
The average consumer loses over $150 a year renting a router from their ISP - sharkweek
https://www.reviews.com/utilities/internet/the-average-consumer-loses-over-150-a-year-renting-a-router-from-their-isp/
======
bob1029
The _average_ consumer may honestly be better off getting a cable tech to come
out and fix their broken router than buying their own and trying to figure it
each time something goes wrong (which is arguably rare, but very problematic
when you have no clue).

Obviously, for the genius technical minds that browse this site, leasing a
router that is just pulling basic NAT/DNS/firewall duty is a cardinal sin.

But also consider this: If someone calls me with an internet problem and they
have some combo router+modem on lease from Comcast, I can just give them a
quick 5 minute troubleshoot session followed by the 800 number and wish them
best of luck. It's all about your perspective. $150 a year for peace of mind
that the cable co (as evil and shitty as they may be) are required to
ultimately repair/replace this hardware if problematic.

At the end of the day, I'd rather not have to be on the hook for an off-handed
suggestion that someone should purchase their own router/modem hardware and
subsequently be expected to configure/maintain it. I expect most on this site
have experienced the role of providing free tech support for friends & family.
Just because I would never use a leased router or modem does NOT mean this is
the correct option for everyone I know.

I do not like big cable or their business practices. I simply value my time
more than the $150 annual savings an arbitrary consumer may realize,
considering my role in society as a technical person who is unfortunately just
1 quick phone call away. I'd much rather Comcast spend _their_ time and money
fixing everyone's internet for me. If they have to bill non-technical
customers a little extra to make this possible, that's totally fine by me.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>The average consumer may honestly be better off getting a cable tech to come
out and fix their broken router than buying their own and trying to figure it
each time something goes wrong (which is arguably rare, but very problematic
when you have no clue).

From my experience, the hardware the ISP provides goes wrong far more often
than the modem/router I purchased. The combo units my local Comcast affiliate
leases out are a mess of problems, and I know multiple people that have gotten
fed up with support never fixing the issue and just accept the frequent
problems.

I had similar problems until I bought my own modem and router. Even if you
have to pay someone to fix the rare breakdowns, I'd still advocate bringing
your own router/modem.

~~~
derefr
I find that if you tell the tech who's setting up your combo gateway-router
that you're planning on using it with your own router, and so request that
they set their gateway up in bridge mode (deactivating not only the routing,
but also its wireless AP) then a lot of the flakiness goes away.

The gateway part on these little appliance-boxes is usually pretty solid (with
any problems people experience usually being line or head-end problems); it's
the router part that has all the shite code. (Remember, at least for cable
Internet, all the gateways are sitting on a shared medium. If the gateway
logic in the box _wasn 't_ solid, it'd be causing _the ISP_ problems, by
interfering with other customers. By the anthropic principle, the gateways
that survive to be purchased+distributed by ISPs are the ones that don't cause
them such problems, and therefore the ones that have robust gateway code.)

~~~
boomboomsubban
If you are already setting up your own router, it seems like a huge waste to
rent just the modem from them. Setting up your own cable modem requires little
more than plugging it in, and your ISP should offer support if it's one of
their approved modems.

~~~
StillBored
With the current regulation regime, bringing your own modem on spectrum has
meant that you give up the ability to get the highest performing tiers. This
despite the fact that the modems on the open market were actually better/more
capable than the spectrum only modem (aka not available publicly) they were
giving people for the gigabit access. (this BTW just recently changed).

Even more fun, is that they regularly refuse to provision a modem at its full
capability despite your service tier. AKA you have a modem that does X, and a
tier that does X, but they will only provision it for 1/2X (and not bother to
tell you that). A few years ago I fought a long protracted battle with their
support/escalation/etc over a few months to get my modem qualified at the
higher tiers and in the end the best excuse they gave was that it was a
business decision.

AKA, making me upgrade my modem for no technical reason played into their ploy
for renting me one.

~~~
dclusin
What company was this? Couldn't you just fake your vendor to them somehow by
spoofing your mac address?

------
xythian
Frontier charges you a router rental fee even if you don't physically possess
the router. They'll waive the fee temporarily when you decline the router, but
eventually it comes back and becomes immovable. The only way to get rid of the
fee (that I've ever found) is to switch to a new account in the name of
another person at the same address.

F$*# Frontier, I hope they enjoy bankruptcy!

~~~
londons_explore
Just send them a letter knowing about their mistake.

Then wait 6 years.

Then take them to small claims or arbitration, saying "look, I let them know
about this 6 years ago and they still haven't refunded me".

You should win back all those fees easily, and after 6 years it might be
enough to be worth doing.

~~~
znpy
This reminds me of that time I read about this LifeProTip: sometimes if you
want to get something fixed yout should get the legal team involved instead of
the support team.

The example was about some kind of elettrical switch having some wiring
exposed. Letting the electric power company know about this via the usual
means was unhelpful.

What was helpful was contacting the legal team via phone, let them know that
the wiring was exposed and that it would have been a huuuuuuge liability if
somebody got fried and after any kind of acknowledgment (even the smallest,
even a simple "okay") on their side let them also know that the call was being
recorded. Now the ball is in their field.

It's passive-aggressive, but (according to the story) that's what got the
stuff fixed very soon.

~~~
znpy
Generally speaking, As an IT person, if somebody from the legal team comes and
says "fix this issue immediately otherwise we're liable" or "shut X down
immediately" then I do that. Unless somebody above me (and above my pay grade)
says otherwise.

------
geocrasher
I rent the router/modem/telephony gateway modem from Comcast. I have set up
probably hundreds of wifi networks for home users over the years, and so it
might seem odd that I spend money monthly with my ISP (Comcast) for something
I could easily replace for a couple hundred bucks or less. But I have reasons.

1) I work from home. When my internet goes down, everything grinds to a halt.
When I call my ISP, I want their first words to be "we are having an outage"
not "we can't help you because you're not using our supported hardware."

2) When the router inevitably dies, I can take it down and get another one
without too much trouble on the same day.

3) It actually works. Nicely. Why would I want to screw that up and give
myself one more thing to configure/tweak to death? No thanks. I have real work
to do. Until this thing gets in my way, it stays.

