Time Warner Cable Modem Lease Fee Expands → Don't like the fee?

Buy your own modem. Problem solved.

Read it again:

Frontier Communications recently started charging everyone a $7 "modem support and warranty fee" whether you own your modem or not.

I myself still own my Optimum Online modem. If Optimum suddenly inserts a fee in my bill, they are getting a copy of the receipt for the modem.

Your 100 percent right, its not your modem its the companies so they are chargin you to use there stuff, buy your own your all good

The article was on Time Warner Cable, not Frontier. Otherwise I agree with you. Frontier is ripping people off. Time Warner's letter is simply that they are starting to charge for leased modems. If you want to buy your own, then there is a list of approved modems to use. This is all dictated in the letter.

At $139 it isn't really problem solved. Of course I could get a used one cheaper off Amazon or Ebay but that is a pig in a poke. It may be able to be activated or it may not.
Either way, it is an increase in price. That is the problem.

Edit.
In addition, I checked the approved list and don't see any modems on there that support telephone service.


Approved modems

It's still a price increase+reduction in service.

Yup. No reason to bitch and complain

You guys have 8x4 channel bonding online in NYC though. That couple bucks a month is actually going toward upgrades.

Updated: Sorry, my bad. I went for the 6141 modem... the 6121 is not on the update list. It was $20 more and hard to find... out the door price is at least $100 for the 6141.

I have put up more information about this fee and quick reviews of the VERY limited choices TWC is giving customers as far as purchased cable modems go on Stop the Cap!:

»stopthecap.com/2012/10/0 ··· tal-fee/

In short, buy a DOCSIS 3 modem no matter what, and buy sooner rather than later. Amazon has some good prices, but they won't last as the surge of new buyers arrive. I went for the Motorola SB6121 SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem ($80) for these reasons:

1) Value for money: You can recoup this investment in about two years with TWC's new pricing scheme and have a D3 modem that will last at least five years before technology makes this obsolete.

2) Combo cable modem/routers are usually a bad idea and don't perform as well as standalone routers running third party firmware. I am keeping my Linksys N router running DDWRT thank you. The current D3 modem (Ubee) was a real pain with Wi-Fi so I have mine in bridge mode.

3) The D2 modems are not much less than the SB6121. The one wireless combo D2 modem is G only, and has gotten very mixed reviews.

This could be a problem. The D3 modems on the approved list seem to support up to 4x4 bonded channels. Can a firmware upgrade address this?

Nope.

No, it's a hardware chip limitation. Updating firmware won't change that.

'cept there's a couple of problems with that, at least in my region (dunno whether it would properly be called "Northeast," "Western New York," or "Buffalo area"). One, the service is being sold without a modem line item, and hobgoblin (a TW employee) tells us in the TW forum those of us who have bought cable modems are grandfathered in for a "customer owned modem" billing credit. Two, if you want Wideband (and perhaps other, higher-tiered services), customer owned modems, although perhaps technically capable, are (according to policy) not allowed. Three, I seem to remember hobgoblin saying (well, writing anyway) policy has changed in that customer-supplied modems are being phased out (meaning I don't have to change mine out as I'm grandfathered in, unless I no longer use the ones I have).

Either way, I oppose the notion. I don't want to pay for a modem five times over, and think it's reasonable to receive some minimal level of tech support bundled with the access fees. I don't think I ever had to call the cableco (whether Adelphia or TW) for my SB5100, and only had to call a few times within the last year or so for my SB6120. Otherwise, it has been many, many months of service basically without a hitch requiring support (meaning no additional cost to TW).

From what I understand, the D3 Motorolla models listed in the screenshot support 8x4 channel bonding.

I paid more than that for my first 28.8k modem, back in the day when they cost real money.

Voice modems become free once you stop using them for Internet service.

I just saw that and now it makes even less sense.

It's s--- stupid, and I don't know how upgrading modems to IPv6 can cost that much to begin with.

Wont they still charge a fee??

"One, the service is being sold without a modem line item, and hobgoblin See Profile (a TW employee) tells us in the TW forum those of us who have bought cable modems are grandfathered in for a "customer owned modem" billing credit.
Two, if you want Wideband (and perhaps other, higher-tiered services), customer owned modems, although perhaps technically capable, are (according to policy) not allowed.
Three, I seem to remember hobgoblin saying (well, writing anyway) policy has changed in that customer-supplied modems are being phased out (meaning I don't have to change mine out as I'm grandfathered in, unless I no longer use the ones I have)."

It appears possibly that you are using some very old quotes from me.

A while ago there was a policy that gave customer owned modems a credit, the modem cost was included in a promotion. Once the promotion ended the credit did too.

Initially when the D3 tiers were rolled customer owned modems were not allowed, That policy has since changed and there are numerous people that own their own modem and have a D3 service.

I have never stated that customer owned modems are being phased
out.

If you have your own modem you will of course receive the same support as everyone gets!

Hob

my bad. (gosh, the older I get, the flakier my memory gets).

I thought I read something along the lines of, no more (as in additional, as in if you're beginning service) customer supplied modems, but if you have one already, you could continue to use it. Ergo, not in so many words, but phasing out of allowing customer modems. I'm thinking, you must have at least written no more credit, that it's no longer a line item and modem is included in the price. And admittedly it's been a few months since I looked closely at my bill (usually I just look at "the bottom line," and it hasn't increased), but at least I used to see a -$3.00 line item.

The credit (or lack of charge, when it WAS a separate line item) for supplying my own modem is the primary motivator for me buying one. Without it, the reasons would be technical, as in for example I like the performance of some model.

I apologize for any misunderstanding. just sayin' that's my recollection, and I did not research the TW (RR) forum before writing.

And as for support, yeah, it's been pretty good. I was commenting on it more from a cost basis, that it doesn't seem to me like it should be much different, renting/leasing or customer supplied.

I just heard a news story on WHAM-AM about this. Part of their stated reason of needing to charge the modem fee is that some people never return theirs. That seems kind of silly, at least for a reason. Like some other services, just state up front if you don't give it back, you'll be charged $X, and if you don't pay up, it goes to collections, just like any other unpaid bills.

Frontier does not charge you if you own your own modem! Only for leasing theirs. They dont support the 3rd party modem or trouble shoot it. So if you own your own modem and it stops working tech support wont help you! I know I work for Frontier.