Xfinity fliping the bird at cable cutters?

[RIP-Felix]

     So I received a letter in the mail from Xfinity (AKA the evil comca$t empire) saying that starting November 1st they will be charging overage fees to customers who use more than 1 Terabyte in a month. Each additional data block of 50GB will incur a $10 overage fee up to a max of $200 (and here's the ultimatum), unless you pay another $50/mo for unlimited data. Waaaaahhh!!! They say it would affect less than 1% of their customers. Yeah, because they're jumping ship and aren't your customers anymore! However, I just cut the cable, so to speak, and canceled triple play in favor of a double play (Phone + internet). I'm going to Playstation Vue and Over The Air broadcasts of free TV. Essentially, I'm just shifting my bandwidth from cable to internet, which will increase my usage.

     The data metering they will now start employing is directed at those who cut the cord and will be shifting their use of cable bandwidth to internet bandwidth - streaming ever increasing data hog formats like UHD 4K...We're screwed! I was averaging 400GB per month before, with just a Wii using Netflix. I have a PS3 I use periodically to watch Netflix, but I did most of my viewing on the X1. Now it will be on PSVue and Netflix, you can easily double that 400GB right there. I just bought a Roku 4 to stream HD 1080P instead of what ever the Wii was doing, and that's only until I can get a 4K TV. I was planning to Get a PS4 this holiday season. All of this was supposed to come out of the savings from an extra $100/mo not going to Comca$t. With the shift from cable to internet, that 400GB/mo is surely to increase near that 1TB mark. And that's without factoring in online gaming and downloading the odd movie.

     A little background. Our local professional sports team signed an exclusive TV rights deal with Comca$t that held fans hostage. For 10 years I could not see my team play if I did not buy a ticket or see it on ESPN, TNT, or on local TV. The only way to see all the games was to be a Comca$t TV paytron. So for the last 10 years, I've been fighting the cat and mouse game with Comca$t. This year our team finally negotiated another deal. Unfortunately they extended the deal with Comca$t (NoooOOOOO!!!). However, PlayStation Vue managed to pick up the channel that broadcasts the majority of games (Comca$t sports net = CSN). PSVue has TNT and ESPN so I would still get the games they pick up. PSVue doesn't live stream any of our local channels (1 of which will pick up a few games this season), but I can get that over the air with a cheap VHF/UHF antenna. So I now have one, and only one, viable alternative. Being thoroughly sick of Comca$ts business model, I decided to cut the cord. Here is the nutshell of my experience with comca$t over the last 10 years:

     If you are a new customer at a particular residence, they will give you a good deal. I just looked at their current offering and it was $89.99 for 12mo with only a one year contract (Basic Savings triple play). To compare. I now pay $70/mo for the 25Mbps double play + $35/mo for PSVue = $105, but I can remove $10/mo of that by buying my own modem. So in a few weeks it will be $95/mo. But that's still more than Xfinity triple play right? That's how they hook you, it looks like a better deal. IT"S NOT!. They don't tell you about the fees they add to that price. "Oh jeez, not again. Everyone whines about fees." I know the fee argument seem trite, but consider this. Using my fees from last month would add 47% to that $89.99 making it $132.44/mo. Not such a good looking deal now, huh? And that's just the first 12 months! Many of those "fees" are actually just price increases designed to look as if they are recovering the cost from an overbearing governmental regulation system. This serves two purposes:

1. It makes the service look cheaper than it is, shielding the true cost from potential customers so they can't easily make an informed decision. They hope to get you locked into a contract you can't get out of without paying a severance fee.
2. It serves their political agenda to show all their customers how much the government is making them pay in regulatory fees, and if it wasn't for all this regulation they would be able to remove the fees from your bill. They don't want to combine the fees into a single price, because it serves their bottom line not to. Moreover the effect of the language used is to perpetuate the above misconception, without being liable legally.

