This guy says buy your cable modem, I say not so fast

In my day-to-day scouring of technology news stories, I came across an article on the Yahoo Tech website by Daniel Howley titled, How to Ditch Your Rented Modem and Buy Your Own. In the article Daniel makes a sound case for buying your own cable modem instead of renting one from your cable company.

Specifically, he refers to the $8/month Comcast charges to rent a modem. This adds up to $96/year which means after 4 years you’ve paid $384. Compare this to the $50-$100 cost of a cable modem (which realistically could last you 4 years) and you can see why financially it makes much more sense to buy your own modem.

I say not so fast

Yes, your wallet is going to be better off buying your own cable modem but you may end up paying a premium in time and frustration. You see, your average person doesn’t know the first thing about their cable modem. Nor should they have to. So when something goes wrong, they don’t know how to fix it.

Worse yet, their “Internet problem” (that’s what most people call it) may have absolutely nothing to do with their cable modem. This becomes an issue when they call the cable company to report that their Internet connection isn’t working. If everything checks out on the cable company’s side, one of the first questions they ask is whether or not the person is using their own modem (they already know the answer but they’ll ask anyway).

If this happens to you and you are using your own modem, the odds start to stack against you. For starters, your modem may not be listed as one of the compatible modems with your cable company (Daniel does mention in his article to check this before you buy your modem). And even if it is, since it’s not the cable company’s modem, they aren’t going to support it.

“You need a new modem”

More than likely, the cable company will suggest to you that you need a new modem. Here’s the bad part. It doesn’t make any difference whether this is true or not. The fact is, you aren’t going to get much more help until you go buy and install another modem, even if just to prove the problem isn’t with your modem. Incidentally, this problem multiplies if you purchase your own modem and wireless router.

Let’s play this out. If the problem does turn out to be your modem, your investment in buying your own equipment takes a hit. If the problem isn’t your modem, you just wasted a ton of time running to and from the store buying, and then returning, the new modem (and your’re problem still isn’t fixed).

On the other hand, if you are using the cable company’s rented modem, they are bound to support it. Usually they will send out a tech who will just swap out your modem for a new one if the modem turns out to be the real problem.

So as much as it pains me to say it, most people are better off with a rented modem. I tell them to think of it as insurance and not a rental fee.

Do you rent or own your own modem? Leave a comment below and let me know your answer and whether or not you think you made the right choice.