[Update 10/2/2012: If you are visiting here to explore Time Warner Cable’s new $3.95 modem rental fee, please visit this article for the latest information and reviews, should you wish to purchase your own modem to replace the one you currently rent from the cable company.]

In mid-March, Time Warner Cable added a $2.50 monthly modem rental fee for all new broadband customers, but existing customers not already subject to modem fees will be exempt from paying it.

The new equipment fee applies even in areas where cable modems have always come free with the cable company’s broadband service.  Until this month, customers in some areas including Rochester, N.Y., could not purchase their own cable modem equipment, but that restriction has now been dropped.  In areas where modems always came free with service, some customers have told Stop the Cap! the cable operator cannot provision their new modems until after April 1st.  Call your local Time Warner Cable office for exact information applying in your local area.

At $30/yr, consumers are advised it may be more affordable to purchase your own cable modem, especially if you are comfortable installing it yourself.  Cable modems are at least as reliable as wireless routers, and even easier to configure.

Time Warner Cable’s current promotion page offers six months of free modem rental to new customers, with fees starting the seventh month.  The cable operator supports a large number of different modems.  In the northeastern United States, Time Warner will provision any of these units (you can find your area’s list of approved equipment on Time Warner’s Internet Support page):

Prices range from under $50 for the DOCSIS 2 Motorola Surfboard SB5101, to north of $130 for Motorola’s DOCSIS 3 SURFboard Gateway SBG6580 on Amazon.com.

We called Time Warner customer service in Rochester for information about the modem rental vs. purchase option and learned:

• The modem rental fee only applies to DOCSIS 2.0 equipment suitable for Road Runner Lite, Standard or Turbo service (1-20Mbps);
• Road Runner Extreme (30/5Mbps) and Wideband (50/5Mbps) still includes free rental of the DOCSIS 3 cable modem and the company does not currently support customer-owned DOCSIS 3 modems in this area;
• Support options for customer-owned equipment are obviously more limited, but should your cable modem fail, you can quickly rent a replacement and pick it up at your local cable store to get back online fast;

We also learned Time Warner is running promotions in many areas pitching existing Standard and Turbo Service customers six months of Road Runner Extreme for just $10 more a month for six months. If you need 50/5Mbps Wideband service, signing up for Signature Home at $199 a month is often the best value when combining phone, Internet, and cable TV service.

Because different regions handle cable modem equipment and promotions differently, it is important to call your local office prior to ordering any equipment to verify it can be provisioned and to obtain correct information about any promotions or pricing.

As consumers continue to blow through their $30 2-3GB usage capped 4G/LTE wireless tablet plans offered by Verizon Wireless and AT&T, Public Knowledge is repeating calls for the Federal Communications Commission to launch a formal investigation into data caps.

“It’s a ridiculous situation that the carriers sell millions of these devices specifically designed to view video on one hand, while they restrict the usage of their networks for video on the other,” said Gigi B. Sohn, president and CEO of the consumer group.

Public Knowledge is specifically calling out wireless phone companies because they stand to make millions as customers rack up usage charges when using 4G-equipped tablets with the carriers’ usage-limited wireless networks.

“It is simply inexcusable that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has not even seen fit to ask wireless and landline carriers to explain why those caps are necessary, how they are set and how consumers are affected by them,” Sohn added. “If the Commission is truly interested in consumer protection, it will ask the crucial questions and come up with some answers before consumers start getting hit with ever-increasing bills just for using the devices they bought in good faith.”

Sohn

Although the majority of Apple iPads sold in North America only support Wi-Fi, 4G-equipped models have proven addictive, with some customers obliterating their usage allowances with AT&T and Verizon after just a few hours of use.

Wireless carriers largely blame online video for the heavy usage.

“Streaming video consumes the most data of all possible activities and is often the reason customers are among the top 5% of heaviest users,” AT&T notes on its website.

The Federal Communications Commission’s apparent lack of interest in investigating data caps may not be that surprising, however.

In releasing the Commission’s own proposed Net Neutrality rules in late 2010, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski made it clear he was open to new billing models that charge by how much data a user consumes.  With a green light for Internet Overcharging, carriers responded with usage limits and usage-based pricing, raising customer bills in the process.