~~~
gruez
>When the router inevitably dies

Is this a common occurrence for people? I literally have 0 routers/modems
break on me. I upgrade them before they break, and I'm not replacing them a
few years either. The router before my current router was a 802.11g router.

~~~
hyperman1
In general,1 modem per year dies on me. The rep considers that normal. Now
these things run hot, so one year I put a timer in there so it was only
powered on when I was home and not sleeping. 6 months and 4 modems later, I
decided to remove the timer.

~~~
jandrese
Oh yeah. If you have a device that runs hot and you power cycle it a lot
you're going to stress the heck out of the connections on the board. Every
time it heats up or cools down you're putting pressure on the connectors until
they eventually break.

~~~
geocrasher
Yep. Far better to put a small cooling fan pointing at it.

~~~
hyperman1
I know. But to be honest, I get the modems for free, and I thought it couldn't
get much worse. A small fan costs money, is potentially noisy.

Besides it turns out there is a telnet script that tunes the automatic update
to once every few minutes instead of every few milliseconds in an no sleep
endless loop, which frees up a ton of CPU and lets the thing cool down.
Telecom provider knew but didnt't want to change their config.

In my case, I just switched ISPs.

------
infogulch
Reading this thread makes me realize it's a "normie tax". Normal people don't
know how to troubleshoot network problems and require a lot of technical
support (read: $$). So "rent" them a cheap router - not because they need to
pay for a router - but because _it 's a proxy for increased technical
support_. It's genius because technical people will opt out of the router but
also not require as much tech support. It's a way to internalize the otherwise
external cost of tech support.

Change my mind. :)

~~~
technofiend
It's also a tax on people who know better but still value their time more than
the satisfaction of using self-owned equipment.

I have a self-owned Docsis 3.0 cable modem now. The only reason I haven't paid
out of pocket to upgrade is that modems with 2.5Gb NICs are imminent, but in
the back of my mind is also the thought any issues I find will instantly be
blamed on customer equipment.

I may just meet Comcast in the middle: rent a 2.5 Gb modem long enough to get
it working then swap to self-owned. That shuts down any it must be your cable
or equipment arguments and lets me progress to are you sure you've provisioned
this thing properly?

~~~
geocrasher
> It's also a tax on people who know better but still value their time more
> than the satisfaction of using self-owned equipment.

Yes. This exactly, and that's what I was trying to get at in my comment above.

~~~
soylentcola
For me, it just isn't about self-satisfaction. It's just not that time-
consuming to buy my own modem and router, spend a few minutes setting up the
router with my preferred settings, and getting on with life.

99% of the time, if I have an issue, I just do a power cycle (same as I would
do with something I was renting) and the problem is solved. In the 1% of times
that it's something else, at least I have the option to look into it and
possibly solve it. With a rented Comcast modem/router combo I haven't a clue
what I'd be able to accomplish other than driving it back to the service
center and swapping for another one.

The modem and router I'm currently using are both several years old and have
required minimal tinkering. Most of that was limited to the 10-15 min of
initial setup and maybe a few minutes here and there over the years forwarding
a port or something.

------
joezydeco
How about elderly landline subscribers still paying equipment lease fees for
their wall-mounted rotary handsets?

[https://komonews.com/news/consumer/family-discovers-
deceased...](https://komonews.com/news/consumer/family-discovers-deceased-
elderly-father-had-been-paying-to-lease-his-landline-phones)

~~~
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
This is a sad byproduct of diminishing intergenerational housing. In years
prior, the head of the house would pass off these types of responsibilities to
one of their children, but now our older generation is mostly left to fend for
themselves with meager help from the state.

Don’t let this happen to your parents! Take on these responsibilities. They
spent years cleaning poop off your rear end, it’s the least you can do.

~~~
NikolaNovak
I think the specificity of "Patriarch" is what is turning people off your
point (in my wife's household, it was DEFINITELY the "Matriarch", if you will,
who took care of finances, arrangements, contracts, etc... the well-meaning
but clueless stereotypical-teacher "Patriarch" would not have been capable),
but I do think it's worth pondering.

Moving from Europe to America and then Canada, I did find a distinct cultural
difference about which generation gives more to which and when. As a very
broad stereotype:

\- In my neck of the European woods, parents gave a lot more (time, effort,
investment, money, support) to kids; but were taken care of a lot more in
their older days

\- In America, parents gave less; I mean, still love and support their kids,
but you're supposed to get a job when you're 15-16, at least partially try to
support your university / get a loan, perhaps even move out at 18. In turn,
while there's still obviously a relationship, parents are more independent and
expect to set up their own late years.

I even found examples of a mismatch - families that would grow up in Europe
(so parents would give a lot of themselves to their kids), and then end up in
North America (so they "reaped less rewards", i.e. were now also expected to
fend for themselves, have RRSPs, setup their retirement homes and even
funerals/graves, etc). Almost a version of a "lost generation".

