Time Warner Cable customers, got a question.

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Rat407

Rat407

Joined
Dec 13, 2002
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2,528
Location
North Carolina
How many of you lease your modem? I just got my bill and it went up $12. They are charging me $8 a month for the modem. Is it better to purchase one as our own or keep leasing.

I can admit that we did have it go out and it was replaced for free about 4 months back. But that was a first in a long time.

Thanks
 
Not TW specifically, but I've owned my own modem (or two) since probably 2005. In the long run, it's cheaper to own, even if it does go bad on a rare occasion.
 
That's awful! I bought a Motorola surfboard DOCSIS modem back in like 2005 and it's still humming. That was back when my cable was Adelphia, LOL, remember the Rigas family? TWC bought them and modem still worky. They're like $25 on ebay now.
 
I think 5 years is a reasonable life expectancy for a modem, and even that is being very conservative IMO. If you leased a modem for 5 years (60 months) you would pay: $8 x 60 = $480. Or you could go to Best Buy and purchase a modem for $60 and it would last you 5 years. It's pretty obvious which is cheaper. Another way of looking at it is if you bought a modem for $60: $60 divided by $8 = 7.5 months. So if you spent $60 on a modem, it will pay for itself in 7.5 months. The only time leasing would be cheaper is if you somehow keep breaking modems every 6 months.

I just bought my first house and I established an account with Comcast for cable and internet. They had the option of leasing a modem for $10 a month. I did the math and needless to say, I bought my own modem.
 
Makes sense to own considering the cost. I'm not familiar with modems, any specific model better than another?
 
We have Comcast and they did the same thing, raised the rental rates on the modem to something like $12/month. I hadn't really thought about it until a thread on here some time ago pointed this out and I also went out and bought one on ebay. It payed for itself very quickly.
 
Even if you buy a new one for $60 @ Costco.....
Five month payoff is not bad.
Buy one.
 
Once you acquire the modem call the cable company and you'll need to give them the ID number off the sticker on it. Then they will provision your account to that box. If you ave an old router/firewall/wifi you may want to update that as well. Just make sure you're using WEP and NOT WAP security on the WIFI.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: Kawiguy454
Once you acquire the modem call the cable company and you'll need to give them the ID number off the sticker on it. Then they will provision your account to that box. If you ave an old router/firewall/wifi you may want to update that as well. Just make sure you're using WEP and NOT WAP security on the WIFI.


I don't think you want WEP, I think that's 20+ years old now, you want WPA or WPA2 on your wireless.
 
Originally Posted By: Kawiguy454
Once you acquire the modem call the cable company and you'll need to give them the ID number off the sticker on it. Then they will provision your account to that box. If you ave an old router/firewall/wifi you may want to update that as well. Just make sure you're using WEP and NOT WAP security on the WIFI.

My isp randomly forgot my mac address and bounced my browser to their self help, register the modem internal site. Easy.
 
We have Time Warner for an ISP. We went to the listing of TWC approved modems and bought the Motorola SB6121 from eBay for about $60. That was more than a year ago, so it's more than paid for itself. We also have TWC land-line phone service for which we need the TWC modem. But they don't charge a rental fee for the modem when used for phone service. We used a splitter to connect the TWC phone modem and our Motorola modem to the cable feed.

TWC will sneakily increase charges for services, so vigilance and an old statement is required every month.
 
Originally Posted By: THX1138

TWC will sneakily increase charges for services, so vigilance and an old statement is required every month.


Even more necessary is their "rate card". A few years back I found out about their "ghetto internet" that they weren't advertising or mentioning, AT ALL.

There was also a time, could still be, when their website listed packages with a 12 month price, but I *could not find* the regular MSRP. I called their customer service, they could not direct me to a URL, and I asked the guy bluntly half a dozen times.
 
Like many here I have owned my own modem and router (Time Warner) for many many years. I upgrade them every 4-5 years as "newer and faster" comes along. It has saved enough money to easily upgrade when required. A word of warning though........MAKE SURE to get a receipt as proof when you return TWC equipment. When they charge you the next month for the modem/router that you've already returned you've got the proof.
 
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