What are they exactly?
I was offered one earlier for £60. Not knowing what they are I didn't buy it.
The person selling it said it would increase my download speed to 100mbps.

Is it worth the risk?

I'd say bull, 100mbit is far above ADSL's theoretical limit.

the speeds are probably also capped at some other point than your modem only, so using custom firmware or 'chipped' modem won't do anything.

Just get a fiber connection

It's easily detectable and in most countries (I believe the UK does this also), you go on a national list that gets spread to every ISP and essentially really limits your choices of ISPs if at all anyone is willing to provide you the service.

I have a friend that works for an ISP and he showed me just how easy it is to tell that you have a so called "chipped" modem. Plus if your ISP is smart, they check to see if its config file is coming from an authentic source every so often, so really, even if you spent that much money on one of these modems, it'll only work for so long. Like ezra says, the guy that claimed that you can get speeds upto 100mbps was lying anyway, which makes me question what else he is lying about (perhaps that particular modem was blacklisted and so on).

Moral of the story: It just isn't worth it.

I have only a basic understanding of 'chipped' modems. You were probably right to turn it down. They are illegal and the penalties are high if caught using one.

If I'm correct, firmware in the router is adjusted to facilitate a different internet plan connection through the modem, which is most likely a better one than the original (2Mb line to 20Mb for example).

Any half decent ISP will detect the fluctuations/changes in your bandwidth usage quickly and shut you down.

If you have any more questions feel fee to ask.

i modem lets u choose the plan you want, my isp monitors all that stuff, even if u could chip a modem, the speed would not be controlled from your end

Indeed, like Jarrod said. My modem already takes the highest speed available, it can't go any faster because my ISP configured the maximum speed at their end. "Chipped modems" sound like a fairytale to me (even if they wouldn't be monitoring it). Maybe a very small group of strange ISPs?

my modem has a adsl 2 + but even if i set it it won't go any faster but maybe they mean somethng like this http://mycyberzone.com/forums/f25/increase-your-d...d-drastically-t25/

Are you sure it wasn't a router?

I've seen a lot of people touting 100mbps routers at our local market - and they're not wrong. They do create a 100mbps ethernet, it just doesn't connect to the internet at 100mbps.

don't you need cat6 cable for 100mbps or is that gigabit?

quote:

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Originally posted by Jarrod
don't you need cat6 cable for 100mbps or is that gigabit?

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quote:

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Originally posted by andrewdodd13
I've seen a lot of people touting 100mbps routers at our local market - and they're not wrong. They do create a 100mbps ethernet, it just doesn't connect to the internet at 100mbps

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