hi i recently went to a my friends house who lives just a few house's from where i live and he is getting 4.5 mbps download and i'm only getting 1.2 mbps at best. I was wondering if my wireless modem was the problem because he has a somewhat new modem and i have a about six year old smc c8014 wg modem and i was wondering if i were to upgrade my modem i could get the internet speed that i'm paying for.
What speeds are you paying for? The best way to figure out this information is to contact your ISP and ask them. Once you figure this out, then I recommend talking with your ISP. They can better assess your situation than what we can. I wouldn't recommend buying a modem until your figure this out. You may have a different service than what your friend has. If this is the case, then you'd have to upgrade your current service in order to attain better speeds. At that point, a router/modem (no matter how state of the art it is) will not improve your Internet speeds.
Also, just because your friend is getting a certain speed, that doesn't mean you have the same Internet service as him. He may be paying for the 5 Mpbs service; whereas, you may be paying for the 1.5 Mbps service.
i am paying for 3mbps and he is paying for 5 mbps but if he is getting 4 mbps shouldn't i be able to get my 3mbps i'm paying for?