ISPs are no longer allowed to charge rental fees for stuff that consumers own

[spartaman64]

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Broadband and TV providers will finally be required to stop charging "rental" fees for equipment that customers own themselves, thanks to a new US law that takes effect on Sunday.

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The change is good news for customers of Frontier Communications, which has insisted on charging $10 rental fees to customers who use their own routers. As we wrote in July 2019, Frontier claimed it charges the fee to cover higher support costs for customers who use their own equipment. But Frontier said at the same time that it "cannot support or repair non-Frontier equipment," contradicting its own justification for charging the fee.

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The law's implementation will "put an end to the unconscionable business practice of charging consumers a rental fee for cable modem routers even if consumers do not use them!" consumer-advocacy group Public Knowledge said in a blog post. "This common-sense correction will permit consumers to continue to use their own equipment, and not be forced to pay for something they neither asked for nor needed."

source https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/law-banning-rental-fees-for-customer-owned-routers-takes-effect-sunday/

[HawkinEagul]

This is great!

[pythonmegapixel]

Yet another round of "wait, this was a thing in America?"

[Windows7ge]

So some U.S. ISP's charge for renting their routers and some charge for home owners using their own? Didn't know the latter was a thing. Glad it's getting abolished.

[Lurick]

2 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

So some U.S. ISP's charge for renting their routers and some charge for home owners using their own? Didn't know the latter was a thing. Glad it's getting abolished.

Yah, Frontier was the big offender if I remember right. Even if you had your own they would charge you a fee.

[TetraSky]

Does anyone really expect them to just "lose out" on that rental fee ? They'll just increase the price of the monthly payment by the amount they are no longer allowed to charge... If not higher. Or find some other bullcrap to tack on your plan and say "it's necessary". 

[Taf the Ghost]

Sadly, all this means is rates are going up $10 + taxes on that $10. For a number of customers, their actual bill is going up more.

 

Because US Telecom infrastructure has been around for so long, there's taxes & fees all over the place on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_telephone_excise_tax This is one of my personal favorites for "taxes never end". As a result, what Frontier was clearly doing was shifting the categories for where the charges were sitting.

 

It was really an accounting trick. I can definitely see the annoyance, but I also get why it was done this way.

[Nayr438]

Now they will just do what Comcast does. They put the modem into a bundle, xfi advantage i think they call it. You get a modem, they tag on the rental fee, then lower the cost of various internet plans and features. Bring your own modem, then you lose the rental fee and rates go up. it's $30 more a month for us to use our own equipment than to just use what they provide. Luckily the modem is pretty decent and sits in bridge mode, to bad there overall service is terrible and overpriced.

[thermalgoop]

5 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

source https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/law-banning-rental-fees-for-customer-owned-routers-takes-effect-sunday/

A few years back, I spent about four hours arguing with Xfinity about the same charge on my first bill, alongside an "In-Home Setup" charge. I never let any Xfinity dips into my home, and certainly didn't request their presence. After much blood, sweat, and cursing, the only thing I'm getting ripped off on now is the internet connection itself. 

[Doobeedoo]

That's a meme really, didn't knew it was a thing there.

[TigerHawk]

I mean this is neat, but inb4 they just start saying they do not support anything but their own devices, so you have to rent it or don't get service.

[Chiyawa]

3 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Does anyone really expect them to just "lose out" on that rental fee ? They'll just increase the price of the monthly payment by the amount they are no longer allowed to charge... If not higher. Or find some other bullcrap to tack on your plan and say "it's necessary". 

Yeah, they will impose like $100 per month if you sign up with a modem and $120 if you use your own modem. Happens a lot. I remember some even barred you from using your own modem, claiming 'security risk'.

 

Actually, yeah. By using your own equipment, the company will face a greater risk of being 'exploited', so usually, they will have to invest on another gateway to prevent exploitation, which explained the cost incurred. This is because the company has no direct access to the router, hence they couldn't shut down your router or disabled them remotely should your bill are way pass overdue or abusing the resources. So, I guess that's their reason for charging extra even if you use your own equipment.

[Donut417]

41 minutes ago, TigerHawk said:

I mean this is neat, but inb4 they just start saying they do not support anything but their own devices, so you have to rent it or don't get service.

US Federal law says different. So they cant do that. The FCC will be up their ass like their were when Title II was a thing. The ISP's dont want that. 

 

2 hours ago, Nayr438 said:

it's $30 more a month for us to use our own equipment than to just use what they provide. Luckily the modem is pretty decent and sits in bridge mode, to bad there overall service is terrible and overpriced.

Yeah Ive never seen that from Xfinity and we have been their customers for multiple decades. They do charge $25 a month for the XFi Advtange that includes the unlimited data OR you pay $30 a month for unlimited if you use your own modem. However, if you are like me and dont have unlimited data then the service is normal price. Normal price for Internet only Blast in my area is $83/m, thats what it say on the rate card. Guess what? We own are own modem and we pay $83/m. 

