The average consumer loses over $150 a year renting a router from their ISP - <AUTHOR> https://www.reviews.com/utilities/internet/the-average-consumer-loses-over-150-a-year-renting-a-router-from-their-isp/ <comment><USER5> The _average_ consumer may honestly be better off getting a cable tech to come out and fix their broken router than buying their own and trying to figure it each time something goes wrong (which is arguably rare, but very problematic when you have no clue).

Obviously, for the genius technical minds that browse this site, leasing a router that is just pulling basic NAT/DNS/firewall duty is a cardinal sin.

But also consider this: If someone calls me with an internet problem and they have some combo router+modem on lease from Comcast, I can just give them a quick 5 minute troubleshoot session followed by the 800 number and wish them best of luck. It's all about your perspective. $150 a year for peace of mind that the cable co (as evil and shitty as they may be) are required to ultimately repair/replace this hardware if problematic.

At the end of the day, I'd rather not have to be on the hook for an off-handed suggestion that someone should purchase their own router/modem hardware and subsequently be expected to configure/maintain it. I expect most on this site have experienced the role of providing free tech support for friends & family. Just because I would never use a leased router or modem does NOT mean this is the correct option for everyone I know.

I do not like big cable or their business practices. I simply value my time more than the $150 annual savings an arbitrary consumer may realize, considering my role in society as a technical person who is unfortunately just 1 quick phone call away. I'd much rather Comcast spend _their_ time and money fixing everyone's internet for me. If they have to bill non-technical customers a little extra to make this possible, that's totally fine by me.

<comment><USER6> >The average consumer may honestly be better off getting a cable tech to come out and fix their broken router than buying their own and trying to figure it each time something goes wrong (which is arguably rare, but very problematic when you have no clue).

From my experience, the hardware the ISP provides goes wrong far more often than the modem/router I purchased. The combo units my local Comcast affiliate leases out are a mess of problems, and I know multiple people that have gotten fed up with support never fixing the issue and just accept the frequent problems.

I had similar problems until I bought my own modem and router. Even if you have to pay someone to fix the rare breakdowns, I'd still advocate bringing your own router/modem.

<comment><USER7> I find that if you tell the tech who's setting up your combo gateway-router that you're planning on using it with your own router, and so request that they set their gateway up in bridge mode (deactivating not only the routing, but also its wireless AP) then a lot of the flakiness goes away.

The gateway part on these little appliance-boxes is usually pretty solid (with any problems people experience usually being line or head-end problems); it's the router part that has all the shite code. (Remember, at least for cable Internet, all the gateways are sitting on a shared medium. If the gateway logic in the box _wasn 't_ solid, it'd be causing _the ISP_ problems, by interfering with other customers. By the anthropic principle, the gateways that survive to be purchased+distributed by ISPs are the ones that don't cause them such problems, and therefore the ones that have robust gateway code.)

<comment><USER6> If you are already setting up your own router, it seems like a huge waste to rent just the modem from them. Setting up your own cable modem requires little more than plugging it in, and your ISP should offer support if it's one of their approved modems.

<comment><USER8> With the current regulation regime, bringing your own modem on spectrum has meant that you give up the ability to get the highest performing tiers. This despite the fact that the modems on the open market were actually better/more capable than the spectrum only modem (aka not available publicly) they were giving people for the gigabit access. (this BTW just recently changed).

Even more fun, is that they regularly refuse to provision a modem at its full capability despite your service tier. AKA you have a modem that does X, and a tier that does X, but they will only provision it for 1/2X (and not bother to tell you that). A few years ago I fought a long protracted battle with their support/escalation/etc over a few months to get my modem qualified at the higher tiers and in the end the best excuse they gave was that it was a business decision.

AKA, making me upgrade my modem for no technical reason played into their ploy for renting me one.

<comment><USER9> What company was this? Couldn't you just fake your vendor to them somehow by spoofing your mac address?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Frontier charges you a router rental fee even if you don't physically possess the router. They'll waive the fee temporarily when you decline the router, but eventually it comes back and becomes immovable. The only way to get rid of the fee (that I've ever found) is to switch to a new account in the name of another person at the same address.

F$*# Frontier, I hope they enjoy bankruptcy!

<comment><USER11> Just send them a letter knowing about their mistake.

Then wait 6 years.