~~~
vinay427
I know you acknowledged broad strokes, so just for the sake of context with
another data point, in my current neck of the woods in Europe parents tend to
provide and expect even less than most Americans/Canadians. The variance
within just western Europe is somewhat surprising to me based on others I've
talked to.

~~~
NikolaNovak
Absolutely; I should've made my point clearer: there exists obviously a
tremendous personal, but also a significant cultural variation in which
generation gives how much and when.

In the cultures I've been part of, it is so pervasive and subconscious it is
completely not considered or thought about, let alone explicitly discussed;
and yet, in many ways, also completely relied upon. You live your life based
on certain basic assumptions on who will take care of whom, when and how much.

People feel bad about discussing them and their conscious spoken words
frequently don't match their actual ingrained expectations: e.g. a person
_saying_ "Oh no I don't expect anything from my children", may not have
actually lived their life, prepared, or emotionally accepted possibility that
their children actually wouldn't. Similarly, a parent saying "Oh, I gave my
all to my children", might be surprised to see some other parents' extent of
"all". And so on.

Honestly, I only started even remotely pondering this once I had children,
late in my life, after switching cultures a few times and marrying a partner
from a different starting culture as well.

------
maeln
This is not even an option in France (and some other country I think). The ISP
provide you one "box" (a router) that do the whole Internet+Phone+TV package
and they refuse to support anything else.

You can refuse to use their "box", but they won't change the price of the
subscription, and they will not provide any help. And since they use some
weird configuration and won't tell you anything about it, good luck being able
to make your router work. One guy at work actually manage to use his own
router with Orange, but it was a journey, and it break regularly because
Orange can just decide to change one thing whenever they want.

The only ISP that is not a full on professional ISP and let you use your own
router that I know of is OVH, but they are very small compared to the very big
consumer ISP.

~~~
martinald
Yeah agreed, in the UK its the same. Considering you can get basic 80/20
unlimited transfer VDSL for £20/month now (including the modem), which is not
much more than the ~$15/month I've seen for the modem rental alone in the US.

------
ogre_codes
I thought this was common knowledge in the industry. Much like renting
telephones was a rip off back in the day. I suspect most people who rent
routers do it because they don't know how to set up and manage their own and
not because they are making some economic choice.

Cable Sales Guy: "Do you want to rent a router?"

Customer: "WTF is a router?"

CSG: "You need one to get internet on your computer"

Customer: "I guess I'm renting a router then"

~~~
hadtodoit
Comcast/Xfinity broadcasts their own Wi-Fi from the routers they rent to you.
That is the backbone of their mobile phone service, with Sprint towers as the
fallback for out of service areas. You are essentially paying
(electricity/modem) for the privilege of hosting their mobile network.

~~~
gizmo686
As a Comcast/Xfinity customer, I don't actually have a problem with that. I
need the modem/router anyway and doubt that the extra load would introduce any
congestion for me. I would want them to make sure that their usage does not
count as part of the rate limiting they apply to me; but since they control
the router/modem, and upstream network, I assume this is something they do.

The marginal cost to me is a minimal amount in electricity. However, their
policy of doing this allows them to provide me "free" (included in the cost of
my internet) WiFi basically everywhere I go. The cost savings of not needing
to use my more expensive cellular data easily outweighs what I am spending on
the margins to support this scheme.

The only reason I don't do this is because I use my own router (and modem); so
now I just freeload off of everyone who does.

~~~
the_jeremy
The rate limiting is done via file loaded into the router. AFAIK, it can't be
adjusted dynamically as phone users come in and out of your hotspot. Maybe
they give you a higher rate if you have the xfinitywifi hotspot enabled, I
couldn't find any info.

I will say that the public hotspot usage doesn't count toward your data cap,
at least.

~~~
ars
The xfinity hotspot is a completely separate network from yours. It has its
own IP range, and it's own cable-speed configuration.

It's as if your neighbor also had WiFi running.

~~~
the_jeremy
I spent 15 minutes looking (which was 15 more minutes than I should have spent
on something that did not affect me at all) and I was unable to find out that
it had its own cable-speed config. Good to know that it's not quite as
parasitic as I thought.

------
m-ueberall
The article does not take into account at all that you not only rent hardware,
but pay for a service (which includes testing and deployment of firmware
upgrades) which you would need to do yourself. If something does not work with
your own device, you're on your own. Of course, the time you spend with
upgrades needs to be factored in as well. If you use the same (ISP-provided)
firmware, you can ask peers/other customers in case of problems.

Also, in Germany, Vodafone configures a separate Wifi connection for "guests"
(other Vodafone customers). In return, wherever you go, you can use other
devices. Depending on the coverage--which is not too shabby in my neck of the
woods--this is actually not all bad. With your own device, this is not an
option.

~~~
jotm
I've seen these dual AP setups, sounds like a great idea, but in practice the
signal is weak and I pretty much would have to stay in one spot (potentially
creeping out someone in the house lol) to use it properly. Mobile data is just
much easier.

I guess it works for guests (but then why a separate AP? Just ask your friend
for the password)

------
elmerfud
I still rent the router/modem from my ISP. Looking back over time and the
amount paid it's certainly easy to see that it's been an unwise choice
financially but if there was failures or other issues with it, it could have
been a wise choice. Overall the cost is minimal and the amount of extra money
I would get in my pocket is in the noise floor of my salary.

If my goal was to examine every aspect of my spending to be as thrifty as
possible there are many other things that would provide a greater savings than
this. Ultimately for this one the cost to convince if there are issues is just
worth it. I suspect for many people it's the same thing.

~~~
antsar
Why would renting have been a wise choice in case of failures/issues? I'd MUCH
rather run to an electronics store and have working internet in an hour,
compared to dealing with the ISP, scheduling a truck roll, being available
"between 9am and 8pm next Tuesday", and all that other bullshit.

Keep a spare unit around and you don't even have to go anywhere.

