Stop Renting Your Cable Modem: Buy One Instead

I think Spectrum now requires a business service for a static IP. Or AT&T. Or both. I haven’t checked in a year or so. But Spectrum does for sure.

You may be one of the few (relatively) people in the US with a pair of copper wires running all the way back to the CO. Or the battery in your local pod may not have run down. Or the power wasn’t out to the pod. Or ….

Copper back to the CO is dead. It just isn’t dying everywhere all at once.

Sorry but there are no “bits” flowing down your wires. There are a bunch of modulated radio signals that have to be decoded into the ones and zeros fed out of the modem. Now it does get a bit odd because in a classical sense of how we think of modems, Ethernet over wire requires a modem at each end of the wire. So your cable modem decodes the singles coming over the cable internally into 1s and 0s in the CPU system inside of the modem then feeds it into the Ethernet chip set that encodes those 1s and 0s into a different set of radio frequencies and modulation methods to ship it over the wire. Then your router or computer decodes again. And so on and the singals flow around the universe.

Anytime you have more than a voltage or current up and down on a single or bundle of wires you have a modem.

I stand corrected.

I found reading this thread very interesting but I read no mention of the mini cable boxes Xfinity forces us to rent at about $7 per month. With a couple of TVs this adds up pretty quickly. And, of course, xfinity does not list a compatible retail mini boxes to purchase to replace their minis. Does anyone know if a retail mini is available and compatible with xfinity TV?

Yes. It’s called an Apple TV. :smirk:

Xfinity makes an Apple TV app that allows you to watch their content. Plus, almost all channels have an Apple TV app that allow you to user your Xfinity account to view that channel’s content.

Unfortunately, an Apple TV is $150 minimum. However, an Apple TV can do way more than a standard cable box, and you’re not paying monthly for it.

Roku might have similar services.

Intriguing idea. I am a Comcast subscriber and have three cable boxes for which I am charged a monthly fee/box. Assuming I would keep the main DVR, two of the secondary boxes could be eliminated and replaced with AppleTV.

I spend a good deal of time at another location not served by Comcast. I have internet there, but no cable TV service. At that location, AppleTV allows me to stream most but not all of my Comcast lineup—some stations only allow In-Home viewing via the stream—including recorded programs.

The biggest drawback I see with your suggestion is loss of fast forward/rewind, pause functionality but that may change with time. Comcast recently regained the right to use software that allows one to initiate a recording via the streaming app.

Almost all of the channels you get with cable have a Apple TV app, and those apps will take your cable subscription to log into that channel. Every app has a way to pause and skip through it.

I don’t have cable, but I pay directly per channel or per show. I have a Netflix subscription through T-Mobile, a Prime subscription through my Amazon Prime membership, a VRV subscription, we’re members of our local PBS station, and I buy about a 1/2 dozen shows through iTunes. It’s probably close to what I would pay through my Optimum, my cable company if I got all those channels, but I have the smug satisfaction to know I’m not giving my cable company any money. Well… more money. Optimum give me Internet access. For Internet, it’s either Optimum or semaphore flags.

I recently watched several MLB post season games on the TBS and FoxNow apps. I had the choice of stopping or playing the live broadcast but I could not rewind and replay (either at full speed or slo-mo) and then fast forward to live action as I can with my cable box DVR. This discussion has prompted me to seriously look into replacing my ancillary cable box DVRs with AppleTVs, but it will result, for me, in a loss of some functionality.

Ah sports! I am not a big sports fan, so it never occurred to me. Yes. I see why you need a DVR or the functionality of a DVR box in you cable box.

I take it that DVRs don’t simply connect to the HMDI port of the device you’re recording. That would be too easy. I’ve seen something called “Channels” but it seems to be more of a DVR that you can control through Apple TV than allowing you to record.

I don’t know why sports streaming apps won’t let you rewind and slow motion reply. I would assume that would be a key feature. And if you can have DVR functionality with their cable box, why not allow it with the Apple TV.