     After the first contract is up they will offer you a promotion that locks you into a 2 year contract on an escalating pay schedule. They'll tell you that they can offer you a special promotion, just for you, that will give you the next package up (from basic to preferred or from performance internet to Blast) at no additional cost. The first year would be cheap (like $139.99, but remember to add in fees = $182.44) and the second would go up $15 to $197.44. After that It will be full price (of the preferred), but if you just call back then, they give you another promotion on a ratcheting basis (they'll offer another "special promotion" that will move you up to premium at no additional cost). Sounds good on the phone, "I gets HBO for free! Hells yeah! Sign me up homie." The thing is, that the ratchet only turns one way (it's called up-selling). You get a promotion to the next package up or another special promotion on the one you're currently in. You can go back to the next lower package, but they wont apply a promotion with it, so it ends up being the same price by design as the promotion to stay at your current package. Once the promotion expires and your at full price 2 years later you'll see this bill...

On my last bill the bundle was the following (Read this, it was helpful to me):

• $174.99 (HD Preffered Plus XD with a $20 bundle discount)
• + $10.00 (Wireless Gateway, the WIFI telephony modem. You can buy your own to avoid this lease fee. I did this once and then they obsoleted it in a year or two going from DOCSIS 2 to 3. I just bought another. I've heard of people getting phantom modem lease fees, where suddenly a bill comes with a lease fee that shouldn't be there. I hope that comca$t would retroactively reimburse customers who don't notice this for a few months, but even if they do it forces a call where they will try to negotiate an up-sell. You can't up sell if they don't call. I'm on the national do not call list, so I wonder how much they'd be calling if I wasn't)
• + $9.95 (The X1 HDDVR, only one. Each additional one will cost you)
• + $4.99 (Additional Outlet, tiny box that technically got cable. But all we ever used it for was local TV, what a waste - especially since they are charging me a re broadcast fee on top of the additional outlet fee, totaling $11.50, see below,  when I could have just used an antenna. It makes me feel humiliated. It was hiding in plain sight all this time and never once did I make the connection, nor did comca$t inform me during one of the many calls I placed to them in order to find a way to lower our bill without canceling altogether! Now that I've cut the cord how'd that work for you Comca$t? The answer is pretty outstanding considering their monopoly and my insignificance. It's a numbers game. In this one simple way they are getting an extra $11.50 x however many of the 22.5 million comca$t TV subscribers have an additional outlet they don't use.)
• + $ 6.50 (Broadcast TV Fee - they charge you for rebroadcasting the free tv you could otherwise get with an antenna. This is a bogus charge and just a scam to raise/veil prices)
• + $0.98 (Universal connectivity fee - Passes Comca$ts Federal Universal Service Fund contribution onto its customers. This fund provides affordable communications services to low-income and rural customers, and eligible schools).
• + $2.02 (Regulatory Recovery Fee -This is a bogus charge and just a scam to raise/veil prices. It's Comcast passing the cost of projected loss in profits from local, state, and federal regulation onto its customers, which sounds like it's not Comca$ts fault, but don't be fooled. This is not a fee imposed on Comca$t by government! It is the amount Comca$t will will not earn as a result of complying with local laws (Laws they would prefer didn't exist). It might be cheaper to plow through a protected forest if not for that pesky law. "Oh well, well just make the customers pay the difference." That's what this charge is in all reality. It's also known as a Monoplyi/TBTF Tactic and is nothing new. This is the type of thing that results from deregulation, but they make it look like too much regulation in an effort to further undermine regulation. The psychology is interesting. And where do you think all those psychology majors get a job? Mental asylums? Ok...I know what you're thinking...Comcast is a mental asylum...lol. Actually, in a mental asylum the psychologists run the asylum, not the psychopaths, Comca$t is the exact opposite! The only thing Comca$st has in common wit a Mental asylum is that both exist to help the psychopaths.)
• + $4.50 (Rregional Sports Fee - all thoes regional sports channels you may not want are subsidized by all comca$t customers, not just those who want them)
• + $8.51 (Franchise fee - the Fees imposed on Comca$t by local municipalities for use of public property to run cable. In other words, Comca$t passing the cost of doing business onto its customers in such a way to make you think they're too heavily regulated. "See all this crap we have to pay." Seriously? If you're going to dig up public streets to lay a cable line, you should at least foot the bill. Like I said earlier, this is just a way to hide this amount from prospective new clients, while simultaneously perpetuating the myth that they're over regulated. They insinuate that they could remove this fee if the laws were changed, but all they would do is add it back to the base price and take it off the monthly bill. They push numbers, that's what they do.)
• $0.08 (FCC regulatory fee - Comca$ts portion of the FCC administration costs passed onto its customers).
• $0.75 (911 fee - Comca$ts portion of the emergency support services passed onto its customers).

