Yeah these sorts of practices seem to be everywhere. I have Comcast Business (for internet) at home, and even for that, they want you to use their provided cable modem + "security gateway". I told them I wanted to use my own modem and router, and they told me that would cost more! I can only assume they gather data about your home network and sell it to third parties, and don't want to lose that revenue stream. And I assume that device also broadcasts that "xfinity" public WiFi network as well.

I of course think the practice is disgusting regardless, but it surprised me that they'd do it on their business-class product too. Would be really nice to see some regulation aimed at prohibiting this sort of thing.

(To be fair, I recently called Optimum for cable internet setup at another address, and told them I wanted to use my own equipment, and they still gave me the same price. At least some companies aren't engaging in this bullshit. They did try to upsell me to a much faster package than I wanted, and tried to get me to add their cellular product, but I guess that sort of thing is a normal practice anywhere, and at least the sales rep wasn't pushy and it was easy to say no.)

> I can only assume they gather data about your home network and sell it to third parties, and don't want to lose that revenue stream

Nah. You are just paying for the privilege of breaking their unified management platform.

As an ISP "power users" break the uniformity that leads to economies of scale in management, and often over-estimate their own abilities leading to increased support costs.

100% this.

DOCSIS in practice does not guarantee interoperability. Each ISP has its own supported modems list. Deviating from their blessed hardware means they will not send the special ISP specific firmware that’s bug compatible with their setup. Or they might refuse to activate it. Of course any issues are immediately blamed on customer owned CPE.

Because of this the real point of demarcation is the approved modem/gateway’s Ethernet port not the coaxial junction box.

So I work mostly with fiber, which is a bit different than DOCSIS in terms of demarcation and interoperability, but at least with fiber, these economies of scale in management can also be realized without having this unified management platform, although it can indeed impact the revenue stream. I work at an ISP where LAN management is an add-on option (that most users take), and so we maintain this uniformity :

- unmanaged clients ("power users") get an ONT that is very easy to monitor remotely, and we never had a situation where they were unable to setup a DHCP client

- managed clients pay a bit more and get an AP/router that they cannot directly configure, except for things like the wifi password and some NAT mappings.

It would not make sense to price it this way if we were selling data about their home network, and I suppose that's part of the reason other big ISPs here prohibit their users from connecting to the ONT directly.

How much does it cost to say "sorry, we cannot help you because you're using your own router" like Comcast support does? I can't imagine how that would cost more than them supporting their own router.

With Comcast, you can disable the public Wi-Fi on your end (just log in) and you can also ask them to put your cable modem into "bridge mode", to use with your own router, but to get static IPs you need your router in router mode and it will get a dynamic IP and the static IPs.

I was sick of the way that Comcast prices creep up so I switched away anyway.

The modem they currently use actually reenables the Xfinity hotspot when I turn bridge mode on. It’s infuriating.

Yikes. I wonder if you can get it replaced with the business gateway without wifi.

Open case, remove wifi chipset or at least the antennas?

Maybe easier to wrap it in foil/put it inside a metal box/trash can? Warranty/service terms: intact.

Comcast and Optimum both offer low-cost cell phone networks. They resell service from the big three, but largely rely on WiFi calling. Phones automatically connect to the default modem/router combos.

> Comcast and Optimum both offer low-cost cell phone networks.

Plans that run on other networks (in Comcast's case it's Verizon).

Comcast also has deployed this other trick where you call them for support, they'll just say they can't do anything if you use your own modem. It's malicious incompetence.

Oh for business users they'll offer to send someone with the threat that if it's anything on the premises or it is an intermittent issue resolved by the time they get there then they'll tack a $100 charge on.

EDIT: I've written before about an issue caused by a miswritten provisioning file on their end that involved eventually writing their executives to get it resolved: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35595663

We had this situation in Germany as well. The providers argued that their routers/etc. are part of their network and the user network starts behind that. If the user wants to use their own router etc they can connect it behind the provided one yadayadayada. In the end their lost the argument. The providers need to accept any router and have to hand out the connection credentials (the provided boxes came with backed in credentials) so users can connect with their own hardware. But most providers will now refuse to give support in case you run your own router. That’s all for internet though. Don‘t know how cable is handled nowadays.

But this reminds me of the day a nice telecom call center person wanted me to get their router. The argument he gave me was: „with our router we have access and can automatically fix update and optimize the router for you“. My answer was down the line of: „that’s precisely what I don‘t want“. A few years later a huge Telekom blackout happened across west Germany or so. Apparently the error was a faulty update which misconfigured the user credentials. All boxes went offline for the users (I guess the service ports where still available) Classic Murphy.

Of course, the big strategy here is to try and get to a point where they can free up a whole lot more spectrum on the cables for internet and not have to densify CMTS a whole bunch.

(Of course, having spyware cable boxes helps with other revenue streams, too)