When your cable or satellite provider first came to your house or apartment, they installed equipment to get you up and running as quick as possible. However, they recoup this convenience by charging you a monthly fee for equipment rental. One of the quickest ways you can get rid of this rental fee is to go ahead and purchase your own equipment and send back the rental and the monthly fee.
Photo courtesy of Comcast
My mom has been a Comcast user for over 20 years and is currently subscribed to the “Triple Play” – Internet, Cable, and Voice. They’ve been charging her $9.00 a month to rent a device that brings the Internet, Cable, and Voice to her house. However, this device is available for outright purchase on Ebay for about $55 meaning that you could make up your money in about six months. For the Triple Play – you’ll need a Arris TG852G Docsis 3.0 Wireless Cable Modem TG852 G . I purchased one from this seller and a 5 minute phone call to Comcast had me up and running with a owned device. No more rental fees!
If you have Comcast Double Play – Internet and Cable, you can use the ARRIS / Motorola SurfBoard SB6141 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem avialable from Amazon which costs $88.00 and would have a return on investment of 10 months.
You can also purchase your own equipment for DirecTV. Search Ebay for “owned DirecTV receiver” or follow this link. Before purchasing a device, make sure you get the RID number from the seller (most post it in their pictures) and call DirecTV to confirm that it is in fact an owned receiver. I had a couple of people who stated in their auctions that their receivers were owned but DirecTV said they were in fact leased. Owned receivers can be purchased for about $100-$150 and DVRs for $200+. I had an owned DirecTV receiver for about two years before I decided to cut the cord. I turned around and resold the receiver on Ebay for about $100-$150 thereby having a $0 out of pocket.
I’ve highlighted only three options here, but there are other types of equipment for other carriers that can be purchased rather than renting. Take some time and do some research for your carrier and stop letting the providers fleece you for rental fees.
Have any of you purchased equipment outright to save rental fees?
Thanks for the tips PhatMiles and Ed!
I considered the Comcast Triple Play package and found I could go one step further at saving monthly fees. I bought the Arris router and an Obihai VoIP adaptor. By unsubscribing to Comcast’s telephone service and moving it to Google Voice I save an additional $30 per month. The VoIP adapter is only $50 so it essentially pays for itself in 2 months.
I used SB6121 for Comcast and confirm that works. Now I have an SBG6580 (modem+router) and that works awesome for me.
Excellent timing. Just 1 hr ago I was in the local Comcast office, signed up for Comcast Triple Play, and was it was suggested to just pay $8/mos b/c modem needed “is pretty expensive”. Hmm, I went with the rental but was going to research it. You’ve done the work for me. Thx.