Charter Stops Supporting Customer Owned Modems → Re: Cost aside, where's the issue?

The problem is that they can give you a modem/router combo and then lock you out of the settings. They will take control of what you can or can't do with your internet connection.

For example they could disable P2P traffic and you could not do anything about it.

So far, not a single company in the US that is handing out rental or free modems is locking out P2P traffic. Also, not a single company is handing out rental modems and locking you out of the settings. So you are just talking out of your ass on both of your points.

I never said they were locking out P2P traffic i said for example, they could.
I seem to remember just last week someone came here looking for the password to get into his new modem that he got from Charter, he had tried all the old known passwords and they had not worked, no one was able to give him a working password and he was told to contact charter people.
So like i explained above say you get a new modem / router combo from charter and you can not get into the setup of the router, you are saying you would be fine with that, i for one would not. We will see where this ends up but the only good reason for the ISP's to not allow customer owned modems and then give out modem/router combos, is to control the network and your connection.

Last week someone was talking about getting a modem router combo and when he connected his router he had trouble with his VPN connection because of the double NAT network, because of having two routers, he was asking how to disable the router in the combo unit and was told he could not.

You give a lot of fantasy "examples" but no real world examples. I have a couple friends who are on Charter and they have rented modems/router combo units. They are given the passwords at the time of installation. They are also able to do everything on them that I can do, including opening ports and so on. I personally know a Charter installer who writes the password down on the paperwork when the router/modem is installed. I think I would take this example user's story with a grain of salt.

In your second example, this user has 2 routers plugged into each other and is having problems with double NAT. Why does he have two routers in the first place? Has he ever thought of running his current router in bridge mode or removing it? What about going into the primary router and looking at the settings?

I don't deny that IF companies locked you out of the settings, it would be a bad thing (even though 98% of people don't use the advanced settings). These things aren't happening though. You write them up and make it sound like they are happening, which is false. Until they do, you really don't have a leg to stand on.

You can call them fantasy examples but we have all seen ISP's do things like my examples before to lock down and take control of there network.

This thread was about the $7 modem fee and i just pointed out it would be a problem if they now start giving/forcing you to a modem/router combo and locked you out of it. The reason this would be a problem is because they are in control of it. They chose what firmware it is loaded with and what features are enabled. There were posts here all ready about someone trying to get things working and he had to go into the charter router and disable all the built in firewall setting because of the way it worked in that router. You can not load a third party firmware like many do with there own routers. This is a problem because many want the features of the third party firmware for there router but would not be able to get them without double NAT.

Then comes the password maybe it is freely handed out at this time but that does not mean it will be down the road and could be changed at any time. Maybe they will start charging a fee to make changes for you at some point. Say you want your XBOX to work over the internet you call Charter and ask them to make changes in the router, for say a $35 FEE or maybe more, now that is a money maker for sure.