Do you own your own modem?

[havasu]

I looked at my internet bill yesterday and saw that we were renting this modem from the internet supplier for $8 a month. In the last 3 years, we have wasted nearly $250 on this rental. I turned the modem over and got the exact make and model of this rental, and was able to purchase a new one from Amazon for $24.95. Once it comes, I will plug it in, tell the company to activate it, and ask where to ship the rental back.

Anyone else do this, or even really look at their internet bill for these stupid charges?

 

[Nick]

We pay $10.00 a month .. I bought a Netgear AC 1750 .. The ones they rent are cheap.. the Net gear is a lot faster , Handles up to 650 MBS .. Is Also a router..

Think i paid $100.00 for it , It already paid for itself last year ..

Also have the new extreme Media Player .. No TV bill.. 1,000 movies , and much more ..

If you are thinking about getting one let me know.. They sell for $350.00 .. I get them for $250.00 ..

I'll give you his phone number.. just tell him you are a friend of mine ..

 

[havasu]

Nick, is that like a tweaked Firestick?

 

[Nick]

It's a Android Platform Hav, But much better ..Fire sticks aren't worth the money ..

There is a app on my box called Vader .. Cost $130.00 a year , Everything is in HD , All free Sports , NFL Package [ which now cost $350.00]. Movies,[etc].

You get 3 different isp address , and you can load it on 5 different boxes ..
Don't have to be in the same state .. PS: also has live TV..

 

[zannej]

I've been paying $9 a month plus tax on my modem since 2012. It's no longer covered under a warranty despite the fact that it's a rental. It's a proprietary modem bound to the account and we can't just go out and buy one and the company won't sell us this one. With the additional internet tax, it ends up costing us about $12 per month more than the base service plan. Oh wait, that tax is called a "fee" to make it "legal"- but it's really a tax.

 

[Nick]

What is the name of your ISP ?

 

[havasu]

It was my DirecTV repairman who actually reminded me about my modem rental. He told me to flip the modem over and purchase the exact same unit (since it is working great as is) and buy the same one. This way, the company cannot tell you that due to propriety, you can not use it.

By the way, in the last 4 months, we have been really frustrated with our DirecTV not working properly, especially watching their "on demand" streaming service. This repair guy was so sharp that in about 5 minutes, he found 3 major issues that were from the previous repair baboons. The system works flawlessly, but his phone was blowing up by his boss, because they allow 15 minutes per call, and he was here for well over an hour.

I got his supervisor's email and the big cheese's email address and wrote out a really long thank you letter for sending someone who actually knew how to do his job correctly.

He found, incorrect couplings that have been discontinued. He found cable lines with the shield interrupting the service. He found my direct HDMI cable from the modem to the receiver had been disconnected. He found cables that were cut, exposing the shield. He found a power booster that was not working properly, and finally he saw that all 3 of my modems (internet, DirecTV and ADT camera modems) were all too close to each other, causing an interference.

 

[Nick]

They're all the same Hav .. I have comcast here , And if it don't say Ixfinity on the side of the van i Know he is a sub.. Learned that the hardway ..

Now when i have a issue i tell them not to send a comcast van ..

 

[zannej]

I have Exede (which is a subsidiary of Viasat). The modems can only be set up by professional installers and you have to have some special code. Viasat says they will not support byod modems. Apparently at one time they were offering the customers the option to outright buy the modem for $299 but that offer wasn't available when we signed up. We've paid about $600+ for the lease fees thus far. They said they do not have any lease waiver options currently, but I've heard other customers have been able to get lease waivers. So, I guess I have to call and hope I get the right rep on the phone. With the lease fee it's like $110 per month for 150Gb limit and if the sales tax goes up again, the price will go up. I really wish they didn't tax internet service here.

 

[Nick]

Are there any other ISP'S in your area ?

 

[zannej]

Are there any other ISP'S in your area ?

Only Hughesnet, which I had before and it was HORRIBLE. Indian "tech support" who barely understood English and only read from scripts. Always denied any problems on their end and blamed the customer. Some were very rude. The "service" itself was terrible too. Very slow speeds, retarded bandwidth limits, very high latency, unreliable connection. I was stuck with them for 10 years before I switched to Exede.

