"Renting cable modems"

How many of you have to rent or buy a cable modem? My provider just gave it to me with the only condition that I have to give it back if I cancel the service.

I suspect you did your homework. I'm just now investigating.

Charter Pipeline in Asheville Nc is offering their service for $24.95 a month but want to rent me a cable modem for an additional $9.95 a month.

As I said, I'm just now looking. The monthly fee doesn't seem so bad but I would rather buy my own modem.

$24.95 + $9.95 is a good deal. The best I can get is $29.95 + $15.00. I'm interested in buying, but am waiting for prices to go down.

In Maryville,Tn the cost per month for Charter is $29.95 and $3.95 for modem rental. I rent/lease my modem because I could buy same modem off WWW.minotaur.com for over $200. If lightning strikes this one, Charter replaces it. It will take two years before I'm in the hole. Like everything else in the computer world, next year they will sell for under $100.

I would rent one from the cable internet service provider...
Im paying only $39.95 total including cable modem rental..
It's not a bad deal though..

Jay,
How can you say that $39.95 isn't bad? It seems to me you might be using the same service I have, Road Runner. $39.95, which equals more like $45/mo. with all the frivalous "taxes&fees", is a rip off! With AT&T Broadband, all they offer is an "all-or-none" package. I actually called them up the other day and had the sales guy give me his pitch (he didn't know I already had the service) and was disgusted by how misleading and manipulative AT&T is. The sales man said that you're not even paying to lease the modem, but for the actual services provided. They say that RR/media one would be your ISP, and you'd get to have unlimited hours, but they're giving you FREE service anyway. What they mean by ISP is allowing you to use the cable lines for your data transfer, but they're not giving you any quality browsing, like a real ISP, b/c adds pop up constantly, and if you leave your comp idle for even 30min you're bombarded by adds and when you try to close them, they just pop up again. It's almost spam! You can get a real ISP from certain co.s, but it's just tacked on to your monthly fees. I already have an email acct at hotmail, which is free, I already had two browsers on my comp before the Road Runner hook-up, and I'm alreay paying for total basic cable on my tv. HERE'S THE CLINCHER...YOU CAN BUY YOUR OWN CABLE MODEM FOR $220-270. In fact, the exact cable modem that AT&T gives you to lease, the 3Com HomeConnect External Shark Fin, is for sale, but it's a crappy modem anyway, you can get better. So if you can buy your own modem, supply you own email acct, and have your own browsers, what the hell are you paying AT&T for? I'm researching this right now...AT&T doesn't want you to buy your own b/c they'd loose money, buy can they really do anything about it? If you can buy the exact same modem that they lease you, you know for sure it would work...couldn't you just hook it up to your cable outlet and use it?

can u buy ur own cable modem then use it without signing up for any service?

1.) Considering what AOL/Earthlink/MSN charge for dial-up service monthly, $39.95 isn't a bad deal for high speed access.
2.) The world would be a sorry place if we believed everything a sales rep told us was the truth. Take what they say with a grain of salt.
3.) Average price to buy a good modem nowadays is roughly $150.00, with occasional sale prices of $99.00.
4.) AT&T in our system has used modems from 5 different companies, not just 1 brand.
5.) You don't have to use the @Home browser if you don't want to. Same goes for their e-mail service. Officially, they will only SUPPORT their own browsers/e-mail.
6.) AT&T does not make gobs of money from people renting the modems from them. The monthly rental fee helps defray the cost of the modem.
7.) No, you can't just go out to your local store and buy a modem and start surfing. If your area is active for cable modem service, your modem has to be registered/provisioned with the local cable co./cable modem provider in your area. It's different that using a dial-up modem. Hence, the special modem and higher pricing. You are paying for the faster internet access. If you don't want to pay it, go back to dial-up.
8.) Personally, if I were to buy my own modem, I would go with the Motorola Surfboard 3100/4100 models.

I think if you rent a cable modem it would be a lot better than buying one. Let's say if your cable modem broke down after 30 days, you will not be able to exchange it for a new one or refund your money. Also, it's a waste of money buying one. You may not know whether or not if it's new used. I would rent one from your cable provider cause you can get a new one out of the box at anytime, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

It would have saved me nothing to purchase a modem. The rental is in thier leadership package, and would cost more if I split up the package. If you do buy check out circuit www.CircuitCity.com The week of 12 May Surfboard 4200 as low as 60-70 bucks.