Then take them to small claims or arbitration, saying "look, I let them know about this 6 years ago and they still haven't refunded me".

You should win back all those fees easily, and after 6 years it might be enough to be worth doing.

<comment><USER12> This reminds me of that time I read about this LifeProTip: sometimes if you want to get something fixed yout should get the legal team involved instead of the support team.

The example was about some kind of elettrical switch having some wiring exposed. Letting the electric power company know about this via the usual means was unhelpful.

What was helpful was contacting the legal team via phone, let them know that the wiring was exposed and that it would have been a huuuuuuge liability if somebody got fried and after any kind of acknowledgment (even the smallest, even a simple "okay") on their side let them also know that the call was being recorded. Now the ball is in their field.

It's passive-aggressive, but (according to the story) that's what got the stuff fixed very soon.

<comment><USER12> Generally speaking, As an IT person, if somebody from the legal team comes and says "fix this issue immediately otherwise we're liable" or "shut X down immediately" then I do that. Unless somebody above me (and above my pay grade) says otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I rent the router/modem/telephony gateway modem from Comcast. I have set up probably hundreds of wifi networks for home users over the years, and so it might seem odd that I spend money monthly with my ISP (Comcast) for something I could easily replace for a couple hundred bucks or less. But I have reasons.

1) I work from home. When my internet goes down, everything grinds to a halt. When I call my ISP, I want their first words to be "we are having an outage" not "we can't help you because you're not using our supported hardware."

2) When the router inevitably dies, I can take it down and get another one without too much trouble on the same day.

3) It actually works. Nicely. Why would I want to screw that up and give myself one more thing to configure/tweak to death? No thanks. I have real work to do. Until this thing gets in my way, it stays.

<comment><USER14> >When the router inevitably dies

Is this a common occurrence for people? I literally have 0 routers/modems break on me. I upgrade them before they break, and I'm not replacing them a few years either. The router before my current router was a 802.11g router.

<comment><USER15> In general,1 modem per year dies on me. The rep considers that normal. Now these things run hot, so one year I put a timer in there so it was only powered on when I was home and not sleeping. 6 months and 4 modems later, I decided to remove the timer.

<comment><USER16> Oh yeah. If you have a device that runs hot and you power cycle it a lot you're going to stress the heck out of the connections on the board. Every time it heats up or cools down you're putting pressure on the connectors until they eventually break.

<comment><USER13> Yep. Far better to put a small cooling fan pointing at it.

<comment><USER15> I know. But to be honest, I get the modems for free, and I thought it couldn't get much worse. A small fan costs money, is potentially noisy.

Besides it turns out there is a telnet script that tunes the automatic update to once every few minutes instead of every few milliseconds in an no sleep endless loop, which frees up a ton of CPU and lets the thing cool down. Telecom provider knew but didnt't want to change their config.

In my case, I just switched ISPs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Reading this thread makes me realize it's a "normie tax". Normal people don't know how to troubleshoot network problems and require a lot of technical support (read: $$). So "rent" them a cheap router - not because they need to pay for a router - but because _it 's a proxy for increased technical support_. It's genius because technical people will opt out of the router but also not require as much tech support. It's a way to internalize the otherwise external cost of tech support.

Change my mind. :)

<comment><USER18> It's also a tax on people who know better but still value their time more than the satisfaction of using self-owned equipment.

I have a self-owned Docsis 3.0 cable modem now. The only reason I haven't paid out of pocket to upgrade is that modems with 2.5Gb NICs are imminent, but in the back of my mind is also the thought any issues I find will instantly be blamed on customer equipment.

I may just meet Comcast in the middle: rent a 2.5 Gb modem long enough to get it working then swap to self-owned. That shuts down any it must be your cable or equipment arguments and lets me progress to are you sure you've provisioned this thing properly?

<comment><USER13> > It's also a tax on people who know better but still value their time more > than the satisfaction of using self-owned equipment.

Yes. This exactly, and that's what I was trying to get at in my comment above.

<comment><USER19> For me, it just isn't about self-satisfaction. It's just not that time- consuming to buy my own modem and router, spend a few minutes setting up the router with my preferred settings, and getting on with life.

99% of the time, if I have an issue, I just do a power cycle (same as I would do with something I was renting) and the problem is solved. In the 1% of times that it's something else, at least I have the option to look into it and possibly solve it. With a rented Comcast modem/router combo I haven't a clue what I'd be able to accomplish other than driving it back to the service center and swapping for another one.

