Pogue’s Basics: Money - Supply your own cable modem

At this moment, you’re paying about $10 a month to rent your cable modem, the gadget that brings high-speed Internet into your house. $10 a month, forever.

For no reason! Buy your own cable modem for $100, return the one you’ve been renting, and boom: $120 a year in savings.

Before you shop for your own modem, make sure you’ve found one that works with your cable company. Do a Google search for, for example, “Comcast compatible modems.”

Once you’ve ordered the modem, call up the cable company and let them know you’ve bought your own. It’s perfectly OK and increasingly common. They’ll walk you through setting it up. They’ll give you the address of a return center for shipping back the one you’ve been renting.

And then they’ll take that $10 fee off your monthly bill!

How cool is that?

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