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I keep seeing references to this from Americans, but is this actually a thing? There’s no way my ISP would allow me to connect a device that isn’t owned by them
by Filligree 3y ago
I keep seeing references to this from Americans, but is this actually a thing? There’s no way my ISP would allow me to connect a device that isn’t owned by them.
- zwieback 3y agoYes, you can go to an office supply store and pick one up, use a webpage or phone call to hook it up to your ISP, generally.
- karaterobot 3y agoDefinitely! Comcast charges $5-10 a month to rent a cable modem, so buying your own pays off pretty quick.
- Filligree 3y agoThey do what now? I've never heard of an ISP charging for their own equipment.
- JohnFen 3y agoYes, they do. Further, my experience with Comcast specifically is that every three months, they "forget" that I don't rent a modem from them and just start charging me the rental fee anyway. Then I have to call them up to tell them to remove the charges and stop adding new ones.
- karaterobot 3y agoWhen Americans complain about Comcast, it's not a meme, they are actually an awful company. But for the record: If you just sign up for Comcast (XFinity, whatever) and use the internet, you are renting a modem/router combo from them for about $10 a month, in perpetuity. You can buy an off the shelf modem/router for a couple hundred bucks, and use that instead. It'll pay off in a year or two. You have to call Comcast up and activate the device, but it's otherwise a completely painless process.
- dazilcher 3y agoYou can use the Xfinity mobile app to activate your own modem. No call required (anymore).
- JohnFen 3y agoIs this just a US thing? Not only can you do it in the US, but the cable company will give you clear instructions on how to get it set up and running on their system. And it's a good idea. Not only to avoid paying the modem rental fee, but also because the modem provided by cable companies tends to be pretty awful.
- the_mitsuhiko 3y agoHere you don’t pay a fee for the modem but they don’t let you run your own. Among other reasons because they want to force retire unsupported frequencies.
- Filligree 3y agoI don't know about "just US", but I've never seen an EU country where it'd be either sensible or allowed.
- detaro 3y agoIt's allowed here in Germany. And EU rules demand it, but some countries left loopholes in their implementation.
- p_l 3y agoEU rules do not necessarily demand it - it depends on how exactly things are structured logically. They do demand that what you connect to termination point of ISP network is your decision, but that termination point can be a cable modem for example.
- coretx 3y agoIf you can pull/transfer the certificates from the provided modem and can clone the MAC's to your own modem it should just work.
- SargeDebian 3y agoNo. There's even a Dutch law that requires ISPs to allow and provide basic configuration information for a customer's own modem. The cable company resisted it but ultimately published a how-to as well. https://www.ziggo.nl/klantenservice/apparaten/wifi-modems/eigen-modem https://www.ziggo.nl/klantenservice/apparaten/wifi-modems/ei...
- LocalH 3y agoShades of pre-1968 AT&T. "Oh no, you can't connect that modem to our lines." In fact, prior to late 1956, AT&T even told people they couldn't mechanically attach a device to their phones.