 

So the bill that finally broke me totaled: $222.44=

 

    

 

 

 

I'll end with this:

America The Beautiful:

...

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

...

[RIP-Felix]

I found this article fascinating.

[hansolo77]

This is old news.  Comcast has always been data capping their service, or at least for as long as I can remember.  Their high speed internet must be really super duper fast, guaranteed 100% uptime with nuclear bomb protection to have such a ridiculous offering.  There have been so many hate threads on the internet posted by ex-users (or hopeful ex-users).  When I heard our cable company was under threat to being bought by Comcast, I was fearful.  Then they were bought by somebody else instead.  Still, they increased cost and reduced speed, but maintained their advertised "No Data Cap".  The least Comcast could do is what cell phone companies do, and just cut your speed down once you hit your cap.  But honestly, 1tb is a lot.  I'd look at your options.  Maybe 1tb is enough.  If you find you went over the first month, consider getting that unlimited plan.  I hate to say it, but Comcast knows what they're doing.  Companies are out to make money, even if it cuts their loyalties.  If you have other companies available to you, I'd change.  No sense getting worked up into it.  Unfortunately for me (discussed before), I'm monopolized into only 1 cable company where I live due to the community's "no maintenance trucks" rule (that blocks installing the fiber cables for another company) and special dedicated to 1 company discount they got when they were first installed.

[Kustom Kid]

Frontier FIOS. 16 down/5 up. $35/month.  No data cap (yet).

WMC and 2 Xbox 360s for over the air DVR.  Free.

Hulu $8.99/month and Netflix $9.99/month.

I do miss a lot of sports, but I also spend less time watching tv, and we save a ton of money. I got sick of my Comcast bill never being the same from one month to the next. And it feels like they're always showing the same crap on tv every day anyways.  I've been cable free for almost 5 years now, and Comcast free for 3 years. It feels good. It feels real good.

[hansolo77]

Make yourself a Raspberry Pi (love these things now!) and install Kodi on it.  There are all kinds of FREE (though maybe not legal so be careful) addons for streaming TV and Movies.  Or use a Roku device, and even install Kodi on your Xbox One.  Kodi is the be-all end-all.

[tthurman]

Where do you live?  We've been on the cap for about two years now, and until April of 2016 it was 300 GB per month. 

[RIP-Felix]

2 hours ago, tthurman said:

Where do you live?  We've been on the cap for about two years now, and until April of 2016 it was 300 GB per month. 

Apparently they are rolling caps out regionally. We're the next unlucky saps to be blanketed with caps (that article says 15% of Comcraps foot print is capped). We've been lucky so far, but no more I guess. Anyone know if a PS4 or XBone pulls more data each month than previous consoles all things being equal? I imagine that as streaming services and devices mature the data will also increase steadily. So does this mean comcastle will raise their cap?

[tthurman]

Well given they just recently bowed to pressure and raised it, I hope so.  One day to go, and I'm sitting on right on 1TB's door step, and I don't even have any consoles online, or use netfix!

[Adultery]

Charter had been good to us. 60 down, 6 up. No cap. I think it's $19.99 right now for new subscribers.

