Comment by jchw
4 months ago
The normal Comcast plans do let you do that, this is some weird special plan. You can hook up a standard DOCSIS modem and then DHCP lease an IP.
There are a lot of technically-proficient people who refuse to do this anymore. I guess it is a non-zero amount of work, but it really, really isn't that much. The direction we're headed in is pretty obvious: some day, sooner rather than later, the era of customers being able to use their own cable modems for DOCSIS internet will slowly end, as the people who bother become more and more in the minority.
This was the norm in Germany for a while. Then we got a law ("Routerfreiheit") that forces ISPs to allow you to use and modem/router you want. Before that you couldn't do it with DOCSIS, but it kinda worked with DSL, if you could somehow get the PPPoE credentials.
Nowadays they have to provide PPPoE and voip credentials, and cable providers need to provide a service where you give them the Mac of your own modem and then it gets tied to your contract.
Cox also lets you do this, although they'll straight up lie to you on the phone. The rep very confidently told me I could not use my own equipment, and was required to use theirs, despite their website claiming otherwise.
The customer support reps might just be poorly trained (yet confident), and not lying. Calling it "lying" requires there to be an intent to deceive.
I mean, "sales Rep informing you that you must choose the expensive recurring payment" sounds like a perfectly honest situation. That kind of person would never have a very direct financial incentive to lie, surely.