Comcast XFINITY → Re: Customer-owned modems -- a preemptive plea to Comcast

Not to play devil's advocate, but yes, I will not complain if they raise their prices...until they raise them too high for my blood.

At that point, I will "fire" them anyway, and find an alternative, and at least in my area, there are several alternatives.

That is how products and services live and die in our economy. So in the greater picture, do I deeply care about whether my internet access is through my personally owned modem, or a "rental?"

Not so much. I want fast, convenient, reasonably priced service. What if I own my own modem, but Comcast triples or quadruples their rates? It is the overall cost of the service that most concerns me, and modem rental versus ownership is a bit of a red herring, yes?

Despite all of the hoopla, a D3 cable modem is a D3 cable modem, with the exception of how many bonded channels, except when a particular modem goes bad, they all achieve the same purpose. They have no where near the differences that say one router may have to another.

Every ISP-provided D3 modem I have used has been utter CRAP, that's 2 through Cox in the Cleveland market and 4 through Comcast in the Bay Area market. All of them would drop the connection if you so much as looked at them funny, with signal levels smack in the center of perfect.

I'm currently using the D2 modem I bought when I was with Comcast in the Detroit market 9 years ago and the only service interruption I've had since switching to this modem was when I bumped the power switch on my UPS while moving stuff around. The Cisco D3 modem they provided most recently was dropping connection anywhere from 10 to 50 times per day, that I noticed during active use.

We're talking SNR of 36.1dB, downstream signal of 3.6dBmV, and 41.4dBmV upstream. The most recent D3 saw similar levels on 8 bonded downstream channels and 4 bonded upstreams; why is a D2 modem with a single channel in each direction faster and infinitely more stable?

If I couldn't own my own modem, I wouldn't be here posting, I would have canceled the service, flat-out, because Comcast would not be willing to issue the service credits I would insist on every month due to the absolute sh!t quality of service the D3 modems they offer provide.

That said, I have not gotten to try out a Motorola D3 modem, so maybe it's not all of them.

Well, if I had the experience with cable modems that you have, I probably would have felt the same way.

In my case, history has been a bit different: I come from some 10+ years of dsl. The only really "bad" experience that I had was with a 2Wire gateway that AT&T highly recommended, which was pure frustration and misery. At any rate, all my dsl equipment was owned...and I have an interesting, albeit useless supply of old dsl equipment. Nothing wrong with it, but it has little or no residual value, which is why I am less enthralled with self-ownership.

On the other hand, I now rent a Comcast-provided Arris TM722G eMTA. It came brand-new, and performs every bit as well as I'd expect it to.

For that matter, the other Comcast eMTA and cable modem that I'd received were new, un-used units as well, which also performed as expected, so that probably at least in part explains my relative non-concern over rentals vs owning. Again though, I always support choice!

I think the major appeal of owning equipment is to be able to take it with you to other locations when you move. If equipment works great for you you want to keep using it regardless of where you live. This is one of the reasons why I'd only move to Comcast serviced areas and nowhere else.

Again, I'm all for the customer to have the choice to rent or buy the modem. I want to make sure I stress that point. Personally, I'm in the "rent" camp. As I posted a few posts back, I really don't see the point to purchase (outside of the price), as I cannot see any functional differences between a rented modem, and a purchased one. They both perform the same functions, and its not like a purchased modem gives the end user more options or settings to modify that the rented one does not. My impression is that if you rented a SB 5100 from Comcast, and went to best buy and purchased a SB 5100, they would be the exact same modem (functionally), and you would have the same options on both, which would be to just go to the web interface screen (192.168.100.1) and view your settings (not make any changes to anything). Now, if that's not the case, let me know.

If you move from a Comcast area to another Comcast area, and are transferring service, would you not be able to take your rented Comcast modem with you, like you would your Cable TV box?

Now, I can see if you were moving from a Comcast area to an area not served by Comcast (say from Illinois to Wisconsin, which is Time Warner), you would not be able to take your rented modem with you, as you would have to cancel with Comcast, and start up with Time Warner, and rent a modem from them. If you had your own modem, and you liked it, then you could take it with you, assuming your new ISP allowed your purchased modem on their network (another risk to purchasing, IMHO).

--Brian

Unfortunately from my own personal experience as well as a number of experiences with friends and family if you move from one Comcast area to another Comcast area, even in the same town, heck even in the same neighborhood or even FAMILY, you are forced to give Comcast the equipment back and issued new. Cable modems, set top boxes, everything. One example is my Grandfather had a DVR on his cable plan which would be used with everyone in the family. When he passed, we wanted to put that DVR onto my own account so we could continue to watch the recordings on it. We both are served by Comcast of Toms River not 10 minutes away from each other, and Comcast forced me to bring the DVR in. They wouldn't reissue it onto my account even though I had the proper legal and account authorizations. They claimed it was because of logistics. 7 years of recorded TV shows and movies and boxing events my Grandfather recorded gone.

Only a small portion of Wisconsin is served by Time Warner Cable, I believe the Milwaukee area. Charter is the primary provider, and Comcast is also available in the spill over area of Hudson, River Falls, Prescott included in the Twin Cities area. Other states have mixed providers such as Michigan, which has a small portion of Charter and mostly Comcast. California has Charter in some areas, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable. There is even Charter in NY state. My office has done both outbound and inbound calling for these cable providers and it is surprising to find these pockets of mixed providers.

Ahh, yes, the famed box full of DSL modems. I moved twice while I had DSL service and, both times, AT&T insisted I get a new modem. They were providing them free of charge, so I said "what the hell, why not?". When I moved from MI to OH, all 5 of them came with me. They stayed in OH when I moved to CA, though; and the UVerse gateway I bought in my old place? That was free after rebate (which they weren't doing when I moved) and useless in the new place (IPDSLAM), so I gave it to a neighbor who was considering UVerse but was put off by having to buy a modem.

2 of the 4 D3 modems in question were eMTAs; one was an Arris TM722G and the other was a UBee something or other, I only had it for a month so I didn't have to look at the label on the bottom enough to memorize it :P

Also worth noting, I've never had stability problems with a D2 modem that weren't directly related to bad wiring.

And thanks to the US being "One Nation Under Copyright" its not like you could even download all those recordings off the DVR. Since the cable companies pay lip service to the MAFIAA and disable data ports.