This morning we had experienced what seemed like yet another internet outage. Our Spectrum internet service has been spotty during the pandemic, and it came as no surprise that we lost internet again today. I decided to run through my typical troubleshooting steps to determine if the problem could have been due to my computer, the mesh router, modem, or ISP. When I attempted to reboot the NETGEAR C3000 cable modem/router, I discovered that all the lights were off, and despite toggling the power button and removing/inserting the power supply, I was unable to get the modem to work. Time to get a new modem.
Spectrum provides a list of authorized modems that are compatible with its network. Fortunately my local Costco warehouse had a NETGEAR CM1100 cable modem (modem only, no router; I don’t need a modem/router because I already have a mesh router) in stock, and it is listed by Spectrum as approved for internet speeds up to 1 Gbps.
I thought that replacing my modem should have been easy as plugging in the power supply, turning on the modem, and connecting the ethernet cable between my modem and mesh router. However, on my 2016 MacBook Pro running macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina), I was only getting speeds of 0.85 Mbps even though I subscribe to a 60 Mbps plan. On my mid-2007 iMac running Mac OS X 10.11.6 (El Capitan), I saw the following pop-up window:
Although clicking the “Get Started” button returned me to the same screen resulting in an infinite loop, fortunately it provided a link to https://activate.spectrum.net/ at the bottom of the window which I visited via a web browser. After logging in, it told me that my modem was offline.
Clicking the 3 dots to the right of the modem icon gave me an option to replace my modem. Upon selecting that option, I entered the MAC address listed on the new modem. A few minutes later, my new modem was successfully activated, and I am back to normal internet speeds.