Comcast sounds like a nightmare. Frontier was a headache for the 10+ years while I had DSL and phone through them. I just got fed up and it was cheaper for Charter anyway. That really bumped up my speed a great deal (it used to be 30 down and 5 up until they came and laid fiber), haven't been happier.

[RIP-Felix]

I'm locked into another 2yr contract with Capcast internet + Phone, but that'll give me the time to find a better solution (cheaper, no cap/higher). I'll also get a better Idea of how close we'll come to that 1TB cap. I've thought about charter. Price looks good, but what are the fees? I'm half expecting everybody is trying to hide the real cost of the service in the fees, but maybe I'm jaded by my experience with CapCrackleStop.

EDIT:

Charter doesn't have service in my area Too bad too, because they would buy out our contract severance up to $500. I guess I'm still looking...Done looking. Aparently the only other option (other than sattelite) is CentuaryLink DSL. The price is comparable and aparently they have the same fee hiking strategy. So I guess I'll just stick to this, especially since I just bought a new modem. I guess that's the best I can do. Still, I'm saving about  $100/mo so that's not too shabby!

[hansolo77]

DSL is sucksville anyway.  If CentuaryLink DSL is charging about the same price and also have a fee hike on over usage, that's just insane.  DSL is not going to get you anywhere near cable speeds.  It would be just enough for you to read your email.  Once you start Facebooking with Youtube videos, you'll know right away why DSL is going byebye.  I'm actually surprised they still sell DSL service.  I'd be even more surprised if they sell ISDN lines.  I remember back in DIALUP days when our ISP was $50 for 56k, but the best you could get was 33.6 at 2am on a GOOD night.  I don't even know if you can get dialup anymore, and if you do, I bet there's some jerk trying to sell it at the same price as high-speed.

[RIP-Felix]

Why isn't internet, even dial-up, a free public service yet? It's an absolute necessity today for just about everything. I had to help my dad apply for a job, because he skipped the computer age. Now he has a smartphone, but has never owned a PC. There should be a free option, besides the local library. If for no other reason than to apply for work.

BTW:

I just activated my new ArrisTG862G, so no more lease fee. That's it, I can't make it any cheaper.

• Xfinity Double play (Internet = 30Mbps D, 5Mbps U + Phone) - Modem Lease fee
• PSVue + Free OTA TV instead of Cable

Hopefully that will work out well.

[RIP-Felix]

On 10/29/2016 at 7:35 PM, hansolo77 said:

Make yourself a Raspberry Pi (love these things now!) and install Kodi on it.  There are all kinds of FREE (though maybe not legal so be careful) addons for streaming TV and Movies.  Or use a Roku device, and even install Kodi on your Xbox One.  Kodi is the be-all end-all.

Which adsons do you recommend? I've been focusing more on converting my DVD collection than the addons, though I did try an NBA app that never showed any actual games. Seemed rather confusing and daunting at that time, so I shelved it. Maybe it's time to revisit with some choice apps recommended by my more kodi experienced peers.

[hansolo77]

All streaming addons are going to be "gray zone".  While it's not illegal to watch streaming, it is illegal to OWN the data, so many of the hosts that have the videos get shut down.  This makes it a little difficult some times to find what you want to watch.  The addons themselves are perfectly legal, and you're not breaking any laws by watching content provided by others, but the locations the streams exist on may or may not be completely "legit".  A good place to start is TVADDONS.AG.  I put that in caps, and the AG bit is true.  But I won't hotlink from here, just in case.  However, here are a couple of good addons to whet your appetite...