If you are customer of Charter Cable, chances are you are paying a lot more than $60 a month for a complete package of cable television with a DVR box and 30Mbps broadband, price locked for two years.  But Charter is selling precisely that package to customers in Monticello, Minn.  Why do they get a deal you can’t have?  Because your town probably doesn’t have a community-owned broadband provider delivering competition.

Charter’s website offers new customers a six-month cable/broadband promotion for $64.98 a month, but that does not include a DVR box and delivers half the speed Charter pitches to the chosen few in Monticello.  After six months, the deal ends. A package including what Charter sells in Monticello for $60 a month costs more than twice as much elsewhere — $145 a month for customers in Rochester and Duluth.

"For the BEST prices in town, you must call your 'In-Field' representative," the flyer declares, including the name and number of a local Charter representative.

The cable operator is keeping the two-year special offer quiet as much as possible with the use of door flyers hand-delivered to potential customers. If Charter’s five million customers nationwide find out, they may wonder why they are paying dramatically more for the exact same service.

The city of Monticello already knows why.  The local community decided the incumbent providers — TDS Telecom and Charter Communications — were not giving the city the attention it deserved, so it built its own 21st century fiber to the home system to bring faster broadband to the region.  Now the incumbent commercial operators appear to be stopping at nothing to put FiberNet Monticello out of business.  Charter’s pricing takes fat profits from customers in nearby Minnesota cities and appears to cross-subsidize the heavily discounted service on offer in Monticello.  While that delivers short-term savings to customers in Monticello, other Charter customers are helping cross-subsidize those low rates on their own high cable bills.

If you are a Charter Cable customer, why can’t you have the same deal residents in Monticello are getting?  Why not call Charter at 1-888-438-2427 and ask them?

Verizon Wireless today introduced HomeFusion Broadband: a new service that provides high-speed in-home Internet access using the company’s 4G LTE wireless network.

Designed primarily to reach households with limited broadband options, HomeFusion will deliver download speeds of 5-12Mbps and upload speeds of 2-5Mbps. While installation will come free of charge, a one-time equipment charge of $199.99 applies.  Pricing is nearly identical to Verizon’s mobile broadband service:

• Up to 10GB — $60/month
• Up to 20GB — $90/ month
• Up to 30GB — $120/month
• Overlimit fee: $10/GB

Verizon's 4G LTE antenna must be mounted on an outside wall of your home to assure good reception. (Picture: The Verge)

Verizon says HomeFusion is their broadband answer for rural America.

“HomeFusion Broadband is just one of the new products and services that is made possible with our 4G LTE network,” said Tami Erwin, vice president and chief marketing officer, Verizon Wireless. “Customers want to connect more and more devices in their homes to the Internet, and HomeFusion Broadband gives them a simple, fast and effective way to bring the most advanced wireless connection from Verizon into their homes.”

A third party company, Asurion, will handle installation of Verizon’s cylinder-shaped antenna, installed on the side of a customer’s home.  The antenna is designed to pick up the best possible signal from Verizon’s growing 4G network.  The antenna transmits the signal to a company supplied router capable of connecting up to four wired and 20 wireless devices.

HomeFusion Broadband will be available beginning later this month in Birmingham, Ala., Dallas and Nashville, Tenn., with additional markets to follow.

Verizon’s product is unlikely to attract substantial interest in more populated areas where a 10GB monthly usage cap would prove unacceptable in many homes where multimedia content is a growing part of the Internet experience.  But is could compete with satellite broadband, which also has low monthly usage caps.  Verizon may also win back customers in service areas it sold to independent providers like FairPoint and Frontier Communications, which have since saddled most of their rural customers with 1-3Mbps DSL service.  But Verizon’s pricing puts rural America at a usage disadvantage because of the low monthly limits and higher price tag.

The development of HomeFusion could reduce Verizon’s investment and interest in further expanding its traditional rural broadband product — DSL.  But Verizon will have to expand its still-urban focused LTE 4G network further into the countryside for HomeFusion to serve its intended market.