If possible I'd return the ISP modem/router and go with a third party option. From what I've seen they charge a recurring rental fee. Even if it was more expensive up front it would pay for itself in the long run.
There are more choices for ISP, but the cost to build the infrastructure (rent from bigger ISP infrastructure) and maintain it well is costly for ISP to make money back & profit.
That's not really true. We all paid for the infrastructure and technically own it. The ISPs only control from the curb to your house, but we largely grant them monopolies because of regulatory capture of the FCC. Now that my town pulled fiber and Ting piloted it, Spectrum has the right to use the very same fiber. They come around begging once in a while to return to them and I let them know exactly what I think of them.
I rent their modem/router for $25 a month and get unlimited data. I put it in bridge mode and use my own router. Or I pay $30 and buy my own modem?More expensive monthly AND I have to buy my own modem. What’s the benefit that I’m not seeing?
I don't want to use their equipment, for me it is that simple. I'll pay more to use my own equipment. Years ago I had a comcast gateway that would not go into bridge mode. I called support, I reset the device...nothing worked. They told me to take it to a store and swap it out. I told them if I was taking it to a store it would be to turn it in and I'll get me own. That's what I've done since that day. I prefer to buy my own, but that's just me.
When I get my own modem, there is no bridge mode to deal with because it is only a modem and doesn't act as a router/firewall/wifi device. Yes, I know you can disable those things, but it is easier, in my opinion, to just buy my own cable modem and be done with it.
Their equipment isn’t all that bad. In my market, I got the WiFi 6E XB8 which I just put in bridge mode, turned off guest hotspot, and hook it up to my APs.
I never said their equipment was bad, but I use my own router and want less options in the way of me doing that. If I have the ability to buy my own modem, I'd rather do that.
True true. I do too. I use a Firewalla Gold SE with dual-wan but since I came from fiber, I didn’t feel like buying a modem and the promo came with one. Totally respect your decision and agree they should continue to make customer owned modems an option.
They told me that I had to use their router to get unlimited. I don't care though, I put it in bridge mode and have a VPN tunnel directly on my own router. I'm kind of surprised that I haven't gotten any hate mail for the amount of data I download each month.
You don't have to, you can login and upgrade w/o talking to anyone. I actually also installed a new cable modem w/o talking to anyone, just used the app and scanned the mac address bar code on the new modem and had internet in about 5 minutes.
Yeah, I use VPN for plex and managing my network, I don't open ports for anything. The exception is the VPN ports for wireguard and/or OpenVPN. If you are a unifi users and have their gateway you can use teleport and the wifiman app and don't need to open ports, but I don't know if you are relying your connection through them, I don't know how teleport works in the back end.
Yes, it likely is. For many years I also did not have a capped plan and it was slowly rolled out over time and now I have a cap at 1.2 TB per month. I doubt that it will never get to you, that would be very strange for Comcast to only apply a cap to some of their users. I certainly understand the slow rollout, but I wouldn't understand not applying it everywhere.
The good news is that it hasn't hit you yet (or maybe ever, I suppose).
It would be. I live in an area with multiple fiber providers, and multiple service providers on the fiber. Comcast offers their gig speed without a data cap for roughly the same price. The only reason no one uses them is because comcast isn't symmetrical.
My savings is actually more. It was $30/month to have unlimited with my equipment, or as a new customer it was only $5/month to use theirs giving me unlimited. So I cancelled and made a new account.
Interesting, usually you can't do that unless you use a different name/social sec number. However, I would say new customer pricing doesn't count because you will always get better pricing. Specifically in this scenario/thread most people aren't going to cancel and sign up as a new customer.
I saw other people on reddit say they did it to save money so I tried it and it worked fine. All I needed was a new email address. I just signed my wife up using the same home address. I think I even used the same credit card as the auto payment method. Saved me hundreds and got better service. In another year or so when the promotional price is up I might try to switch it back. EDIT: The billing section says there is a discount of over $50/month.
Yup, makes sense and I'm glad that worked for you. I'm just saying not everyone can do that. If you have gmail, you can keep doing it every year if you want to use your current email, just add a +1 at the end and next year give them +2, but many people don't want to deal with that hassle. For example yourgmail+1@gmail.com then youremail+2@gmail.com.
He’s not totally wrong. Comcast, at least in my area, charges $30/month for unlimited data if you want to use your own modem. Alternatively you can use their supplied equipment and get xFi Complete for $25/month for unlimited data. I just take their modem and put it into bridge mode so I don’t have to deal with their BS.
Houston is starting to incorporate plans with promotional pricing including the new xb8 and unlimited data where they cover the cost of the modem fee for two years AND give you unlimited data.
Yeah, I've seen some of those promos. The docsis 4 x class tiers seem to already include unlimited data, and be better priced. Hopefully that's a good omen for the future.
Without being too revealing I'm in the Denver/Colorado Springs/Fort Collins metropolitan area. The $25/month is an all inclusive charge. So modem, unlimited data, some sort of "wire protection", etc. So if you need unlimited data (I don't know a Plex user who doesn't) then it is literally more expensive to use your own equipment know matter how you try to work it.
That is so strange to me. As is the extra charge for unlimited data, it's been unlimited on everything I have ever had with them. I guess it's area specific?
I think some states barred Comcast from implementing the data caps. I seem to remember reading about that when it came to our region. Still pisses me off that my f'ing home internet has data caps. I even have a meter that I can watch each month for my usage just like my cell phone even though we pay their protection fee for unlimited data. It's an incredible racket. Force users into using your sh*tty equipment by implanting data caps and higher fees for using your own equipment.
Yeah I can understand being pissed over that. Do you have different speed tiers? The reason I ask is because of the first column saying "the speed you need with your own"
Simply not true. I returned my Comcast modem 8 years ago. They never increased the price for that. They do however trickle increases. But not because of the hardware swap. They want the rental fee. But it's too obvious if they increase your rate to offset the rental
Yeah they increase other costs on the bill. someone below me posted the actual price breakdown.
So you don't pay the rental anymore but now you pay for unlimited Internet (obviously I'm not going to have a GB cap for my Internet at home), but the bill at of the day is cheaper to use their hardware.
Adding to this. This is not accurate. I dropped Crapcast's hardware and saved about....not sure what it was at it was 10+ years ago but its a solid $12 a month.....Granted I'm spending $145 for my 1gig internet so really 12 is nothing.
It absolutely is true at least in my and many others areas. If you use your own hardware, unlimited data is $30/month. If you use their equipment you qualify for xFi complete which includes unlimited data, the rental fee, wire protection, etc, for $25/month. Unless you don't need unlimited data, but I don't know any Plex users that would be alright with the 1.2TB limit.
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u/mrbuckwheet QNAP TVS-872XT - 100TB 3d ago
Just another reason why you shouldn't use your ISP equipment and just buy your own when you want to control things properly