The modem and router I'm currently using are both several years old and have required minimal tinkering. Most of that was limited to the 10-15 min of initial setup and maybe a few minutes here and there over the years forwarding a port or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How about elderly landline subscribers still paying equipment lease fees for their wall-mounted rotary handsets?

[https://komonews.com/news/consumer/family-discovers- deceased...](https://komonews.com/news/consumer/family-discovers-deceased- elderly-father-had-been-paying-to-lease-his-landline-phones)

<comment><USER21> This is a sad byproduct of diminishing intergenerational housing. In years prior, the head of the house would pass off these types of responsibilities to one of their children, but now our older generation is mostly left to fend for themselves with meager help from the state.

Don't let this happen to your parents! Take on these responsibilities. They spent years cleaning poop off your rear end, it's the least you can do.

<comment><USER22> I think the specificity of "Patriarch" is what is turning people off your point (in my wife's household, it was DEFINITELY the "Matriarch", if you will, who took care of finances, arrangements, contracts, etc... the well-meaning but clueless stereotypical-teacher "Patriarch" would not have been capable), but I do think it's worth pondering.

Moving from Europe to America and then Canada, I did find a distinct cultural difference about which generation gives more to which and when. As a very broad stereotype:

\- In my neck of the European woods, parents gave a lot more (time, effort, investment, money, support) to kids; but were taken care of a lot more in their older days

\- In America, parents gave less; I mean, still love and support their kids, but you're supposed to get a job when you're 15-16, at least partially try to support your university / get a loan, perhaps even move out at 18. In turn, while there's still obviously a relationship, parents are more independent and expect to set up their own late years.

I even found examples of a mismatch - families that would grow up in Europe (so parents would give a lot of themselves to their kids), and then end up in North America (so they "reaped less rewards", i.e. were now also expected to fend for themselves, have RRSPs, setup their retirement homes and even funerals/graves, etc). Almost a version of a "lost generation".

<comment><USER23> I know you acknowledged broad strokes, so just for the sake of context with another data point, in my current neck of the woods in Europe parents tend to provide and expect even less than most Americans/Canadians. The variance within just western Europe is somewhat surprising to me based on others I've talked to.

<comment><USER22> Absolutely; I should've made my point clearer: there exists obviously a tremendous personal, but also a significant cultural variation in which generation gives how much and when.

In the cultures I've been part of, it is so pervasive and subconscious it is completely not considered or thought about, let alone explicitly discussed; and yet, in many ways, also completely relied upon. You live your life based on certain basic assumptions on who will take care of whom, when and how much.

People feel bad about discussing them and their conscious spoken words frequently don't match their actual ingrained expectations: e.g. a person _saying_ "Oh no I don't expect anything from my children", may not have actually lived their life, prepared, or emotionally accepted possibility that their children actually wouldn't. Similarly, a parent saying "Oh, I gave my all to my children", might be surprised to see some other parents' extent of "all". And so on.

Honestly, I only started even remotely pondering this once I had children, late in my life, after switching cultures a few times and marrying a partner from a different starting culture as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is not even an option in France (and some other country I think). The ISP provide you one "box" (a router) that do the whole Internet+Phone+TV package and they refuse to support anything else.

You can refuse to use their "box", but they won't change the price of the subscription, and they will not provide any help. And since they use some weird configuration and won't tell you anything about it, good luck being able to make your router work. One guy at work actually manage to use his own router with Orange, but it was a journey, and it break regularly because Orange can just decide to change one thing whenever they want.

The only ISP that is not a full on professional ISP and let you use your own router that I know of is OVH, but they are very small compared to the very big consumer ISP.

<comment><USER25> Yeah agreed, in the UK its the same. Considering you can get basic 80/20 unlimited transfer VDSL for £20/month now (including the modem), which is not much more than the ~$15/month I've seen for the modem rental alone in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I thought this was common knowledge in the industry. Much like renting telephones was a rip off back in the day. I suspect most people who rent routers do it because they don't know how to set up and manage their own and not because they are making some economic choice.

Cable Sales Guy: "Do you want to rent a router?"

Customer: "WTF is a router?"