There are no cell towers close enough for any of the cellphone type plans (we tried Millenicom but were just outside the range and it wouldn't work). Antenna and amplifiers didn't work. Can't even get dialup bc the phone lines are so bad.

 

[Nick]

Time to move !!

 

[Floorist]

We bought one from A T & T. Only three ISPs here. Exede it sucks, Fidelity, out a lot and A T & T Uverse. We have Uverse. Not great, but best of the three. My wife hacked in and turned the modem all the way up. They set it on 3, ours is on 10.

 

[zannej]

On the modem thing, you mean she hacked in to change the data throttle?

I'm hoping that as technology improves that someday we may have decent internet out here that doesn't cost so much.

 

[Nick]

It's called Jail breaking .. Use to do it on the DTV Modems years back..

 

[zannej]

I've heard of that. It's stupid for them to throttle things like that. I wish I'd known how to jailbreak my Hughesnet modem. They had me throttled below the speeds for the lowest possible plan even though I had a much higher plan. Should have been getting at least 1.5Mb down but wasn't even getting 300kb down. I was told that if I had less than 600kb down to call and find out why it was slowed. Someone told me to check in to the modem stats and look at some of the advanced settings. I was able to see that they were throttling the speeds, but they refused to admit it and refused to unthrottle.

 

[havasu]

Well, I got my $25 modem, then called tech support from India no doubt, but very helpful. Unfortunately, after I hung up and returned the rental modem, I discovered my ADT pulse (phone app for my alarm system) was not working. They discovered I had a closed port, and this cannot be done over the phone. I scheduled a repair, so Monday morning ADT will be here to open the port #80 for me. I then called back the internet tect support, but this time I got a very rude Indian. He said I would have to call the company where I purchased the modem for their tech support. I called them, but they said tech support discontinued for that specific modem, and would not help me. Seems I'm screwed, and will have to pay to have someone come over here and show me how to open a closed port.

 

[zannej]

Well, I got my $25 modem, then called tech support from India no doubt, but very helpful. Unfortunately, after I hung up and returned the rental modem, I discovered my ADT pulse (phone app for my alarm system) was not working. They discovered I had a closed port, and this cannot be done over the phone. I scheduled a repair, so Monday morning ADT will be here to open the port #80 for me. I then called back the internet tect support, but this time I got a very rude Indian. He said I would have to call the company where I purchased the modem for their tech support. I called them, but they said tech support discontinued for that specific modem, and would not help me. Seems I'm screwed, and will have to pay to have someone come over here and show me how to open a closed port.

D'oh! Have you tried looking on the dslreports forums to see if anyone there can figure out how to do it? When Hughesnet was totally failing on me and the tech support were rude as hell to me, I went to McDonalds to use their wifi and people on that site helped me troubleshoot and figure out what to do to get it working again. (My modem had unregistered).
Sorry you're having problems with it.

 

[Nick]

Well, I got my $25 modem, then called tech support from India no doubt, but very helpful. Unfortunately, after I hung up and returned the rental modem, I discovered my ADT pulse (phone app for my alarm system) was not working. They discovered I had a closed port, and this cannot be done over the phone. I scheduled a repair, so Monday morning ADT will be here to open the port #80 for me. I then called back the internet tect support, but this time I got a very rude Indian. He said I would have to call the company where I purchased the modem for their tech support. I called them, but they said tech support discontinued for that specific modem, and would not help me. Seems I'm screwed, and will have to pay to have someone come over here and show me how to open a closed port.

Offer the repair man a few bucks to fix your issue ..

 

[havasu]

The alarm company is coming on Monday morning. There is a flat fee of $25 to open the port, which isn't bad. Now, the wifey (OK, G/F) said her computer is being inundated with spam, so some firewall that was opened for the new modem is causing havoc. We have our mobile computer tech calling tonight to fix this (he has access to her computer via a link). I'm hoping he can also open up this #80 port this way.