Cable Companies : True or Not True

[ictponder]

So I get home yesterday and find that my modem took a crap. I called Charter and they offered to rent one to me, which I said no. I went to Walmart and found that cable modems are discontinued through them. I find this odd and went to Meijers and received the same answer. I don't have a Best Buy close by or I would have tried somewhere like that.

Today I went to Staples on my lunch and they said that they sold their last bunch of cable modems yesterday and all customers stated that their modems quit that day. I notice a small computer repair shop and stop in and they have a Motorola modem so I pick it up and he tells me something I find pretty interesting if it's true.

He said that the big cable companies like Charter and Comcast recently purchased all modems (Linksys, Netgear etc...) from retailers in order to offer them for a rental fee to customers at a cost of $200 or something like that. I briefly looked this up and was unable to find any info but I do know that cable modems are being discontinued in large retail stores as I tried to buy one.

Anyone else heard something similar?

[Granny]

I hate Comcast.
There is nothing too dirty or underhanded anyone could tell me about them that I wouldn't believe.

I was so glad when our telephone service offered fiber optics cable.

I'm sure you would like to have it as soon as possible but can you order one?

[FeaRpb]

I haven't heard anything like that. But I do know they let you rent them. I would just order one off of newegg. Get a Motorola, I have had mine for 8+ years and have never had a problem with it.

[ictponder]

I haven't heard anything like that. But I do know they let you rent them. I would just order one off of newegg. Get a Motorola, I have had mine for 8+ years and have never had a problem with it.

I bought the Motorola SB5101 from that local shop I mentioned. I wish it was shaped different so I could mount it to my service panel in the basement but I'll figure something out.

[FeaRpb]

Yeah those are shaped weird. Good luck with mounting it.

[stealthee]

I'll have to take a look next time I am in town. I have DSL thru Verizon, but have been considering switching to cable internet through Atlantic Broadband.

[GTOJOE]

Doesn't cable have a max speed of like 8mbps?

[stealthee]

Cable can get up to 30 MBPS

[MaelstromOC]

Just so everyone is clear, 30MBps is equivalent to 240Mbits (how most cable is advertised) and it can reach very fast speeds through Docsis 3 and channel bonding (if your modem and company support that many channels bonded.)

That said, I haven't heard about them buying them up like that, but there are tons of places you can purchase them from online. OP may have been better served with a Scientific Atlantic modem (they have mount holes on the bottom) or those nice horizontal Motorola modems that lay flat as well.

Think about a CC renting a modem out though, even at retail price, most are 60 bucks (Docsis 2 modems), they get that back in one year of rental ($5 month) so anything past that is profit to them (and less likely, wholesale modems are MUCH MUCH cheaper) and when a customer no longer has service, they take it back and put it in someone else's house, plus most people don't care to actually own their own modem so... you can see their reasoning.

[UTRacerX9]

I haven't heard that about cable modems, but I heard that about DSL modems a few years ago, and if you look around for those, they aren't carried too many places anymore.