~~~
elmerfud
I'm not sure where you live but I don't need a truck roll to get a replacement
it comes next day for equipment or I can go to the local office and get an
exchanged. Additionally failure of the modem isn't the only thing to consider
there's line issues etc... With the line terminating at their equipment
there's no hassle of do you have compatible equipment, is it functioning
properly etc... It's literally handled from them to the modem minus a small
leg from the demark to the room it sits in. It's trivial to. Plug directly in
to the demark and show that and errors/issues are on them and they fix it
promptly with no finger pointing.

------
jedberg
I actually had this conversation with my ISP once:

Me: "Hi I was just looking at my bill and I noticed my router rental fee went
from $4 to $6 a month. Why?"

"Because that's our new fee for rentals this year"

"Yes, but you didn't send me a new router. Why does my now even older router
cost more than before? It doesn't give me any more value than before, and
arguably gives me less value"

"Did you want us to send you a new router?"

"No, the current one works just fine. I want to know why it costs more than
before"

"Because we can"

They literally said "because we can". Sadly I wasn't recording (nor could I
switch ISPs).

------
PopeDotNinja
My only advice on which router to get is don't be cheap by buying the cheapest
one at $ELECTRONIC_STORE.

I bought a sub-$100 cable modem + wifi router and used it for like 5 years. It
was good enough for most things, but it could easily make it choke when doing
big uploads (e.g. uploading a few gigabytes of pictures from smart phone,
syncing Dropbox, streaming a video file to my Chromecast) via wifi. The wired
connection was 10x-20x faster.

I eventually bought a nice-ish gaming wifi router and my upload speed
immediately jumped to wired speeds. It turned out I just had crappy wifi on
the cheapo wifi/router.

------
zenexer
I have Verizon Fios. It’s generally a nice service; I pay $75/mo for near
gigabit speeds (both up/down), no contract, no hidden fees. Just internet.
It’s usually pretty reliable—at least, more reliable than their only
competitor in this area, Comcast.

But there’s one problem: I have to fight them at every step over the router.
They refuse to offer technical support of any kind if I’m not using their
router, and it has to be the latest or second-latest generation. The current
cost to buy that router outright? $300. Renting is cheaper because I’ll need
to switch to a new model in a year. They even give me a hard time during
installation—it’s not unusual for the technician to refuse to leave until they
get a chance to test with an official Verizon router.

I keep a Verizon router on hand. When I need tech support—which is very rare
and usually indicates a problem on their end, such as a chewed fiber line—I
plug it in and call them up. I might need to do that once every 3 years;
oftentimes I have to buy the latest model from them and wait for it to arrive.

Two days ago, I called about getting service in a new location. For the first
time, they offered to include the router lease for free—but for how long?
Would I need to start paying for it in a year? And the hassle of returning it
when I don’t even plan to use it? It took some convincing to get them to
remove the item from the contract—“if you don’t add it now, it will cost you
$15/mo to add later.”

~~~
LUmBULtERA
I guess it may be YMMV on Verizon FIOS then. When I signed up I clicked a "I
have my own router" box on the website. I've been using an old RT-AC66R with
zero problems. The tech who set up the ONT was a bit confused, but rolled with
it. Have never paid a dime in router fees with 2+ years on Verizon.

~~~
zenexer
It varies. Sometimes they're a bit confused, sometimes they just shrug it off,
sometimes they give you a really hard time--especially if they're new.

I just got a text message indicating that Verizon is going to allow me to
install an ONT myself, and a tech will attempt to guide me from... outside, I
guess?

------
ram_rar
Its another way for ISPs to mint $$ from you. My SO, was renting out router
from the ISP. She is smart enough to figure out setting up the router. But the
customer support folks are not very helpful, in setting up connection, if you
dont rent from them. which makes it challenging for someone who is not from
tech.

------
S_A_P
I guess that is a semi accurate title. I purchased my internet modem, and my
router. But I spent far more than 150 to do so, and what is to stop some new
technology making my equipment obsolete or unable to achieve the highest
possible bandwidth available. If you rent the cable companies equipment, its
their problem to deal with and honestly 10 -12 bucks per month is kinda worth
it. I bought one of Comcast's recommended modems and I get almost the 1GB
speed Im promised. The mesh wifi I have is better than the comcast router, but
by no means perfect. I tried the prosumer ubiquity Amplifi stuff, but it
constantly dropped offline. I recently moved to linksys velop and while it is
good at providing wifi coverage at high speed, and is definitely more reliable
than the Amplifi it still drops periodically and requires a reboot.

~~~
redisman
> some new technology making my equipment obsolete or unable to achieve the
> highest possible bandwidth available

Let me introduce you to the United States ISP cartel. A technology leap might
happen once every 20 years. In the vast vast majority of this country you
can't even get a 100Mbps+ connection so I'm definitely not worried about what
- 1Gbps+ compatibility in the future?

------
kindatrue
That's one of the downsides of having a fiber connection, like AT&T - they
don't allow 3rd party ones.

~~~
zamadatix
Fiber doesn't change the story from a technical point of view, 3rd party
routers work fine and even if you just go first party there is no reason it
has to be rent only (the boxes aren't expensive enough to justify the fees).
If they tell you different then they are flat out lying.

I proxy only 802.1x traffic to and from from the AT&T modem and spoof my
external MAC as the AT&T MAC. The AT&T router is not in the data path nor can
it make any other connection beyond the 802.1x traffic (I have no IP on it's
port to act as a gateway). Been working fine for over a year, performance is
far better than when the data was running through their router even after
disabling everything I could find.

Also there is a lot of hidden config on that router, for instance when
Cloudflare announced 1.1.1.1 it wasn't reachable from my AT&T connection.
Coincidentally that was the same week I swapped to my own router and when I
did instantly 1.1.1.1 worked. Swapped back it didn't. So somewhere in there
there were IPs and config that weren't showing in the user interface. They
fixed the 1.1.1.1 issue in their routers about a month later.

~~~
martinald
I think most people are referring to the modem/router combined, not just the
modem. It is potentially a problem having the end customer replace the fibre
ONT, as (X)GPON can be very sensitive and you could take out the whole fibre
split for 32-128 customers if it starts playing up.