1. Exodus - This addon gives you the option of BROWSING for TV Shows and Movies AND the ability to SEARCH.  They categorize everything, so you can look for a show by Network (ABC/CBS/FOX/etc) or by Genre (Action/Mystery/SciFi/etc) or by Popular/People Currently Watching/Year/Actor, etc.  You can browse for movies the same way, by Production Company/Actors/Years..what's NEW, What People are Currently Watching, etc.  If you can't find what you want by browsing, you can SEARCH for the Title of a Movie/TV Show, or Actors.  The way this all works, the addon basically does a GOOGLE search on whatever you decide to watch, then presents you with a list of available streams and it's up to you to pick the one you want to watch from.  It's not really using Google, and the searches are limited to a list of about 20 or so hosters, but that's the basic idea of how it works.  The best part is, if you create and associate a Trakt.TV account with Exodus, you can configure it to keep track of your shows/movies you want to watch, and it'll keep track of what you've seen so don't watch the same episode over again, etc.  I love this, and my dad loves it even more (enough that he doesn't even watch stuff on my homeserver anymore, he just streams!).
2. VidTime - This addon is great for sports.  NHL Season just started, and this addon has LIVE streaming games with Home and Away commentary (pick your game, and chose whose commentary you want to hear!).  They even have a 3rd option for some games with a 3-way cam; the regular TV camera, and then a direct overhead camera of each goalie.  That's kinda neat.  If Hockey isn't your fancy, they also have College and Pro Football, MLB, College/Pro Basketball, Racing, Soccer, etc.  It's all categorized.  And if you missed a game, chances are it's available in their Replays.  Wanna see last night's World Series game?  It's on there!  And it streams just about everything at 5000k 720p HighDef.  Can't go wrong with that.  I can speak specifically for the NHL games.. they actually have a hook which connects your device through a VPN tunnel to NHL.com's website for their streams.  This is why I say not many of these addons are strictly "legit" so they sort of have a hack way of doing things (this isn't really a hack though, somebody bought a subscription to their service and provides the URL links through the VPN to the rest of the community.  So even though somebody paid for it, we're just piggybacking off his account, which NHL might not like).
3. cCloud TV - This is a Live TV streaming addon.  Nothing non-legit here.  These are streams freely available to anybody.  The only problem here is that there is no guide, and no way to record or rewind.  A lot of TV networks have their own .com webspace, and offer free streaming of whatever is on currently if you simply turned on the TV.  These sites offer this service to users who might be say, at work or out camping, etc.  It would otherwise require you to connect to their website and watch it in a browser.  All this addon does is eliminate the need for a browser.  And there are THOUSANDS of streams out there for you to choose from.  The nice thing about cCloud is the addon has user-generated lists for content.  So if a video stream is no longer available, somebody reports it and it gets removed.  If somebody finds a new one, they post it to the website and it gets added to the list.  So it's always being pruned and updated.
4. VideoDevil - This is a great addon if you're an adult (wink-wink).  Without going into too much detail, it basically works by providing access to videos from various websites.  You start at the top level, pick a website, then can browse for videos to watch.  The first videos it shows is whatever the most recent is.  Then you can go further back through the pages, or SEARCH if the website has that option, or BROWSE for certain categories, etc.  It all works as if you're sitting in front of your computer, in a browser, but just cuts the browser out and lets you watch videos from your couch or bed.  Very handy. 

There's always stuff to find.  If you really like Kodi, I also recommend getting the GameStarter addon, and a copy of IARL (Internet Archive ROM Launcher).  IARL gives you access to the Internet Archive's supply of legit-to-run games, sorted by console/system.  GameStarter takes over once you select a game, and launches the game in RetroArch.  When you're done playing, GameStarter returns you back to Kodi.  IARL will only download the ROM you chose to play (and any additionally required files) then erases the file(s) when you're done playing.  This saves you lots of space on your storage device (a small SD card in the case of the Raspberry Pi).

[RIP-Felix]

I'll check out 1-3, they sound interesting. 4's not really my thing, but to each their own. IARL sounds very interesting, but limited if it can only connect to freeware archive games. I'll check these out, thanks.

