NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Spectrum Gig Plan with CM1200 - Activation Difficulty
Hey All - I hope this is a one off but thought I'd share my experience and hopefully have y'all validate if my provisioning is now correct. Long story short, I didn't want a Puma 7 chipset, I w...
Unfortunately Spectrum is a pain to deal with for lot of customers (and you are the not the only one). They go to great lengths to make it difficult for the customers to activate their own modems.
CM1200 is listed on their website as approved device
https://www.spectrum.net/support/internet/compliant-modems-charter-network/
we did provide them samples and got the device fully approved by them before putting the logo.
Now that you have activated it and it is working, Looking at your power levels:
31 QAM downstream channels is ok. It is a limitation on the CMTS vendor and should not impact you in anyway
you have 1 OFDM carrier which is good.
your Power levels are on higher side (you could buy a 6dB or 10dB pad to lower it). This should not impact you in most cases
US QAM is 4 channels which is ok
you dont have OFDMA carrier which is current state with all the ISPs. No ISP I am aware of has deployed OFDMA
I just had a long, long chat with spectrum. Here's what they're saying
It's not that Netgear hardware isn't compatible. They're saying Gig speed specifically only allows Spectrum ISSUED hardware.
Their computer system, so says both the tech and a supervisor over the phone, throws an error code when non vendor issued mac addresses are added to customer accounts with gig. Maybe this is new, but at any rate, they have now actively excluded the CM1200. The tech I was talking to was just as confused and irritated as I was.
The supervisor claims it's a control thing and it's been the policy forever .
Diving into it, I pushed them on whether their Network is true 3.1, it's a standard, it really is an activation lock on their side . The CM1200 is compatible but their arbitrary ban stands. They'll add it to an account with under gig speeds though...
Netgear should have a chat with Spectrum because as of now, all speeds are not allowed based on their asinine policies .
All above though with a disclaimer, Not saying the right tech with the right convictions with the right system access can't find a bypass, but through supervisor level in activations they're 100% locked by the system itself.
It's not that Netgear hardware isn't compatible. They're saying Gig speed specifically only allows Spectrum ISSUED hardware.
Their computer system, so says both the tech and a supervisor over the phone, throws an error code when non vendor issued mac addresses are added to customer accounts with gig. Maybe this is new, but at any rate, they have now actively excluded the CM1200. The tech I was talking to was just as confused and irritated as I was.
The supervisor claims it's a control thing and it's been the policy forever .
Diving into it, I pushed them on whether their Network is true 3.1, it's a standard, it really is an activation lock on their side . The CM1200 is compatible but their arbitrary ban stands. They'll add it to an account with under gig speeds though...
Netgear should have a chat with Spectrum because as of now, all speeds are not allowed based on their asinine policies .
All above though with a disclaimer, Not saying the right tech with the right convictions with the right system access can't find a bypass, but through supervisor level in activations they're 100% locked by the system itself.
Sheep9000 wrote:
I just had a long, long chat with spectrum. Here's what they're saying
It's not that Netgear hardware isn't compatible. They're saying Gig speed specifically only allows Spectrum ISSUED hardware.
Their computer system, so says both the tech and a supervisor over the phone, throws an error code when non vendor issued mac addresses are added to customer accounts with gig. Maybe this is new, but at any rate, they have now actively excluded the CM1200. The tech I was talking to was just as confused and irritated as I was.
The supervisor claims it's a control thing and it's been the policy forever .
Diving into it, I pushed them on whether their Network is true 3.1, it's a standard, it really is an activation lock on their side . The CM1200 is compatible but their arbitrary ban stands. They'll add it to an account with under gig speeds though...
Netgear should have a chat with Spectrum because as of now, all speeds are not allowed based on their asinine policies .
All above though with a disclaimer, Not saying the right tech with the right convictions with the right system access can't find a bypass, but through supervisor level in activations they're 100% locked by the system itself.do you have any chat transcripts or recordings of this conversations? We would love to have one.
Please PM me !
There really needs to be something done to decrease the level of friction we (end users) encounter when trying to use a 3rd party modem with Spectrum. Either that, or removing the logo and relevant information from the boxes would be a good step in the right direction.
Obviously Netgear can't dictate Spectrum's policy but they can elect to not support Spectrum's network and remove the branding from the box or can establish some kind of back channel means of communicating with the Ivory Tower in Spectrum land to make this fully supported and perhaps even automated in terms of activation.
The difficulty encountered when attempting to activate as well as the loss of control over firmware updates when it's customer owned equipment certainly makes for a frustrating experience...if it's this difficult to get activated I can only imagine the enthusiasm for any firmware updates to be pushed by Spectrum to users of this modem.
- Had the same issue the modem would not activate from the website said its not an approved modem. I called and talked with technical support and gave him the cm Mac he put it in the system but it still wouldn't work even though he was getting a signal from the modem and all the lights were coming on. I ended up having to return I'll just wait till the cax80 becomes available cause they have it as approved on their website.
