AT&T U-verse → Re: What Will AT&T's New Home Media Gateway Look Like?

They cannot... the law prohibits them from refusing to allow customers to purchase their own modems are long as they are compatible with the service being offered.

Citation for said law?

Sounds like a legacy rule tied to cable TV. Cable will eventually dump TV for "internet only" plans.

Just because they can't refuse to allow customers to purchase their own modems doesn't mean they have to be made available from the company for purchase.

Actually the FCC states that the any manufacturer can offer those items for sale to the consumer. So Pace, 2Wire, Motorola, and Netopia have no reason not to do so. After all why not make some more profit on items they already manufacture for the providers?

It's my understanding that AT&T applies the 802.1x certificates themselves so that any of the same model used by other ISP's (Hawaii Telecom comes to mind) still won't work on AT&T's network. Making it a very expensive paperweight to consumers.

Maybe the makers don't want to support end users directly. It's expensive so they only sell to providers and let them support it

Offering for sale and having said company allow you to use it are two different things.

Where is this law about cable modems? ATT this year just mandated $7/month rental fee on all Uverse service. Absolutely no blowback. Cable noticed that.

How do you know that? Citation?

I was informed by AT&T customer service that with low tier aDSL2+ service you can still buy a modem and not be charged a monthly rental fee, I was told this twice during the past several months.

Anything DSL branded = $100 option
Anything Uverse branded = mandatory $7/month fee

Explained in T&C on ATT website. Can't get the fee waived. 12Mbps Uverse used to have the $100 option.

Where is the citation about cable mandated to allow third party cable modems?