US Cable Support > Comcast HSI > [Business] Comcast's $7 Cablemodem Fee

reply to JohnInSJ

Re: [Business] Comcast's $7 Cablemodem Fee

If one has more than 11 months left on their contract and intends to stay with comcast (and they somehow find some unlikely legal standing on which to charge the fee for contracted customers), one can get a 6120 on amazon for $75 (cheaper than a $7/month fee over 11 months).

reply to jseymour
What are your thoughts on the 6120? Reliable enough? Any problems? Does it perform any better, worse, or exactly comparable to the SMC D3G in terms of both sustained speed and powerboost?

reply to siliconnerd

reply to jseymour
The $7 fee was just added to my bill. Sad thing is I just switch to having more static IPs back in August by going over the cost, that I could budget for it. and Now there is $7 fee added, if I would of known there is going to be a $7 fee added this month I would of not switch from 5-IP to 13-IP....

I thought the whole reason for paying for Business class in the 1st place was for them to support the modem.

reply to jseymour
The modem fee happened 2 months before the end of my three year contract (for me), so that wasn't too bad. At least I have the smcd3 (since an 8014 can't barely hold sync despite replacing the drop and other black arts)

Would love to have a purchase option for the modem, though.
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My place : »www.schettino.us

reply to jseymour
Comcast Biz account. I too got hit with this $7 fee. I'd never paid a rental fee before.

I'm 3+ years out of my original contract (07/08) About 3 months ago Comcast replaced my surfboard w/an SMC because of persistent quality issues. I was never fully convinced that the surfboard was the cause but they replaced it anyways.

When i first called Comcast to ask about this fee i was informed i have to rent equipment & i cannot use my own modem because i have a static ip address.

I was also informed that "some people never paid a (rental) fee" and they are now catching up on accounts.

At one point the lady on the phone said Comcast isn't retroactively collecting on people who haven't been paying a rental fee, as if we're "lucky" that they aren't doing so.

This kind of angered me and i rhetorically asked "do you know why" & then said "because that wouldn't be legal"

This person acted more like a debt collector. I asked her to point out where in any agreement that it would be OK to tack-on a prior never existent fee.

She e-mailed me the following:

"The terms of your contract are not impacted at all by this change to the equipment fee. You can reference the Terms and Conditions on our web site@ »www.business.comcast.com by clicking the Terms and Conditions link at the bottom left of the page- Article 3.1"

- My original contract was attached to the e-mail. The physical signed contract itself does not contain the terms & conditions that she was referring to. It instead points to a now-dead URL on their website.

When I asked her to walk me through finding the actual terms (+/-on their website) she became quite arrogant. If this call was ever reviewed one would assume she would be disciplined &/or fired - but her arrogance & attitude was so beyond any call quality control that i actually started to believe that this is in fact normal.

Throughout the call this lady acted like she knew exactly what she was talking about, but if you visit the URL provided in the email it's hardly cut & dry.

The "Terms and Conditions" are all but hidden in a small off-white font at the bottom of the page. After clicking that link you're left with having to click another buried-in-between link "Comcast Business Services Terms of Service for purchases prior to 11/13/11"

Which leads to here: »www.business.comcast.com/smb/ter···-archive

You then click another link after that, none of which this lady was willing to make easier for me whatsoever, in fact quite the opposite.

Eventually you are lead to a pdf file which we (are to) assume is no different than the original (which was only available online, but now at another location)

After reviewing the 3.1 terms: »www.comcast.com/MediaLibrary/1/1···ug07.pdf

+ Still on the phone

- 3rd page, left side (of course she made me find that myself too) i couldn't help noticing certain verbiage such as: "usage charges including without limitation charges for the use of Comcast equipment" Wow that doesn't get anymore broad.. Oh wait it does.. if you continue reading it actually lists "fees" & "charges" by themselves, seemingly specifically referring to nothing, just by itself "fees" & "charges" oh OK sure.

Broad "contracts" like these anger me. I'm not convinced they are binding. Just because you write up something ridiculous doesn't make it enforceable, even with a "signature" (mind you, not)

I dug into this lady a little more and she eventually transferred me to Corporate. After about a 4 minute call with the next lady she swore up & down many times that some one would call me & the phone call never arrived.

reply to jseymour
Unless you own a business or use a lot of data (greater than 250 GB per month), I would just subscribe to residential Internet. I have the triple play (with the extreme 50 upgrade) and it works fine for me. Another advantage of residential is choice of modem. I also purchased my own voice/data modem at Best Buy.
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All of my CPE (including my EMTA) is customer owned. The only Comcast owned equipment in my house is the CableCards in the two TiVO boxes I own.

reply to jseymour
Got the warning on my November 23 bill and the $7 fee showed up on my December and January bills. (plus $0.58 tax on the fees!)

A tech told me that they are applying the fees and then crediting me the same amount - which is obviously not the case here.

But suddenly today I see a credit for some strange amounts - $7.96 and $0.66; perhaps the equipment fee and tax, prorated slightly over 1 month? If these stick, I'll see the credits on my Feb 23 bill, but now I'm just confused.

reply to jseymour
I just got off the phone with the Comcast Business rep. The handjob smoke I got blown was that their costs of maintaining poles, etc went up so in order to keep the quality service up there was an increase in the Voice modem fee. I said I signed a contract with that $5 Voice fee in there, now you change it.

I am going to complain to the State Attorney General's office. My contract has a $5 rental fee in it, they changed it to $7 after a year.

O.
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Windsor, Home of the Decorative Zamboni

reply to jseymour
3 yr contract signed 3/2011. So less than a year into it. My bill has gone from 104 to 116 with BS fees and stuff that aren't contractual, $2 of which is contractual. I'd hit up the BBB too, but I'll just leave it with the State Atty as its breach of contract.

O.
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Windsor, Home of the Decorative Zamboni

reply to jseymour
I just started getting charged this fee. It's not even the $7 fee that bothers me; I can easily afford it. It's the principle. If they wanted to raise prices, they could have at least waited until the end of my contract to do so. But no, they're raising prices mid-contract.

I haven't called them yet. Should I even bother? From the sound of it in this forum, they have not budged on the fee for anyone. $76 a month (up from $69) is really not much to pay for the reliability and performance I've been getting, but their slimy nature of just raising the price mid-contract is what really gets me.

My extreme satisfaction with Comcast until now has been severely wounded. Judging by the length of this thread, I'm not the only one.

reply to jseymour
For those of you that own your own modem complain to the BBB

www.bbb.org

reply to SpottedCat

reply to jseymour
Well, got my next invoice and again the erroneous fee was on there. After speaking to two reps and the highest up person in their contract specialist group, they wouldn't move on the fee. So I terminated with cause, getting me out of a bad contract with a bad company for $0 ETF.

reply to rwong48

reply to jseymour

Adding insult to the $7 fee, Comcast added a $34 service fee