firmware update and Charte Spectrum

There's been many posts on the forums with people having issues like you do. 

however, modems and modem/router combo device's firmware is controlled by the isp. This isn't unique to Netgear. You'll find all the consumer networking manufacturers are limited by this. 

You can see that Netgear has newer firmware for your device. Netgear does give the ISP's access to that info. But the ISP's are the ones who push that firmware to your combo device when they partition it for service. They (the isp) don't like to update firwmare because they have to certify it first and it costs them $. That's why they don't update the firmware even though there is newer firwmare available. 

Again, this is the same for all consumer manufacturer's currently. Maybe it'll change in the future to where the ISP only controls the modem aspect of the firmware but right now the firmware between modem and router is integrated. 

What you CAN do in the future is to buy a modem and router seperate. This is usually what I recommend anyway. That way the ISP only controls the firmware on the modem. This leaves you the ability to update firmware to the router whenever you want or to put 3rd party firwmare on your router. Plus then if one device goes bad, it doesn't take out the whole thing.

What WE can do to help is troubleshooting. many times ping/lag/performance issues can be helped to be resolved with both optimizing your settings and checking your connections. charter isn't known for making sure your connections lines are good whenever a aftermarket device is used. They'll quite significanly blame anything but their line unless you switch to their equipment. To the point that I've had them install one of their modems for a month to prove their coax line was at fault.

If you log into the modem connections page, can you take a screen snip of the upstream/downstream connections? This helps with checking some basic signals.

And can you go into a bit more detaisl on your problem?

Like how frequently its happening? 

Devices its happening on? Wired/wireless?

Speeds you're paying for? hardwired speeds you getting?

Etc, the more details you can give us the more it helps. 

Something else to keep in mind. This is the community forum. Its where members of the public try to help others out. We're not netgear. if your device is within the 90 days of free support, you can contact netgear for assistance with this. You'd click on 'mynetgear' at the top. register an account and then your device. from there you can contact netgear. After 90 days it does cost $ though. Unless the device is broken and still within warranty. Then you can go through the RMA process on the support site.