~~~
zamadatix
The ONT is a separate box and AT&T does not charge a rental fee for it so I
don't think that's what's being referred to in this post about renting and
routers.

That being said while on the topic yes you usually need a particular ONT for
compatibility but there is no reason it would need to be a perpetual rent
model or have the ISP logo on it. As for multiple connections being on a
single shared line sure, that's how cable modems have operated for years
without issue with consumer choice.

------
goldenkey
Altice / Optimum Online is the worst. I signed up for gigabit. They came 3
separate times and tried to pull a fast one on me by installing a 200 mbps
modem instead of a DOCSIS 3.1 modem. On the 3rd visit, I had my own Arris
SB8200 ready, and had the tech install it, and take their modem back. I've
spent more than 20 hours on the phone with them and they refuse to remove the
modem fee. I assume they will eventually charge me for a modem I already
returned. I have the work order PDF showing their modem was taken back by the
tech but since they continue to bill me for the modem every month, they will
probably screw me, with an unreturned modem fee, when I finally cancel service
with them. I don't think there's a company in the world that I have more scorn
for.

------
tzs
If you are on Comcast _and_ you use a lot of data _and_ you have a plan that
is at least 300 Mbps, then it might be worth renting their modem so your can
sign up for xFi Advantage.

xFi advantage is an add-on service that provides some extra features, but is
only available if you rent their "xFi Advanced Gateway". These include some
sort of extra security and some sort of WiFi assessment tool, which probably
no one here would care about. But also included is unlimited data.

You can add unlimited data to any Comcast plan for $50/month, but xFi
Advantage is $15-25/month (it seems to vary by location) plus ~$13/month for
the gateway rental, so it is a net savings.

In my area, you have to be on at least a 300 Mbps plan to add xFi Advantage,
but that may vary by location.

~~~
ipython
I suppose you could pay the "rental fee" yet just replace the modem/router
with your own and consider the fee your "unlimited plan"?

~~~
radicaldreamer
Yes, you don’t have to use the modem you rent from them, but in my case the
rental modem is more advanced than my old SB8200 because of mid-split support
and a 2.5G Ethernet port.

------
itronitron
One of the top reasons to never rent, take delivery of, or use the ISP's
router is that you have to return it before canceling the contract.

~~~
dontbenebby
ISPs have physical offices.

Comcast put me through hoops cancelling in one city, so I physically returned
the router + sent in a certified letter stating I wish to cancel.

If needed I could have then disputed the charge with my CC company but they
took the hint and stopped billing.

------
brogrammernot
I pay $8/month to rent mine, and it’s worth it. It’s a dual modem/router &
works fine. Considering a nighthawk or similar would end up being the
equivalent of ~24 months or so of renting the unit I have it makes sense to
rent.

Now, I will say I do this intentionally because I’m renting apartments and not
owning a home. Once I own a place, I’d do a setup with many more Ethernet
drops and all of that but since I can’t do that (I could, but tearing it down
is a real pain in the ass) renting it makes sense.

------
neilv
For the cable modem/bridge, here's the info for Comcast:

[https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/list-of-approved-
ca...](https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/list-of-approved-cable-modems)

[http://mydeviceinfo.xfinity.com/](http://mydeviceinfo.xfinity.com/)

I've picked up a used, supported DOCSIS 3.0 one for $20 before.

At those prices, you might want to have a cold spare, in case the main one
gets zapped or dies from overheating. (I think you'll probably need to call
your cable company when you swap in the spare.)

For the router and WiFi, you might want to use a model well-supported by
OpenWrt:

[https://openwrt.org/](https://openwrt.org/)

When picking the router, besides one with good features like WiFi standards
that are advertised by the hardware vendor, you might also look at the wiki
pages for less-advertised specs, like flash space, RAM, and USB ports. OpenWrt
has a large catalog of open source add-on software, and might prompt you to
care very much about the less-advertised specs.

------
Melting_Harps
I've never had an ISP offer to sell or rent me a router, Cox did rent me a
Modem before, which when I got my first apartment at 21 was more of a
compromise due to limited funds than an actual choice as a broke college kid.
I absolutely needed internet, but with only a $100 food budget for the month
(in the best of times) I had to make every penny count and $10 could be like 5
meals if I planned it right.

When I finally got a paying gig in town I was resolved to undercut Cox and buy
a better used one on Ebay so I saved where I could, I even cashed in my used
plastic water bottles at one point. So when I had enough saved up I called 2
days before my next bill and I told them they could come pick up their modem
as I no longer had any use for it.

They sent me a pre-paid box a week later after they tried to haggle me about
keeping it for a 'loyalty customer' price.

Granted, I had to steal internet from the downstairs neighbors until the other
one showed up but it still felt good finally putting COX on the receiving end
of a losing deal. It was obsolete and an unreliable device (it would often
shut off) they'd have to destroy, and they paid SH for the privilege.

I might still have that modem in a box somewhere, too.

~~~
MivLives
Both Comcast and RCN have offered a modem/router box with their service. My
roommate took them up on it. I don't pay for the bill and so I don't really
care. Both the boxes were decent enough at their jobs, the RCN one seems to be
struggling with wifi in 2.4ghz range currently likely because I have sixteen
other networks within range.

------
zxcvbn4038
When I first cut the cord I immediately returned the DVR and cable modem, and
replaced them with firetv and my own cable modem, after a year I had saved the
cost of those items. I canceled the TV service and instead got Hulu and
Netflix for a fifth the cost. In the end I think I was saving $1200/yr. then
they started raising my bill by $3-5 every month or two so it’s gone from a
low of around $35 to around $75 now. I’m pretty sure they are not supposed to
do that but NY Department of Consumer Affairs basically finds any excuse they
can to not investigate complaints, I gave up after trying to complain for a
couple months.

