What is the trade space DPC3939B vs Netgear 300N

Hello Latitude42 and welcome,

Please see my comments below. Thanx.

I'm the accidental techie at a church. and we've had Comcast Business Class since 2010 with a SMC 8014 gateway. I am thinking about seeking an upgrade on the router. One official list from Comcast says no, SMC 8014 is not at and-of-life, another Comcast list says it is. I haven't placed the phone call to see what kind of reception I get.

Comcast wants all of its business class customers to be using a DOCSIS 3.0 modem and the SMC8014 is a DOCSIS2.0. So for this reason your SMC8014 is end of life and if/when it becomes defective it will be replaced with either SMCD3G, NetGear3000DCR (NG3K) , or DPC3939B DOCSIS 3.0 modem that all support IPV6, unlike the SMC8014. If you ever required your Comcast Internet speed to be upgrade to 25/10, 50/10, 75/15, 100/20 or 150/20 all of these would require your SMC8014 to be replaced.

Here is why I have not yet called. If Comcast  tells me, yes, it can be upgraded, I believe there is a choice of Netgear  N300, or, for a one-time service fee , Cisco DPC3939B. so I gather that the latter is supposed to be nicer. I am not expecting good performace from integrated Wifi on any gateway router due to oddities of the building, and chances are I would simply turn off integfrated Wifi. Given that, can anybody help me with other tradespace things to consider, such as ease of administration and like that.

Yes, if you call 800-391-3000 and request an upgrade your SMC8014 you can choose a free SMCD3G(if and when available) or NG3K (almost always available as free non-choice) or a once time $69.95 DPC3939B.The SMCD3G and NG3K user interfaces are virtually identical to your SMC8014 with some various enhancements that support additional upgrade features like Lanport 1Gbps speed, IPV6, more bonding channels, etc. The DPC3939B user interface is a little more sophisticated in that it supports the integrated dual channels both private and publics wifi facilities. Please refer to the following DPC3939B reference links :

Business Wireless Gateway overview

Set up and manage your Comcast Business Wireless Gateway

Configure private wireless Internet for the Business Wireless Gateway

As far as DPC3939B performance goes it is the same for any other Comcast Gateway (CG) i.e. it typically depends on the quantity of computers accessing the internet simultaneously, the type of transactional processing computers are performing, file uploads/downloads, file data type, etc. This is always a direct function of the actual internet speed that meets your business needs. 

Why do I want to seek an upgrade if not for the Wifi? Because the SMC 8014 DHCP does not offer LAN IP address reservation on the basis of MAC address. 

You can contact 800-391-3000, use technical high speed internet option, provide your account number to request a Comcast Gateway upgrade. There is no CG that assigns DHCP Server dynamic addresses by MAC addresses. However, you can very easily assign DHCP addresses outside the dynamic IP range to specific computers or their NIC MAC addresses. 

Hope this helps you out.

Thank you for the very informative reply.

I phoned support and I was promptly offered DPC3939B which will be installed 2 days from now.