Rental Fees

 Wow, now here is something, have quite a bit of retail equipment.  Thinking this ... 

It’s Finally Illegal for ISPs to Charge Rental Fees for Equipment You Own

By Ryan Whitwam on  Extremetech

Internet service providers (ISPs) in the US have made exploiting customers into an art form. It has long been legal for ISPs to charge you money for equipment that you’ll never use, but thankfully, that is finally changing. A new law went into effect on Sunday that prevents your ISP from making equipment rental fees mandatory. 

If you’ve set up internet service in the last few years, you’ll know that Comcast, Frontier, and others try to get you to use their modem-router combo devices. For some people, this is easier to set up and you don’t have to worry about buying an expensive modem of your own up front. However, that $10 monthly fee really adds up, and owning a modem and router will save you money over the long-term. The wireless performance of a good home router is also much better than what the ISP gives you. 

And yet, some ISPs have been charging the fee regardless of whether or not you use their hardware. Frontier has been particularly aggressive about those mandatory rental fees. Congress addressed this with the Television Viewer Protection Act of 2019 (TVPA). The law made it illegal for ISPs to charge you what amounted to a fee for using your own equipment. The law was supposed to go into effect on June 20th, 2020, but the FCC stepped in.  ...