[TetraSky]

54 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

hence they couldn't shut down your router or disabled them remotely should your bill are way pass overdue or abusing the resources.

I don't know about ISPs in the US.

But here in Canada, even we if use our own modem, they can certainly easily cut you off. It's not like you can just plug a random modem and somehow you get network access. It still needs to be activated on their network and they can just as easily get rid of this "activation". As for "abusing resources", we all know that's BS. If you're paying for a connection, you should be allowed to make 100% usage of it 24/7 if you want. If they don't want that, they can impose caps or throttle you. (Which they already do, with or without their modems)

 

Typically, ISPs have a list of specific modems they allow on their network, even if you own yours, they should still be able to push out firmware updates to it if they wanted to (which they should). Because modem manufacturers do push out their updates to ISPs. There should be no "vulnerability" there that justify any sort of extra on their part...

But then again, US ISPs are not known to have the consumer at heart.

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

But then again, US ISPs are not known to have the consumer at heart.

Funny you should say that. 

 

Comcast (Ass Holes) the largest cable provider in the US. Which also have a 1.2 TB data cap. They make it very easy to own your own modem. They have a pretty sizable list of modems that support their network. ON top of that they have tested each modem to know it works and they do push out firmware on a regular basis. To register the modem you dont even have to call in, all you need is your account information and when you try to connect to the internet you will be pushed to a page to put that said info in and once you do, its registered. 

[Nayr438]

46 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Yeah Ive never seen that from Xfinity and we have been their customers for multiple decades. They do charge $25 a month for the XFi Advtange that includes the unlimited data OR you pay $30 a month for unlimited if you use your own modem. However, if you are like me and dont have unlimited data then the service is normal price. Normal price for Internet only Blast in my area is $83/m, thats what it say on the rate card. Guess what? We own are own modem and we pay $83/m. 

It's $20 for XFi with Unlimited, $30 for Unlimited without. Gigabit Internet is $100 with XFi after a $16 discount or $116 without XFi.

So its $120 with Xfi, which requires their modem, or $146 without. So I guess its a $26 difference. The rate card says $116, but what I was going at was the discounts they throw onto bundles to make having their equipment the cheaper option. However that may only make a difference for people who want unlimited data, I don't know if they have other weird bundles they offer out with equipment or not though.

 

Our internet goes out all the time as well. Luckily we have fiber currently being installed in our neighborhood which offers gigabit unlimited for $75 including equipment.

[Donut417]

8 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

onto bundles

Well consider cable is utter trash and wired line phones are last century. And their wireless phone service is just rebranded Verizon.  I dont see the point of bundles. 

 

15 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

t's $20 for XFi with Unlimited, $30 for Unlimited without.

Well Comcast says it costs $25 with the XFI. Seeing how they are the ones offering the service, Id have to take their word for it. So its only a $5 difference if you own your own modem. 

 

 

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Does anyone really expect them to just "lose out" on that rental fee ? They'll just increase the price of the monthly payment by the amount they are no longer allowed to charge... If not higher. Or find some other bullcrap to tack on your plan and say "it's necessary". 

Yeah I would assume they would simply stop charging rental fees increase the price to match the rental fees. I know some places even give discounts to people that use the isp provided equipment as it allows stuff like Xfinity wifi where other customers can piggyback off of your router to get internet when away from their home. 

[Brooksie359]

23 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

It's $20 for XFi with Unlimited, $30 for Unlimited without. Gigabit Internet is $100 with XFi after a $16 discount or $116 without XFi.

So its $120 with Xfi, which requires their modem, or $146 without. So I guess its a $26 difference. The rate card says $116, but what I was going at was the discounts they throw onto bundles to make having their equipment the cheaper option. However that may only make a difference for people who want unlimited data, I don't know if they have other weird bundles they offer out with equipment or not though.

 

Our internet goes out all the time as well. Luckily we have fiber currently being installed in our neighborhood which offers gigabit unlimited for $75 including equipment.

I started using my own equipment and now my internet doesn't go out anymore. The Xfinity router modem devices simply overheat and will make your internet go out while a decent modem and a decent router doesn't really have this issue. I mean I use to put a fan against my Xfinity router and that did wonders as well and made my internet go out way less often. 

[Goldilock]

IMO should have been made illegal from the very beginning.

 

This is not american thing, I am in SEA and I got charged for router rental even though I already had one.

[Donut417]

9 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

it allows stuff like Xfinity wifi where other customers can piggyback off of your router to get internet when away from their home. 

Or you can use the public hotspot to get around the data caps. Because data used on the public hotspot doesn't count towards your data cap. Thats what some people do. Surprised they never plugged that loophole. 

[scottyseng]

I actually was a victim of this during the Verizon to Frontier transfer. I had already bought the Verizon router (Because I need MOCA for the TV boxes) and had my own. They still charged me the monthly fee until I called in to cancel it after explaining I had bought it full price already.

 

Then they were trying to convince me that the new Verizon Quantum (was new at the time) was better than my Edgerouter 4 and Ubiquiti AC Pro setup.