Update:

My internet has been whack since I activated the Arris TG862G. I've been working hard and have had little time to devote to the home network. So it has been down for the last few days while I relearn how not to setup a network. Fore example, unless you want to physically isolate another network on your network, keep everything in the same domain, 10.0.0.1/10.0.0.2 instead of 10.0.0.1/192.168.1.1! I ran into that one when I tried to print and couldn't find my network printer. I vaguely remember running into that one before, but network problems are like that. You forget how you did it the first time by the time you need to remember again. That wasnt it though, apparently this combo gateway has terrible wifi. I kept getting connected/disconnected. It is recommended I place it into bridge mode and connect a router for wifi, but I would rather avoid that expense, and the Crapcast leased gateway works fine. I haven't bought a router since my linksys WRT54GS (and a couple more from goodwill to play with dd-WRT), which is acting as a switch now. I suppose I could revisit that idea and get a good AC router. I'm so tired of trying to make it play nice that I reactivated the leased gateway, which is what I'm currently using, and have the Arris back in the box ready to ship (The full refund is approved and waiting return). Now I'm thinking, maybe I should give it another chance in bridged mode with a Linksys WRT54G as the Gateway. My issue before was the switch (HTPC, PS3, XBOX) lost connection when I tried that. While the wifi connected devices paired and had internet, the switch could not connect. Now I'm wondering if the switch had the same domain name or not, or was properly configured as a switch. I don't know. It works now, with the leased gateway, the way I want it to. I'm resistant to screw around with it again.

[tthurman]

I've found it's best to just let the modem do it's thing, and run own network independent of the modem.  

You don't need to worry about a domain, unless your actually running a domain controller, which would surprise me unless you have an advanced setup at home.  Your computers are most likely part of a workgroup, probably called "workgroup"

Since Arris and Motorola now are in cahoots together (I think), it will probably be very similar to mine.  I'm guessing you've already called Comcrap and gave them your modems MAC so you can authenticate (else you wouldn't be online at all with it) so with all that up and going, just let your PC/router or switch, grab a dynamic address from the modems pool. 

My modem's NAT addressing is 10.0.0.1/255.255.255.0, and so it will DHCP's  10.0.0.2 to my router (or whatever the first item attached to it is).  

If you want to know for sure what address yours is handing off, one way to check is to just plug the modem directly into your PC with your NIC set to "automatically obtain ipadress" and then from a cmd prompt run ipconfig/all to see what you address you're getting on that network interface.  

Once you determine which address it's handing off first from the dhcp pool, power cycle everything and point your router (if your using one at all) to that address in the gateway setting, which should be 10.0.0.2 if it's doing what I'm thinking it is.  From that point on just keep your network on your routers own NAT addressing, 192.168.0.1....or whatever your's may be.  

You may want to label your modem with it's address just in case you need it.  You will not be able to access the modem without plugging directly into it, i.e. if you need to see what your signal strength is, or any number of troubleshooting steps you "may" be faced with in the future.  Otherwise you'll never need to be back in it, or at least I don't.

[RIP-Felix]

So my network currently is simple:
 

Spoiler

Capcrap Internet --> Leased 3in1 Gateway ))) All wireless devices

                                                |

Linksys WRT54GS (placed in Switch mode as detailed here)

                                                |-> HTPC

                                                |-> X-Box

                                                \-> PS3

 

What I tried to do was this:
 

Spoiler

Capcrap Internet --> Arris TG862G (bridge mode) --> Linksys WRT54G      )))      All wireless devices

                                                                                            |

                                                                          Linksys WRT54GS (DHCP Disabled, WIFI enabled, firewall enabled)

                                                                                             |-> HTPC

                                                                                             |-> X-Box

                                                                                             \-> PS3

I think it's important to set the Linksys WRT54GS in router mode, completly disable the WIFI, firewall, and DHCP or it will fight the linksys gateway. I wanted to have another WIFI connection on the opposite side of the house (not repeater, a second SSID but same network). I guess it makes sense that is not possable without a repeater, requiring dd-WRT (which I have on a WRT54G for that purpose) but it always locked up and would have to be hard reset.