CSG: "You need one to get internet on your computer"

Customer: "I guess I'm renting a router then"

<comment><USER27> Comcast/Xfinity broadcasts their own Wi-Fi from the routers they rent to you. That is the backbone of their mobile phone service, with Sprint towers as the fallback for out of service areas. You are essentially paying (electricity/modem) for the privilege of hosting their mobile network.

<comment><USER28> As a Comcast/Xfinity customer, I don't actually have a problem with that. I need the modem/router anyway and doubt that the extra load would introduce any congestion for me. I would want them to make sure that their usage does not count as part of the rate limiting they apply to me; but since they control the router/modem, and upstream network, I assume this is something they do.

The marginal cost to me is a minimal amount in electricity. However, their policy of doing this allows them to provide me "free" (included in the cost of my internet) WiFi basically everywhere I go. The cost savings of not needing to use my more expensive cellular data easily outweighs what I am spending on the margins to support this scheme.

The only reason I don't do this is because I use my own router (and modem); so now I just freeload off of everyone who does.

<comment><USER29> The rate limiting is done via file loaded into the router. AFAIK, it can't be adjusted dynamically as phone users come in and out of your hotspot. Maybe they give you a higher rate if you have the xfinitywifi hotspot enabled, I couldn't find any info.

I will say that the public hotspot usage doesn't count toward your data cap, at least.

<comment><USER30> The xfinity hotspot is a completely separate network from yours. It has its own IP range, and it's own cable-speed configuration.

It's as if your neighbor also had WiFi running.

<comment><USER29> I spent 15 minutes looking (which was 15 more minutes than I should have spent on something that did not affect me at all) and I was unable to find out that it had its own cable-speed config. Good to know that it's not quite as parasitic as I thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> m-ueberall The article does not take into account at all that you not only rent hardware, but pay for a service (which includes testing and deployment of firmware upgrades) which you would need to do yourself. If something does not work with your own device, you're on your own. Of course, the time you spend with upgrades needs to be factored in as well. If you use the same (ISP-provided) firmware, you can ask peers/other customers in case of problems.

Also, in Germany, Vodafone configures a separate Wifi connection for "guests" (other Vodafone customers). In return, wherever you go, you can use other devices. Depending on the coverage--which is not too shabby in my neck of the woods--this is actually not all bad. With your own device, this is not an option.

<comment><USER31> I've seen these dual AP setups, sounds like a great idea, but in practice the signal is weak and I pretty much would have to stay in one spot (potentially creeping out someone in the house lol) to use it properly. Mobile data is just much easier.

I guess it works for guests (but then why a separate AP? Just ask your friend for the password)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I still rent the router/modem from my ISP. Looking back over time and the amount paid it's certainly easy to see that it's been an unwise choice financially but if there was failures or other issues with it, it could have been a wise choice. Overall the cost is minimal and the amount of extra money I would get in my pocket is in the noise floor of my salary.

If my goal was to examine every aspect of my spending to be as thrifty as possible there are many other things that would provide a greater savings than this. Ultimately for this one the cost to convince if there are issues is just worth it. I suspect for many people it's the same thing.

<comment><USER33> Why would renting have been a wise choice in case of failures/issues? I'd MUCH rather run to an electronics store and have working internet in an hour, compared to dealing with the ISP, scheduling a truck roll, being available "between 9am and 8pm next Tuesday", and all that other bullshit.

Keep a spare unit around and you don't even have to go anywhere.

<comment><USER32> I'm not sure where you live but I don't need a truck roll to get a replacement it comes next day for equipment or I can go to the local office and get an exchanged. Additionally failure of the modem isn't the only thing to consider there's line issues etc... With the line terminating at their equipment there's no hassle of do you have compatible equipment, is it functioning properly etc... It's literally handled from them to the modem minus a small leg from the demark to the room it sits in. It's trivial to. Plug directly in to the demark and show that and errors/issues are on them and they fix it promptly with no finger pointing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I actually had this conversation with my ISP once:

Me: "Hi I was just looking at my bill and I noticed my router rental fee went from $4 to $6 a month. Why?"

"Because that's our new fee for rentals this year"

"Yes, but you didn't send me a new router. Why does my now even older router cost more than before? It doesn't give me any more value than before, and arguably gives me less value"

"Did you want us to send you a new router?"

"No, the current one works just fine. I want to know why it costs more than before"

"Because we can"

They literally said "because we can". Sadly I wasn't recording (nor could I switch ISPs).

