Should it be legal for cable\internet companies to charge a "lease" fee on equipment once they've recouped their initial investment?

It’s no different than people renting furniture and other crap from Rent a Center places and paying thousands of dollars for it, after paying it off.

When I was little, we paid a monthly fee to the phone company for use of the phone. Not sure how much but a few dollars a month back in the seventies added up. Now a corded phone is about $10 total and you own it.

@jca I would say part of the difference is that you are usually not allowed to provide your own equipment whereas with rental furniture you can return pieces as you purchase ones to use in their place. I agree @flip86 it is a rip-off but whatyagonnado?

Isn’t that how all rentals work? I don’t expect a rental car to be free once the owner has netted the purchase price. Don’t we rent a theater seat, a seat on a plane, a hotel room, a taxicab? (Notice, those things all involve considerable support beyond the owners’ purchase price.) Return on investment is supposed to be a profit. I agree that some owners overcharge, but that’s aside from the principle: the owner charges the renter for access, use, and service. It’s not just about the raw cost of the equipment in isolation from all it takes to connect, integrate, operate, and maintain it (and replace it if necessary).

Who’s responsible for maintenance of your modem and connection? Would you want to take that on?

What an absurd and nonsensical idea. No.

If you provide the modem, @Jeruba, then you are responsible and yes, I would take that option if it were offered. I do not object to paying for the connection on a monthly basis and they can take care of that. The rental car: if you don’t want it, buy one yourself. Don’t want to rent a taxi, buy a car. Theater seats, you are renting a service (the show) and you have usually have a choice of options although I admit standing is not usually one of them, same with the plane and hotel room.
I think the objection here is that you are not given a choice. If you don’t rent their modem, you don’t get their cable service. And in many places, they monopolize the airwaves so it is either them or nothing, you can’t go to someone else looking for a more fair deal.

@CWOTUS I question your choice of the words “absurd” and “nonsensical” why would you say that either about the question or the thought behind it?

@jca With rental places like rent-a-center, you do end up eventually owning what you rent. Sure, you pay 2 times the amount, but at least there is an end to owing them.

How would you feel if cell phone carriers started charging a never ending “lease” fee for their cell phones and you were not able to provide your own or ever own your phone?

The internet providers I’ve dealt with over the past several years have all offered different levels of service for modems: you can provide your own, or you can lease. I’ve always bought my own, and not paid rental charges. Are you sure this isn’t an option with your provider? Perhaps it is an option, but not advertised. Or perhaps you can just choose a different provider.

@glacial I don’t think you can buy your own. I might be wrong.

When I had Verizon DSL(before the switch to Fairpoint Communications), I was only charged $65(broken down into monthly payments) for the modem they provided and then I owned it. Which is how it should be.

@flip86 “Which is how it should be.”

I’d go further, and say that we should be able to carry our own modems from town to town, and not have to buy a new one every time we switch providers. But I agree that it’s beyond greedy to ask customers to pay a perpetual rental fee for that box. This is why competition is good – if I don’t like the terms at one, I’ll simply go to the next. I find myself wondering if the reason this is not an issue where I live is that I live in Canada… we have a federal agency regulating internet service providers, which prevents collusion to some extent.

@Jeruba Maintenance for a modem is almost never required. They are pretty basic and they last for many years. The connection is something else entirely. It is separate from the modem lease fee.

So long as you can opt out of leasing and buy your own, then they have the perfect right to lease it. But leasing should not be your only option. Comcast buries their lease fee in their monthly charge, so you pay whether you lease theirs or buy your own. This is rape and pillage marketing, in my opinion. But then that’s something the big telecom arena has great experience in advancing.

They own it; they can do anything they want with it. It’s called leveraging assets and it’s one of the ways companies make profits.

I said “absurd” for the reasons that @Jeruba had already stated pretty well: Just because an asset is “paid for”, which could be a dwelling, a vehicle, a tool or a piece of furniture – or anything else that an owner might rent and a customer might want, for whatever length of time – does not mean that it has “no value”.

I object more to having no choice in internet providers than I do to having no choice but to rent a modem. The modem part is just capitalism at work. The lack of competition, isn’t.

By the time the end user would own it, more than likely the device will be obsolete, what would stop the cable company from stating this, forcing the end user to upgrade the the current modern device and charge them all over again; justifying it with new modern equipment?

It’s completely legal. It’s clever business on their part.

Is it ethical? Well, that’s another issue. But cable companies have never been accused of being ethical.

I owned my modem for cable for years, considering the low rental cost and the high initial investment it’s usually a wash when you consider that they’ll bring you a newer one basically whenever you ask.

I use Time Warner Cable and YES, you can bring your own modem. I have my own modem and wireless router. I bought my modem for $80 and it works great. They are required by the FCC to allow you to bring your own.

It’s up to you but I felt TWC rental fees are a rip off. I’ve had my modem for 2 years and it’s super fast. I don’t see myself buying another for a long time. If I have to, oh well.

Btw, I get faster speeds on my modem then what I’m paying for. I pay for a 15Mbps connection. I consistently get 25+ Mbps with my modem. My parents rent a modem and never see those speeds. I think using their own modems makes it easier for them to control your speeds.

@seekingwolf So you do have similar regulation in the US. I would suggest that @flip86 make a complaint to the FCC about his provider. That is, if he has already investigated all of the options that his provider offers.

@glacial

I have the same cable company as him so I know that they allow it. They just don’t advertise it and assume that you’ll just rent their equipment.

This actually goes for cable boxes too. You don’t need to rent a cable box. If you have a dvr like a Tivo, you can rent a cable card for it for just a few dollars. They can’t deny you this. However, you’ll get some reps who will lie to you and say that you can’t or that it’s a bad idea. Just ask to talk to someone else.

You have to call up and say you bought a modem (make sure it’s compatible) and you want to return your rented modem.