[ScottEvtuch]

My local cable company gets around this by strategically pricing everyone towards using their new cable boxes which are essentially digital TV over DOCSIS internet. The prices for the IP TV plans (which they still call "cable") are less than $100 per month, but I was quoted over $300 per month for a traditional cable plan that could use a CableCard.

[kelnos]

Yeah these sorts of practices seem to be everywhere. I have Comcast Business (for internet) at home, and even for that, they want you to use their provided cable modem + "security gateway". I told them I wanted to use my own modem and router, and they told me that would cost more! I can only assume they gather data about your home network and sell it to third parties, and don't want to lose that revenue stream. And I assume that device also broadcasts that "xfinity" public WiFi network as well.

I of course think the practice is disgusting regardless, but it surprised me that they'd do it on their business-class product too. Would be really nice to see some regulation aimed at prohibiting this sort of thing.

(To be fair, I recently called Optimum for cable internet setup at another address, and told them I wanted to use my own equipment, and they still gave me the same price. At least some companies aren't engaging in this bullshit. They did try to upsell me to a much faster package than I wanted, and tried to get me to add their cellular product, but I guess that sort of thing is a normal practice anywhere, and at least the sales rep wasn't pushy and it was easy to say no.)

[larusso]

We had this situation in Germany as well. The providers argued that their routers/etc. are part of their network and the user network starts behind that. If the user wants to use their own router etc they can connect it behind the provided one yadayadayada. In the end their lost the argument. The providers need to accept any router and have to hand out the connection credentials (the provided boxes came with backed in credentials) so users can connect with their own hardware. But most providers will now refuse to give support in case you run your own router. That’s all for internet though. Don‘t know how cable is handled nowadays.

But this reminds me of the day a nice telecom call center person wanted me to get their router. The argument he gave me was: „with our router we have access and can automatically fix update and optimize the router for you“. My answer was down the line of: „that’s precisely what I don‘t want“. A few years later a huge Telekom blackout happened across west Germany or so. Apparently the error was a faulty update which misconfigured the user credentials. All boxes went offline for the users (I guess the service ports where still available) Classic Murphy.

[bubblethink]

Comcast also has deployed this other trick where you call them for support, they'll just say they can't do anything if you use your own modem. It's malicious incompetence.

[projektfu]

With Comcast, you can disable the public Wi-Fi on your end (just log in) and you can also ask them to put your cable modem into "bridge mode", to use with your own router, but to get static IPs you need your router in router mode and it will get a dynamic IP and the static IPs.

I was sick of the way that Comcast prices creep up so I switched away anyway.

[mike_d]

> I can only assume they gather data about your home network and sell it to third parties, and don't want to lose that revenue stream

Nah. You are just paying for the privilege of breaking their unified management platform.

As an ISP "power users" break the uniformity that leads to economies of scale in management, and often over-estimate their own abilities leading to increased support costs.

[mehlmao]

Comcast and Optimum both offer low-cost cell phone networks. They resell service from the big three, but largely rely on WiFi calling. Phones automatically connect to the default modem/router combos.

[mlyle]

Of course, the big strategy here is to try and get to a point where they can free up a whole lot more spectrum on the cables for internet and not have to densify CMTS a whole bunch.

(Of course, having spyware cable boxes helps with other revenue streams, too)