Very interesting is that when I first started streaming 4K video the cable
company seemed to suspect I had started running a business or something and
they would bounce my connection and change my IP 2-3 times a day. They gave up
after six weeks or so and my address has been stable since.

------
encoderer
Funny story:

5 years ago I bought my own motorola cable modem and had Comcast come out and
install it in my new house.

Next month, i saw modem rental on my bill.

I call them. They insist that actually they own this equipment and are leasing
it to me.

I mean, what do you even say to this?

I sent a copy of the receipt from Amazon and told them I would sue them in
small claims court if they kept charging me for it. It worked, but it still
blows my mind.

------
sys_64738
Comcast rental used to be more than 10 bucks then it was slashed to 3 bucks to
stop people figuring it was cheaper to buy their own. The price has crept back
up.

At the turn of the century, you used to call about an internet outage and
they'd give you a clueless response. Instead, you'd say your cable TV picture
was fuzzy and they'd send a tech out next day. That was how you'd get it fixed
20 years ago.

The most recent time I called Comcast about a cable outage they insisted they
couldn't do anything as it was my own modem. More serious was the fact it was
an unapproved modem so they insisted they would need to FedEx a new modem
first (costing $$$) and then they could fix my line. Fortunately it was an
area outage so I didn't take them up on their kind offer.

The moral of that story is before calling when you own your own modem for an
outage, check if it's an area outage first.

------
cududa
Just had a nightmare experience with Spectrum/ Charter switching to using my
own equipment. It was surreal and very similar to that South Park episode
about cable companies.

Because I was on a grandfathered package, he gleefully told me it was actually
going to cost me $17/ mo MORE to remove the modem rental and phone service.

I had to threaten to call our congresswomen to get them to magically find a
package that reduced the rate in step to the decrease in service.

The funny part was when at the end of waiting on hold for an hour, after
cancelling the service, they provisioned the modem, they gave me config file
for 1Mbps internet.

The service rep when I called back (after waiting another half hour on hold)
was quite pleasant about fixing it and I’m humming along at 500 Mbps now, but
man I can’t wait to spite quit them when StarLink is up and running. Can’t
imagine that 1Mbps provisioning was exactly a mistake

------
sesuximo
You also lose $ by not growing your own food, by not servicing your own car,
by paying an index fund manager, etc etc

~~~
rjkennedy98
Buying a modem and plugging it in is incredibly - mindbogglingly easy. You
plug the modem into a wall and plug the ethernet cable into the router. Thats
it. Period. It saves you $150 a year. Everyone I know that didn't do it was
too lazy, or completely fiscally illiterate. It takes no time (its actually
faster than getting someone to come out to install the box which usually that
has to be set up weeks in advance). There is no excuse for not doing it.

------
jcrawfordor
Considering that a DOCSIS 3.1 modem costs right about $150 right now, this
actually doesn't seem like such a bad deal. Add a decent-quality consumer
router and you can be looking at around two years to break even, which is
right about there with replacement cycle on some of these things.

------
derg
Here's something to think about: how many people renting their routers can
actually afford the initial $100 plus that buying your own router costs? Given
just how little people have in savings (what is it, like the average american
can't afford an emergency over $500?) it's likely the $5 or $10 a month charge
on your bill is more manageable at the start than shopping and spending the
money on the router.

Of course, the added charge is more than the upfront cost of the router and we
should be making it easier and cheaper for people to access the internet, but
this is more me musing about the upfront cost.

And this doesn't even get into companies just charging anyway or not even
allowing third party routers on their network.

~~~
BluePen7
I don't think there's a legal interest rate that's as bad as paying $150
annually to rent a $100 router, that's basically 150% interest.

So regardless how bad your credit rating and interest rate are, it's
overwhelmingly worth putting a router onto your credit card.

~~~
derg
Oh I absolutely don't disagree with that at all. I just think it's an
interesting aspect to it, _especially_ for me, having recently been inundated
with ads about "Xfinity's awesome router that you need for ~MAXIMUM GAMING~",
which directs people to the idea that they _need_ the "official" router from
their ISP to get the most of their service.

------
Felger
In France, a router is rented about 3€ ($4) per month by the majors ISPs (the
renting cost is not shown idependently by two of the three major ISPs. Orange
explicitly shows its renting cost on bills.

That's cheap for a broadband router-modem-WiFi AC-2 channel voice box. They
are all customized broadcom boards.

Using another router is technically very hard for anything other than the IP
data : Orange for example uses ATM QoS with specific DHCP WAN string
initialization options, specific SIP channel setup and even worse for IPTV
VLAN. The SIP channel sold is almost impossible to use with a third party SIP
client device.

Let's add they won't lift a finger in case of an issue if you use your own
router.

To sum it up : not worth the trouble !

------
zhughes3
Being the tech-savvy person I am, I opted to buy my own router using Verizon
FiOS. Now because I use my own router, I cannot get Live Cable Listings. That
feature doesn't work if you don't opt-in and get the ISP's router.

~~~
VistaBrokeMyPC
This is literally what made me cut the cord and realize I didn't need cable
and the 300 channels of garbage to begin with. The basic package I had
included ESPN which I don't watch, but did not include BBC World or cspan.
CSPAN!!!!

I use an OTA antenna hooked up to my plex server for dvr and just pay for
internet now. Much better experience.

------
jasonv
I seem to return my cable modems, in NV & CA, about every 14-18 months. I walk
in, ask for a new one, give them the (busted) old one.

Not losing sleep over this.

