I just found out my parents have been paying $10 a month rental from the ISP for a modem

What’s their ISP?

Do they have wifi?

Is their existing modem a modem/router combo?

varies by ISP.

If you are talking cable, yes. They can buy their own modem and save the $10/mo. fiber? no. DSL? usually yes.

EDIT: For fiber, if it is at&t the answer is no. Other fiber providers will let you use your own gateway.

Att does do that now. No contact. No equipment fees.

Yes. Spectrum/Charter does this

Are you using their equipment?

quote:

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Can they just go to Best Buy and buy a
Modem and tell the ISP to come get theirs?

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Yes.

I'm with Frontier. The fiber comes to my house outside the garage, and the installer activated an ethernet port on the ONT. My Ethernet cable runs about 30' to my Orbi Wi-Fi Mesh Router. No rental fees whatsoever.

The ISP is called century tell
They live in the sticks in Breaux Bridge Louisiana and it’s the only option they have where they live .

And I asked and was told that the router and the modem is an all in one unit

Is this something they can still get at Best Buy .

It’s just sad they paid these people over $500 in the last 5 years for something that has less then a $50 retail value

I do IT, getting rid of monthly equipment rentals is my mission. You can pay off your own equipment in about 14 months.

I recently ran into an old couple that had been paying AOL $30 monthly for eons.

My parents paid 5000 dollars to ADT for a system upgrade on a pre wired system. They bought a few glass break sensors, a new keypad and maybe a cheap camera or two. Unbelievable.