The average consumer loses over $150 a year renting a router from their ISP

Re:The average consumer loses over $150 a year renting a rou... by ardy42 on Thursday April 30, 2020 @01:09PM (#23033247)

> 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).

That may be true, but the rental fees are a shameless money-grab. From the OP:

> the average customer is paying between $12-$15 per month to rent equipment like a router and modem.

There's no consumer-friendly justification for that cost, given the hardware is cheap, has a long life, and the only kind of on-site physical service it could get is an eventual replacement. It's just a way of using small-print to sneakily raise prices for most users, without having to include it in the full, advertised monthly fee.

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Re:The average consumer loses over $150 a year renting a rou... by eleckart on Thursday April 30, 2020 @01:20PM (#23033363)

And on top of what you said, the rental fee has been increasing since they started the rental service. Comcast intially charged what, $4/month or something?

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Re:The average consumer loses over $150 a year renting a rou... by jabroni_salad on Thursday April 30, 2020 @02:08PM (#23034016)

In addition to the equipment rental, Mediacom charges an extra fee if you want the wifi turned on. The radios are there, just turned off if you don't pay.

It first appeared on my bill as a "home network" fee 3 months after signing.

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