So, if I try again with these setting It should work, right?

Spoiler

Capcrap Internet --> Arris TG862G (bridge mode) --> Linksys WRT54G      )))      All wireless devices

                                                                                            |

                                                                          Linksys WRT54GS (placed in Switch mode as detailed here)

                                                                                             |-> HTPC

                                                                                             |-> X-Box

                                                                                             \-> PS3

 

[tthurman]

It should.

According to the Arris manual the default IP of the Arris is 192.168.0.1, so it should give 192.168.0.2 to your Linksys WRT54G, obviously making 192.168.0.1 the gateway for the WRT54G.

Here's what I was getting to above, for the WRT54G change your LAN network address, ie 192.168.100.1/24, this way you can setup your internal devices as you wish without concern for the upstream side of things.  Basically just segregating the WAN from the LAN, with the WRT54G serving as the go between.

Set your old router as a WDS (not sure how this affects the wired ports however)

I'm not sure you can pull this off with old routers, but there are a lot of good options out there, open mesh, etc....(don't overlook power injectors, makes for a much cleaner installation IMO.)

[RIP-Felix]

Well, I just set it up again. This time it worked. There is no battery backup in the Arris (now it's a modem), but I have it and the WRT54G Gateway on a timer to power off for 15minuets at 4am every day. This is equivalent of pulling the plug when things lockup, but as a preemptive measure. I don't seem to have drops anymore since I started doing this years ago. I'm hoping it doesn't wipe the bridge mode setting on the Arris modem. Hopefully that is actually handled on Capca$tles side, as I was unable to log into the gateway settings (10.0.0.1) until I activated it. Actually, I think I'll try pulling the plug now and see (I'll edit back momentarily)...

EDIT:

...And so...the leased gateway is reactivated and the Arris TG862G is for sure going back. Damn! Ok, so as I feared the reset wiped the settings, it reverted to a 3in1, started back in un-bridged mode, started broadcasting it's ssid, booted my Linksis WRT54G out of it's gateway role, disconnected my switch, and refused to re-establish contact with DNS server when I plugged back into it and re-set it up in bridge mode. It basicly refuses to be a modem by default. There is no way I'm going back to having WIFI drops, and intermittent gremlins, due to the router needing a power cycle, if the Arris is just going to revert to unabridged mode and refuse to behave when reset. This is going to be a regular occurrence if I keep it. $120/yr is better than that headache.

I'll have to find another telephony modem, preferably one that does not have any router function. Any suggestions, that are compatable with concast?

[tthurman]

Well, no way was I getting more in bed with Comcrap than I already was, so I went with a Ooma Telo, this older model is what I currently have.  Best $90 I ever spent, paid something like $40 to port our unlisted number of 13 years and haven't looked back.  Not much help there, sorry.

Motorola SB6120 - Ooma - RT-N56u

[RIP-Felix]

On 11/5/2016 at 5:07 PM, tthurman said:

Well, no way was I getting more in bed with Comcrap than I already was, so I went with a Ooma Telo, this older model is what I currently have.  Best $90 I ever spent, paid something like $40 to port our unlisted number of 13 years and haven't looked back.  Not much help there, sorry.

Motorola SB6120 - Ooma - RT-N56u

Damn, why didn't I think of that! Crap. I'm locked in now for 2 years at $70/mo when it could be $40/mo with just the 25Mbps internet option. Then I could get any one of many modems that are compatible, an ooma VOIP (If I really want a home phone, not sure there is an advantage anymore), and a good AC router. That would take care of it nicely. That's what Ill do when the time comes. Too bad I didn't think of that sooner. Thanks for the reminder though.

[Tom Speirs]

All I can say is.. I feel your pain.

PS: Definitely drop the phone service. VOIP works great these days. I recommend callcentric. I use an Obi.