I think we need a new one. WHY CAN'T CHARTER JUST HAVE A MODEM WITH TWO OR MORE ETHERNET PORTS? IT'S BULLSHIT! I just spent about the last hour without Internet, essentially. Internet started lagging up, and I thought it was my computer, which happens sometimes and restarting my computer fixes it, so I restarted my computer and the lag was still there. Turned out it was the stupid router this time, so I repeatedly restarted it and the modem, but the router would not connect. Finally, it connected, but the Internet was still laggy, so I unhooked the router from the modem and hooked my computer directly to the modem, and the issues disappeared. The problem with this is my mom doesn't have Internet now (although she's not home right now), but the router being off for an hour or more usually resolves this until it happens again, and this doesn't happen too often, but it's just annoying.
So even after I reconnected our computers through the router yesterday, things were still laggy, albeit better. It was only later in the night that the Internet started returning to normal, so my guess is that our ISP was having problems, which is also bullshit. When we switched from Fairpoint to Charter, they said, "We never have any downtime or problems." Lies. Our ISP.
A modem for a home will likely never have two Ethernet ports. Technically what everyone calls routers aren't actually routers, they're multifunction devices that include three different networking devices: a router, a switch, and a wireless access point. For a modem to have two Ethernet ports it would either need a switch, which they wouldn't do because everyone's router has a switch, or two connections going in which homes won't have. Corporate level routers also just have one Ethernet port which you use to connect to a switch. You can probably replace your router without going through Charter if it is repeatedly giving you issues. Belkin makes some cheap ones that work well. Also any company that tells you they never have downtime is lying, in the networking biz there's that number everyone throws out: 99.999% uptime. What they basically mean is that they cannot guarantee they will never have downtime so they leave that miniscule possibility for it -- and an hour out of the year usually ends up being that small small amount.
Huh. Back when we were with Fairpoint Communications their modems had four Ethernet ports. (Also, quick off topic question, but why is Ethernet capitalized? Whatever the reason, it's probably also why Internet gets capitalized.) Ironically enough, a Belkin router is what we have. We think it's what caused our old modem to reset out of the blue, sometimes multiple times a day, though it hasn't happened since we replaced our modem. I don't remember the exact words, but that's essentially what the receptionist said: "We never have any downtime and when we do maintenance, it's always at night when it affects the least amount of people." Maybe it was "almost never have any downtime," though, and I'm probably just remembering wrong.
Then it wasn't a modem, it was a combination device. Some ISPs give out just one device that performs the functions of both a modem and a multifunction router. Ethernet is a proper noun.
Either my router or modem is totally messed up at home haha, it spontaneously pretends some websites I frequent don't exist for maybe 15-30 minutes at a time (gives me an Invalid URL, 404, sometimes it even redirects me to a Yahoo "this page is down" notice?? among other things). Google is probably the most common victim but it happens to KHV, Tumblr, etc. too. Hard refreshing several times occasionally seems to fix it, but even then that only works sporadically & there's no surefire way to make things work again that doesn't involve waiting it out. I have no idea what the problem is and it seems to be kind of a hard thing to research. Happy to be on campus again with solid Internet, lol.
I can remember back when we had the old Linksys router because it was incredibly touchy. If I even moved it a half an inch to the right, I'd get limited or no connectivity. And I can remember when 11 Mbps was a huge deal. Of course I remember when we had dial-up. The one we have from our current ISP is better. Though I still have to go down and reset it with varying degrees of frequency. The last time I had a person here, he agreed that I shouldn't have to be doing that but aside from 'Oh hey, let's get a password on that' didn't do anything else that might fix that issue. It's not a terribly big deal but it's inconvenient when I come home after work and find that my internet's not working. And the desk where the router is is where my father uses his computer and that desk is a nightmare. Potato chips everywhere, dirty dishes, bbq sauce on the mouse. I've told him multiple times that eating at the computer is a bad idea but it still happens.