Feels akin to the "control your finances, stop buying coffee at coffee shops!"
kind of content.

------
vanusa
While we're on this topic:

Anyone have recommendations for a decent (secure) 5G router to by, in May
2020? That is, to get (decent-ish) wifi service from the air (and fully
without cable).

Ditto for any VPN providers that seem good to work with.

------
roland35
I recently switched to Spectrum and wanted to use my old cable modem
(purchased back when I had time Warner before the merger), but the
installation technician told me that they no longer do rental fees for a
modem, only a router! I actually didn't believe it so I used my old modem
anyways but he was correct when I got around to checking!

Spectrum does charge a rental fee for a WiFi router, which seems ok to me but
I do wish there was an option to just buy it directly from them.

------
goda90
I'm currently renting one for $5/month. The technician who setup my internet
told me that I'd need to talk to the main company about returning that since
he was just a contractor. I tried their support chat one time, and they said
I'd need to call instead. Instead I decided to keep it for the time being and
use it as an AP in my network instead of as the router. Once I buy a matching
set of APs I'll probably try to return it again.

------
diebeforei485
Home routers are simple when they work and could be go terribly wrong when
they don't.

The issue is: a lot of ISP-provided routers are total trash that are buggy and
reset themselves sometimes. So on the one hand, you get better support, but on
the other hand, you may be getting a worse product. This may still be a better
trade-off for most people.

I wish ISP's would partner with eero or some other router company that
actually make good quality fast routers.

------
gothroach
I have Comcast at home, and they flat out require me to rent a modem from them
in order to receive static IPs. I have their modem set up in bridge mode and a
BSD router behind it, but would really love the option of sourcing my own
modem.

At least the tech who came out to do the install was kind enough to give me a
rackmount modem! I hadn't seen many before, but asked for one just in case
they could provide it.

------
xiaq
Living in the UK, most ISPs will give you with a router if you sign a contract
of a year or more. They are are usually branded $ISP-hub but really just
generic ADSL or fiber modem/routers with a colorful casing (and in some cases
just a sticker).

Having moving several times and switching ISPs I now have one spare fiber
modem/router and 2 spare ADSL modem/routers, plus all sorts of cables :)

------
agsamek
I had been using my own adsl modem up until the point it completely stopped
working. I decided to rent a modem from the company after that. And I was
surprised how stable to connection can be with the modem provided by telecom.

I think that if somebody is renting you a wire it has some sense to rent
terminators as well. In this case the company can tweak entire infrastructure
for their customers.

------
martin8412
This seems like mostly a problem in the US? I live in Spain and have Movistar
as my ISP. I only pay for the service(600/600) and they provided me with an
ONT and a router free of charge. Granted, the router is absolute garbage(WiFi
is 802.11g, and I received it in 2020) but it was free. I use my own router,
so doesn't matter for me anyway.

------
JustSomeNobody
Ok, but for the "average" person, if there's an issue and they call Comcast to
come out, if it is _your_ router that is the problem, they'll charge you for
the visit. That in itself isn't the issue, but, Comcast being Comcast, you
need to sometimes be savvy because they _will_ try and pull stuff.

------
coding123
At least in the past I was able to buy a modem on Ebay (used) for $40. I
returned the one that came with the package. When I moved, Comcast wanted to
bill me for a lost modem. Get a receipt when you return the modem. Take a
picture and store it on OneDrive/DropBox in a folder called "Comcast Sucks"

------
Markoff
jeez, that's how much I pay in Europe for like 7 months of 150Mb internet
including renting router

also the rental fee is like 2-3$ per month, I don't think I could buy similar
router for 36$ and even for 72$ if I have decided to change ISP would be much
more than retail price

I don't think the problem you have is the rental fee.

------
pvtmert
Of course, if it wasn't a profitable business, they would not be doing it.

Given such devices having 'backdoors' directly connecting to ISPs' internal
systems (looking at you; TR069)

Some vendors also customizing firmware to not to allow customers change DNS,
so they can hijack whatever they want into your pages.

------
rb808
\+ a set top box too. The combined amount is probably more than most European
countries pay for their whole bill.