Maybe someone else has an answer.

The Television Viewer Protection Act has gone into effect, making it illegal for your ISP to charge you for using your own modem.

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When was this? I’ve been using Comcast for five years with my own modem. Comcast’s own web site has a list of third-party modems that they officially support, which you can buy and use instead of the one they lease.

If anyone is telling you that you have to rent a modem, they are flat-out lying to you.

And this has always been the case. The DOCSIS standard is just that - a standard. And one that Comcast participates in the development of. They can use literally any DOCSIS compatible modem as long as their server has its MAC address (and it supports the bandwidth you’re paying for). They have a self-installation system that usually works to register your modem with them or you can call customer support to give them the MAC address for them to enter.

In the case of a cable modem, only the cable company can upgrade the modem’s firmware. I don’t know if it’s due to some law, but no cable modem (or router with built-in modem) gives you the ability to install your own firmware (at least not without lots of hacking). Instead, the cable company needs to push firmware updates to you.

This is one of the reasons why I never recommend combined modem/router devices. As a combined device, you’re at the mercy of your cable company for firmware updates. As separate devices, you can upgrade the router on your own, even if you have to rely on the cable company to upgrade the modem.

I have never been able to install my own modem with Comcast. It always takes a painfully long call.

Diane

2 notes:

  1. Ron specifically said that Comcast cited having a static IP address was the reason he couldn’t use his own modem. That is different from the general case.

  2. I’ve never had a Comcast-owned modem for more that a day. When I switched to Comcast, I used a Comcast modem to confirm the service worked and then immediately replaced it with my own modem. Setup has never been difficult–either by following directions provided with the modem or on Comcast’s website, or, if that fails, via a quick call to Comcast support (I.e under 10 minutes).

Well, lie or not, Comcast refused to do the installation unless I rented their equipment. This was about 3 years ago. I have it in writing.

Something is different here. Was this a business line? Fiber-based? Something else? Maybe it was because they were performing the installation?

In my case, I initially leased their modem, just in order to get the network up and running. They sent a tech to my home, because they needed to run a coax line from the street to the house. Within the first few weeks, however, I swapped their modem for my own. I went to Comcast’s web site to get the list of what was compatible with my service and then bought one from a local store.

I set up the new modem up myself. I physically connected the modem and powered it on. It took a minute or two to sync up and connect. At that point, my link was redirecting all traffic to a captive portal web page, where I was asked to provide my Comcast user name and password. After providing this information, the modem went into some kind of configuration mode (no Internet connection and blinking status lights) where (I assume) Comcast was pushing down configuration data (and probably a firmware update as well). After a few minutes of that, the modem rebooted and I was fully connected.

Then I phoned Comcast’s support to cancel my modem rental. I drove to their office to return it in person and get a receipt from them, just to make sure there was no mistake (since I’d heard about problems with modems getting “lost”, resulting in billing disputes).

I have Verizon FiOS. If you have the TV service your choices are to either rent or buy a router from Verizon. The current router is $300 I believe.

I dropped the TV service a month ago. I can upgrade the speed for free (from 75Mbps to 200Mbps) but that requires a new ONT and a new router. Rather than get Verizon’s router and pay $150 labor for the ONT I am waiting for Unifi to come out with a new Dream Machine that supports Wifi 6 (hopefully soon). Once that is available I’ll buy that and have the speed upgraded and have the coax cable that goes from the ONT to the router replaced with a Cat 6 cable (all of the wiring is in place, Verizon tech just needs to connect the correct cable inside the ONT). So $150 will pay labor for both ONT replacement and removing coax from the equation.

Off-topic I’m in process of signing up with an Internet phone provider. I want to keep my landline but I get mostly junk calls on it. The reason for this change is not to save a few $$$, which I will, but to blacklist all incoming calls except for those I whitelist. I’m surprised that Verizon doesn’t offer this service, if they did I would just stay with them for phone service.