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 usuall

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.”