Netgear Has 'Full Confidence' in Cable Modem Despite Latency Claims in Lawsuit

A "serious defect" in Netgear cable modems is resulting in high spikes in network latency, alleges a class-action lawsuit filed April 14 against Netgear in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California. The suit claims consumers who bought Netgear’s CM700 modem, designed for the fastest speed internet service plans, “suffer from severe network latency spikes.” The complaint says hundreds of users have complained in online forums and Netgear acknowledged the issue but failed to fix the problems. The suit blames the latency on Netgear's decision to swap out a Broadcom chipset for the Puma 6 chipset from Intel, a problem Intel acknowledged causes cable modems to suffer from significant jitter and latency on their network connections, the suit claims. The plaintiff’s law firm, Schubert Jonckheer, is investigating whether other cable modems containing the Puma 6 chipset -- including modems from Linksys, Cisco, Hitron, and Arris -- suffer from the same severe network latency defect, it said. "Netgear and other cable modem manufacturers shipping modems with the defect should recall the affected models and issue refunds,” said partner Noah Schubert. In response, Netgear emailed us: “It is Netgear’s policy to not provide any public comment on pending litigation, but for the sake of our customers, we would like them to know that we have full confidence in the CM700 cable modem." A class-action suit filed in the same court March 31 against Arris for its SB6190 modem sought the right for plaintiffs to cancel and recover the purchase price of the modem, also based on Intel’s Puma chipset. The complaint cited an article from The Register entitled “Why Your Gigabit Broadband Lags Like Hell – Blame Intel’s Chipset.”