</comment><comment><USER35> My only advice on which router to get is don't be cheap by buying the cheapest one at $ELECTRONIC_STORE.

I bought a sub-$100 cable modem + wifi router and used it for like 5 years. It was good enough for most things, but it could easily make it choke when doing big uploads (e.g. uploading a few gigabytes of pictures from smart phone, syncing Dropbox, streaming a video file to my Chromecast) via wifi. The wired connection was 10x-20x faster.

I eventually bought a nice-ish gaming wifi router and my upload speed immediately jumped to wired speeds. It turned out I just had crappy wifi on the cheapo wifi/router.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have Verizon Fios. It's generally a nice service; I pay $75/mo for near gigabit speeds (both up/down), no contract, no hidden fees. Just internet. It's usually pretty reliable—at least, more reliable than their only competitor in this area, Comcast.

But there's one problem: I have to fight them at every step over the router. They refuse to offer technical support of any kind if I'm not using their router, and it has to be the latest or second-latest generation. The current cost to buy that router outright? $300. Renting is cheaper because I'll need to switch to a new model in a year. They even give me a hard time during installation—it's not unusual for the technician to refuse to leave until they get a chance to test with an official Verizon router.

I keep a Verizon router on hand. When I need tech support—which is very rare and usually indicates a problem on their end, such as a chewed fiber line—I plug it in and call them up. I might need to do that once every 3 years; oftentimes I have to buy the latest model from them and wait for it to arrive.

Two days ago, I called about getting service in a new location. For the first time, they offered to include the router lease for free—but for how long? Would I need to start paying for it in a year? And the hassle of returning it when I don't even plan to use it? It took some convincing to get them to remove the item from the contract—"if you don't add it now, it will cost you $15/mo to add later."

<comment><USER37> I guess it may be YMMV on Verizon FIOS then. When I signed up I clicked a "I have my own router" box on the website. I've been using an old RT-AC66R with zero problems. The tech who set up the ONT was a bit confused, but rolled with it. Have never paid a dime in router fees with 2+ years on Verizon.

<comment><USER36> It varies. Sometimes they're a bit confused, sometimes they just shrug it off, sometimes they give you a really hard time--especially if they're new.

I just got a text message indicating that Verizon is going to allow me to install an ONT myself, and a tech will attempt to guide me from... outside, I guess?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Its another way for ISPs to mint $$ from you. My SO, was renting out router from the ISP. She is smart enough to figure out setting up the router. But the customer support folks are not very helpful, in setting up connection, if you dont rent from them. which makes it challenging for someone who is not from tech.

</comment><comment><USER39> I guess that is a semi accurate title. I purchased my internet modem, and my router. But I spent far more than 150 to do so, and what is to stop some new technology making my equipment obsolete or unable to achieve the highest possible bandwidth available. If you rent the cable companies equipment, its their problem to deal with and honestly 10 -12 bucks per month is kinda worth it. I bought one of Comcast's recommended modems and I get almost the 1GB speed Im promised. The mesh wifi I have is better than the comcast router, but by no means perfect. I tried the prosumer ubiquity Amplifi stuff, but it constantly dropped offline. I recently moved to linksys velop and while it is good at providing wifi coverage at high speed, and is definitely more reliable than the Amplifi it still drops periodically and requires a reboot.

<comment><USER40> > some new technology making my equipment obsolete or unable to achieve the > highest possible bandwidth available

Let me introduce you to the United States ISP cartel. A technology leap might happen once every 20 years. In the vast vast majority of this country you can't even get a 100Mbps+ connection so I'm definitely not worried about what - 1Gbps+ compatibility in the future?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> That's one of the downsides of having a fiber connection, like AT&T - <USER2> don't allow 3rd party ones.

<comment><USER42> Fiber doesn't change the story from a technical point of view, 3rd party routers work fine and even if you just go first party there is no reason it has to be rent only (the boxes aren't expensive enough to justify the fees). If they tell you different then they are flat out lying.

I proxy only 802.1x traffic to and from from the AT&T modem and spoof my external MAC as the AT&T MAC. The AT&T router is not in the data path nor can it make any other connection beyond the 802.1x traffic (I have no IP on it's port to act as a gateway). Been working fine for over a year, performance is far better than when the data was running through their router even after disabling everything I could find.

