said by rody_44:LOL what other means of verification is there. You may not involve equipment but 99 percent of self installs do. Nobody forcing you into it. A alternative is paying a security deposit or going in and showing ID.
Back when I lived in the UK to sign up for services such as cable all we required was our name, address & phone number. It's interesting to me since moving to the USA how much that SSN is relied on here.