Netgear CM1000 activation woes

I am giving up on the Netgear CM1000.

Netgear Support confirmed that my activation timeouts are a known issue with the FW of the modem. They also told me that they do not have a fix yet. They had the gall to tell me to buy a different model. They claim that this might be an issue only with Xfinity customers and not TW or Cox customers. This modem ironically is advertised as certified to have a self service provisioning flow with Xfinity prominently on the box and website (says nothing about TW or Cox). Netgear also wanted to charge me shipping to RMA it to them for a working version at some unknown date in the future.  I plan on returning the modem to Fry's and get a refund.

This modem is showing as sold out on Amazon. Looks like 73% who looked at it on newegg bought it. I am told by Netgear that these modems also have the same faulty firmware on them. I assume quite a few Xfinity customers will get their hands on this modem with the faulty firmware, once these start arriving in a day or two. They are in for a lot of pain. 

As it stands today the firmware is not customer updatable. Maybe Netgear will provide a script at some stage that one can telnet in an run on the modem, so this modem can at least finish the startup procedure and come online on the Xfinity network. One does not exist today and the exisitng modem webconsole is not capable of upgrading the firmware.

This has been a bad customer experience with Netgear. I will rethink my future purchases of Netgear products.