Also there is a lot of hidden config on that router, for instance when Cloudflare announced 22.214.171.124 it wasn't reachable from my AT&T connection. Coincidentally that was the same week I swapped to my own router and when I did instantly 184.108.40.206 worked. Swapped back it didn't. So somewhere in there there were IPs and config that weren't showing in the user interface. They fixed the 126.96.36.199 issue in their routers about a month later.

<comment><USER25> I think most people are referring to the modem/router combined, not just the modem. It is potentially a problem having the end customer replace the fibre ONT, as (X)GPON can be very sensitive and you could take out the whole fibre split for 32-128 customers if it starts playing up.

<comment><USER42> The ONT is a separate box and AT&T does not charge a rental fee for it so I don't think that's what's being referred to in this post about renting and routers.

That being said while on the topic yes you usually need a particular ONT for compatibility but there is no reason it would need to be a perpetual rent model or have the ISP logo on it. As for multiple connections being on a single shared line sure, that's how cable modems have operated for years without issue with consumer choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Altice / Optimum Online is the worst. I signed up for gigabit. They came 3 separate times and tried to pull a fast one on me by installing a 200 mbps modem instead of a DOCSIS 3.1 modem. On the 3rd visit, I had my own Arris SB8200 ready, and had the tech install it, and take their modem back. I've spent more than 20 hours on the phone with them and they refuse to remove the modem fee. I assume they will eventually charge me for a modem I already returned. I have the work order PDF showing their modem was taken back by the tech but since they continue to bill me for the modem every month, they will probably screw me, with an unreturned modem fee, when I finally cancel service with them. I don't think there's a company in the world that I have more scorn for.

</comment><comment><USER44> If you are on Comcast _and_ you use a lot of data _and_ you have a plan that is at least 300 Mbps, then it might be worth renting their modem so your can sign up for xFi Advantage.

xFi advantage is an add-on service that provides some extra features, but is only available if you rent their "xFi Advanced Gateway". These include some sort of extra security and some sort of WiFi assessment tool, which probably no one here would care about. But also included is unlimited data.

You can add unlimited data to any Comcast plan for $50/month, but xFi Advantage is $15-25/month (it seems to vary by location) plus ~$13/month for the gateway rental, so it is a net savings.

In my area, you have to be on at least a 300 Mbps plan to add xFi Advantage, but that may vary by location.

<comment><USER45> I suppose you could pay the "rental fee" yet just replace the modem/router with your own and consider the fee your "unlimited plan"?

<comment><USER46> Yes, you don't have to use the modem you rent from them, but in my case the rental modem is more advanced than my old SB8200 because of mid-split support and a 2.5G Ethernet port.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> One of the top reasons to never rent, take delivery of, or use the ISP's router is that you have to return it before canceling the contract.

<comment><USER48> ISPs have physical offices.

Comcast put me through hoops cancelling in one city, so I physically returned the router + sent in a certified letter stating I wish to cancel.

If needed I could have then disputed the charge with my CC company but they took the hint and stopped billing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I pay $8/month to rent mine, and it's worth it. It's a dual modem/router & works fine. Considering a nighthawk or similar would end up being the equivalent of ~24 months or so of renting the unit I have it makes sense to rent.

Now, I will say I do this intentionally because I'm renting apartments and not owning a home. Once I own a place, I'd do a setup with many more Ethernet drops and all of that but since I can't do that (I could, but tearing it down is a real pain in the ass) renting it makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER50> For the cable modem/bridge, here's the info for Comcast:

[https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/list-of-approved- ca...](https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/list-of-approved-cable-modems)

[http://mydeviceinfo.xfinity.com/](http://mydeviceinfo.xfinity.com/)

I've picked up a used, supported DOCSIS 3.0 one for $20 before.

At those prices, you might want to have a cold spare, in case the main one gets zapped or dies from overheating. (I think you'll probably need to call your cable company when you swap in the spare.)

For the router and WiFi, you might want to use a model well-supported by OpenWrt:

[https://openwrt.org/](https://openwrt.org/)

When picking the router, besides one with good features like WiFi standards that are advertised by the hardware vendor, you might also look at the wiki pages for less-advertised specs, like flash space, RAM, and USB ports. OpenWrt has a large catalog of open source add-on software, and might prompt you to care very much about the less-advertised specs.

