Hi,
Anyone knows how to upgrade Motorola SB6120 cable modem firmware other than
going through the internet provider? Your help will be appreciated.
Thank you
A MEKKAOUI
MEKTEL INC
www.mektel.ca
My employer managed a handful of small DOCSIS networks for a while where 99% of the modems were Motorola, and as far as I know, there is no way to push a firmware update to the modem from the ethernet side...only from the RF side. And trust me: I looked. If I ever had to update the firmware on some batch of modems that weren't already deployed on a network, I would hook them up to a test CMTS that we had on the bench in order to do so.
I would strongly suspect that this is going to hold true for just about any DOCSIS modem.
And even if you updated it yourself, it's possible that your service
provider's config file would automatically downgrade it.
Best bet is to ask your internet provider to upgrade your modem.
Frank
That has been my experience as well (only from the RF side) and I would
believe this was a design choice. The ISP usually wants to keep control
over the firmware versions of the CM for various technical/support reasons
versus having consumers mess with the firmware.
Paul
That has been my experience as well (only from the RF side) and I would
believe this was a design choice. The ISP usually wants to keep control
over the firmware versions of the CM for various technical/support reasons
versus having consumers mess with the firmware.
Its a design choice but not one that always works out well.
Customers that bring their own modems that aren't on a "certified" list, end up with a device that the provider may not have ever seen. Then, if you run into an issue with the modem that can be fixed with a firmware issue (some vendors have issues that they cannot fix - rhymes with netgear) then the MSO has to work with the maker of that modem, even though they may have never had any interactions with them, get the certificate and firmware for that modem and upgrade customer owned devices - possibly turning them into bricks. I'd rather allow customers to turn their own modems into bricks.
sam
"Paul Stewart" <paul@paulstewart.org> writes:
That has been my experience as well (only from the RF side) and I would
believe this was a design choice. The ISP usually wants to keep control
over the firmware versions of the CM for various technical/support reasons
versus having consumers mess with the firmware.
15 years ago, in certain circles it was well-understood how to load
one's own (possibly patched) software from the Ethernet side on the
old LanCity (pre-DOCSIS) cablemodems.
You can imagine what kind of hilarity ensued.
-r
Sam,
The most common approach from the MSOs is to take one of two paths. Either
simply not allow non-approved devices to come online, this is common from
the larger MSOs, or to simply not try and update the firmware for
unfamiliar devices, this is common for smaller operators. It's very
unusual for a MSO to work with an unapproved vendor simply because they
almost never have enough of their own customers using those devices to make
the effort worthwhile *and *most of the direct to consumer vendors stop
producing firmware updates on a much quicker pace than service provider
gear vendors do. A direct to consumer device will often get <3 firmware
updates total, while the devices sold to/through service providers are
supported for much longer and I can commonly get firmware updates for
devices that are 8+ years old.
Scott Helms
Vice President of Technology
ZCorum
(678) 507-5000
That brings back memories of some unidentified folks getting much higher
speeds and other features they may errr umm not been paying for 
I miss
my LanCity cablemodem - it made a great spaceheater in the winters.....