------
irrational
Is this particular to Comcast? In 20+ years of having home internet service,
I've never rented (or purchased a modem/router). In every instance they have
been provided to me for free. I've even been sent new updated ones on a number
of occasions without cost.

~~~
giffarage
I recently got AT&T Fiber, and I was forced to pay an extra $10/month for
their modem/router.

------
amadeusw
Given a choice of renting a router from Centurylink for $10/month and
purchasing it for roughly $100, I purchased it a couple years ago. It already
paid off for itself, but an interesting thing happened in December:

I received a phone call from CenturyLink saying that I'm eligible for free
upgrade from 100Mbps to 1Gbps. Surprised with their benevolence, I double
checked the agent to verify that this is not a scam. They ran some checks and
determined that I will need to replace the router with a newer model to handle
faster speeds. I said that I purchased the router from CenturyLink, and I'm ok
swapping it for a newer model, as long as there are no extra fees, and that I
will own (and not rent) the new model. They agreed to this. I got the new
modem in mail, swapped it, got the gigabit speed and sent the original one
back. Next month I saw a $10 modem rental charge. I called them, they argued,
I argued back, they said that they'll need my permission to transcribe the
earlier conversation (that's strange, because they always play the message
that a conversation will be recorded). A few days later they called back
saying that they transcribed the call, found out that they agreed to not
renting the modem, apologized and gave me a refund.

I still don't fully understand why they offered me higher speed without paying
more. I had no recording of the phone call and they had the upper hand, but
they were fair in resolution. Overall, I had a very good run with Centurylink
despite hearing only horror stories about American ISPs.

TLDR: Be very explicit on the call when someone offers to upgrade the modem
that you own.

------
salmaanp
On the one hand its super convenient to have the ISP router. They can reboot
it remotely and troubleshoot. On the other hand its fully locked down, I cant
even change DNS. I don't pay for renting the router, but if it was an
unreasonable amount I would move.

------
bjd2385
Lol this is exactly the reason I bought a surfboard the first month I moved
in, and it's already paid for itself (and it's very easy to configure - a
phone call to their support, read 'em a barcode, and you're ready to go).

------
paulcole
I happily pay $150 a year to rent my router. I want nothing less than to ever
think about a router. Something goes wrong the cable company deals with it. I
configure nothing, I troubleshoot nothing. I love it and it's a bargain.

------
KerryJones
The "Average Consumer" is problematic as a concept as different demographics
and households have vastly different needs.

tl;dr: If you're comfortable having a worse router for multiple years and
missing out on new technology, yes, you can save a few bucks.

I'm a tech professional (not IT), but fairly comfortable, did a considerable
amount of research to try to replace Comcasts router with a $90 model -- the
range didn't cover the house, couldn't handle as many devices and was more
flakey.

The routers they use are often $200-300 in range. In addition, they are often
setup with defaults that make sense. In addition, they can support and
troubleshoot them.

There are many specifics that go into choosing a router -- and it can be
really complicated to figure out what makes sense to you.

In addition -- the technology changes ever year or two -- while renting, it's
easy to swap out for the latest model, otherwise you have to dish out for the
newest router, which may have it's own flaws.

------
Robotbeat
I bought a cable modem & never rented but then had my cable company try to
collect money for not returning ”their” router... It’s like $20 deposit, but I
get nasty-grams every once in a while.

------
Arubis
The average consumer spends over $150 a year to not think about their router.

Don't get me wrong, I hate on the big ISPs as much as the next guy, but this
is pretty far down the list of their worst behavior.

------
lgats
AT&T forces usage of their modem for fiber service - $10/month

------
umvi
I'm currently using Comcast and brought my own router _and_ modem. I was able
to bring my own router for Verizon FiOS as well.

I'm wondering if most commentors here are edge cases.

~~~
dave5104
I switched to my own router and modem last year with Comcast, and it was
shockingly easy to get the old router returned and the fee removed on monthly
bills going forward. I haven't seen it come back since. I was previously
paying $7/month for it.

I was able to go drop off the old equipment I was renting at one of those
physical Comcast support centers, though. I wonder if that has anything to do
with it?

------
tmaly
I got tired of the Comcast charge and bought a decent cable router off Amazon.

I rarely have had any problems over the past 4 years since I have made the
switch.

------
morpheuskafka
My grandmother used to pay $3.99 (iirc) a month to the ISP for a "protection
plan" on the cable wire underneath her house.

------
fortran77
My 86-year-old mom is better off renting the equipment and having the ISP come
over and fix it when something gets screwed up.

------
zelly
Can't wait until we just get internet from the air and this chokehold by local
cable companies goes away

------
dontbenebby
What is the value of the time I save when my internet acts up and my ISP
blames the router though? :)

------
qubex
this doesn’t surprise me at all, and for a very simple reason: this being a
zero-sum game, it’s inevitable that consumers lose money on this proposition
because otherwise it wouldn’t be profitable for them and they wouldn’t do it.

~~~
sparkie
It's not a zero-sum game. The consumer benefits by not having to spend their
time doing research and configuring routers they buy themselves.

If there is sufficient margin in installing and configuring routers for
individual consumers, then why are there not competing businesses which do
specifically this? Have you not identified a market gap?

Perhaps the margins are actually quite low, and it's not really a business,
but just an extra revenue stream for an existing business model - providing
the internet connection.

Most consumers are happy to pay the money simply because they want
convenience, and also, because they're getting "credit," by paying off the
router in instalments rather than a lump sum.

------
smnrchrds
Tangential question: could you recommend a good not-too-expensive wireless
router?

------
everyone
Well all residential isps ive dealt with at home give u no choice.. U have to
use their router.

~~~
gruez
AFAIK the FCC requires that ISPs allow customers to use their own modems.
random source I found:
[https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/201...](https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2016/db0510/DA-16-512A1.pdf)

~~~
everyone
ok, but thats only relevant in the US then.

~~~
gruez
This site is pretty US-centric. Also, I'd imagine that Canada/EU would have
similar rules, given how they're generally more pro-consumer than the US.

------
virtuallynathan
The average modem+router costs about $150, maybe more for a good one. To keep
up with technology, you need to buy a new one every 1-2 years (DOCSIS, Wifi,
etc). If you aren't having your ISP swap you to their newest hardware, you are
missing out. Comcast's latest XB6/XB7 gateways are actually pretty darn good.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Where are you getting 1-2 years from? Even if you are trying to stay on the
bleeding edge it would be about once every five years, and with the lower
speed packages that most people are actually paying for, even 10 year old
equipment would be fine.

------
calvinmorrison
The average consumer has gotten dumber in regards to tech over the last 40
years. People have treated computers like appliances. When I meet a 70 year
old that can't email, it's not 1995, they were 50 in the year 2000. People's
heads are in the sand and want tv apps. Good they can pay the price for thier
stupidity.

Sorry for the rant but, seriously?

~~~
inetknght
I don't agree at all.

Profiting from people who can afford stupid only encourages stupid. Then we
end up with stupid being promoted as what people want because it's profitable.

~~~
kolbe
> Profiting from people who can afford stupid only encourages stupid.

How? It would seem like a disincentive to being "stupid" (naive is a better
word for it).

~~~
panic
How people live isn't entirely their own decision -- it's also determined by
the world they're a part of. We've given profit-seeking systems a lot of
control over how this world is structured.

