Back in 2012, I discussed Time Warner Cable’s newly instituted modem rental fee. Back then the fee was $3.95 per month. I just opened my January 2015 Time Warner bill, and it has an extra page discussing a variety of price increases. Most of the increases revolve around television programming. As the good folks at Time Warner Cable put it “…the rates providers charge us for these channels continue to rise significantly. Our goal is to deliver you a great value for your cable services and we continue to negotiate with the programmers to make this possible.”
While the battles between the cable companies and programmers are well known, TWC didn’t explain the new modem fee. It is now $8 per month. There is no justification for increasing the rental rate, other than to increase TWC’s revenue. The cost of a popular modem, the Arris / Motorola SB6141, has been approximately $80 to $90 at Amazon for the past two years. It’s currently $90 at the time of this post, at Amazon or Newegg.
Buying your own modem is now a no-brainer, given that it will pay for itself in about a year.