of separate modems from routers. In addition to the Gigafast I also have an SMC Barricade SMC7008BR 8-port router it has no WiFi and I don't use it for anything at the moment.

My Macintosh has a dual 2.66Mhz Quad cores and 6GB Ram and plenty of HDD plus 2 spare bays. It's going to be powerful enough to serve the streaming to the TV or the BD. I still have to figure out how to make it into a PVR for streaming from the Internet.

So that's the plan I am exploring. Does this give you enough information to make recommendations wrt modems, routers, etc?

respect

Peter

So Teddy Bloom and others now that I posted more details on the 17th will you share more of your advice please?

Thanks...

Peter