"Self-Installation"

I'm desperately seeking a broadband connection. I've been using 56K for years and I'm tired of it! Anyway, I've been looking all over for pricing plans and availability. I do have a question. If I were to purchase a cable modem from say Circuit City or Best Buy or some place, would I have to pay to use it? What I mean is, if I were to buy a cable modem from either of these places and self-install it myself, would I have to pay any fees? I know this sounds like a newbie question, but please help me out. Thanks.

Yes, you can buy a cable modem at any of the local retailers at a cost of just under $200. Yes, you will still have to pay to use it. You may or may not have to pay for installation depending on your signal strength of the cable line to the modem. It is preferable to have a dedicated line just for the modem for optimal signal. You will need to have an Ethernet Card in your PC or a USB port. THe USB connection is not recommended as it is not as reliable. Most vable companies will do the install free and some even do a 3 months half price deal, just depends on who your cable provider is. I install cable modems every day and rarely see anyone who purchases their own modem because technology changes so often and the charge from your cable company is pretty minimal.

I just had service hooked up in Indiana with InsightBB. I purchased my own NIC or Ethernet Card which I installed myself. I purchased my own modem, a Motorola Surfboard 4200, from Best Buy. I ran my own coax cable(75 feet) from my wall jack to my modem at my PC. Best Buy has a deal here where if you buy the modem from them for 89.00, subtract the mail in rebate -40.00=50.00 and if you sign up for service with a local ISP you get an additional 50.00 rebate so the modem is basically free. InsightBB charged me 50.00 for a "self install" package, which consists of just the software needed to set up the account, and 45.00 for first month of service and 18.00 for connection fee. No contract to sign, just 45.00 a month and you get 6 e-mail accounts, and 60 MB of web space. It's not even comparable to dial-up. (500MB file download took about 175 hours continuous to download before and now it takes about only 25 minutes. Very fast. About 300-400KBps 128KBps upload. I'm happy. Hope that helps.