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Comment by subway | Hacker News Reader

I recently signed up for services with Insight (owned by TWC), and was told while I'm permitted to bring my own modem, they require I take delivery of their "free" modem when service was installed. At the end of the signup process they required I agree to a 1 year commitment on the service. When I asked why this 1 year commitment was required, the response was "Because we're giving you a free modem".

Brilliant.

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Same experience with Insight here (KY, USA). Since Time Warner recently bought out Insight, I wonder how that is affecting things like fees. I've been experiencing some connectivity issues lately as well, like they are imposing changes on the network (throttling?).

Related: Elsewhere (FL, USA) I was able to avoid fees by providing my own modem for a residential account (Comcast cable internet). Apparently, though, this is not an option for business accounts which require a modem rental (why?)

Comcast Business uses a modem with custom firmware that provides, among other things, a Management Interface for remote management, and specific support for multiple static IP addresses behind the modem.

The kicker to this is that you probably can't return the modem because that would be a change in service. I agreed to a one year plan with them with a couple of DVR settop boxes, after a few months I realized I never used one of the DVRs and attempted to return it only to be told that I can't return it without that being essentially an early termination of my entire current plan resulting in fees greater than what I would save by not "leasing" that DVR for the remained of the time period.

This is one of many interactions I've had with Time Warner that have caused me to boil with rage, and as soon as some viable alternative ISP is available to me I'm switching and never looking back.

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