</comment><comment><USER51> I've never had an ISP offer to sell or rent me a router, Cox did rent me a Modem before, which when I got my first apartment at 21 was more of a compromise due to limited funds than an actual choice as a broke college kid. I absolutely needed internet, but with only a $100 food budget for the month (in the best of times) I had to make every penny count and $10 could be like 5 meals if I planned it right.

When I finally got a paying gig in town I was resolved to undercut Cox and buy a better used one on Ebay so I saved where I could, I even cashed in my used plastic water bottles at one point. So when I had enough saved up I called 2 days before my next bill and I told them they could come pick up their modem as I no longer had any use for it.

They sent me a pre-paid box a week later after they tried to haggle me about keeping it for a 'loyalty customer' price.

Granted, I had to steal internet from the downstairs neighbors until the other one showed up but it still felt good finally putting COX on the receiving end of a losing deal. It was obsolete and an unreliable device (it would often shut off) they'd have to destroy, and they paid SH for the privilege.

I might still have that modem in a box somewhere, too.

<comment><USER52> Both Comcast and RCN have offered a modem/router box with their service. My roommate took them up on it. I don't pay for the bill and so I don't really care. Both the boxes were decent enough at their jobs, the RCN one seems to be struggling with wifi in 2.4ghz range currently likely because I have sixteen other networks within range.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> When I first cut the cord I immediately returned the DVR and cable modem, and replaced them with firetv and my own cable modem, after a year I had saved the cost of those items. I canceled the TV service and instead got Hulu and Netflix for a fifth the cost. In the end I think I was saving $1200/yr. then they started raising my bill by $3-5 every month or two so it's gone from a low of around $35 to around $75 now. I'm pretty sure they are not supposed to do that but NY Department of Consumer Affairs basically finds any excuse they can to not investigate complaints, I gave up after trying to complain for a couple months.

Very interesting is that when I first started streaming 4K video the cable company seemed to suspect I had started running a business or something and they would bounce my connection and change my IP 2-3 times a day. They gave up after six weeks or so and my address has been stable since.

</comment><comment><USER54> Funny story:

5 years ago I bought my own motorola cable modem and had Comcast come out and install it in my new house.

Next month, i saw modem rental on my bill.

I call them. They insist that actually they own this equipment and are leasing it to me.

I mean, what do you even say to this?

I sent a copy of the receipt from Amazon and told them I would sue them in small claims court if they kept charging me for it. It worked, but it still blows my mind.

</comment><comment><USER55> Comcast rental used to be more than 10 bucks then it was slashed to 3 bucks to stop people figuring it was cheaper to buy their own. The price has crept back up.

At the turn of the century, you used to call about an internet outage and they'd give you a clueless response. Instead, you'd say your cable TV picture was fuzzy and they'd send a tech out next day. That was how you'd get it fixed 20 years ago.

The most recent time I called Comcast about a cable outage they insisted they couldn't do anything as it was my own modem. More serious was the fact it was an unapproved modem so they insisted they would need to FedEx a new modem first (costing $$$) and then they could fix my line. Fortunately it was an area outage so I didn't take them up on their kind offer.

The moral of that story is before calling when you own your own modem for an outage, check if it's an area outage first.

</comment><comment><USER56> Just had a nightmare experience with Spectrum/ Charter switching to using my own equipment. It was surreal and very similar to that South Park episode about cable companies.

Because I was on a grandfathered package, he gleefully told me it was actually going to cost me $17/ mo MORE to remove the modem rental and phone service.

I had to threaten to call our congresswomen to get them to magically find a package that reduced the rate in step to the decrease in service.

The funny part was when at the end of waiting on hold for an hour, after cancelling the service, they provisioned the modem, they gave me config file for 1Mbps internet.

The service rep when I called back (after waiting another half hour on hold) was quite pleasant about fixing it and I'm humming along at 500 Mbps now, but man I can't wait to spite quit them when StarLink is up and running. Can't imagine that 1Mbps provisioning was exactly a mistake

</comment><comment><USER57> You also lose $ by not growing your own food, by not servicing your own car, by paying an index fund manager, etc etc

<comment><USER58> Buying a modem and plugging it in is incredibly - mindbogglingly easy. You plug the modem into a wall and plug the ethernet cable into the router. Thats it. Period. It saves you $150 a year. Everyone I know that didn't do it was too lazy, or completely fiscally illiterate. It takes no time (its actually faster than getting someone to come out to install the box which usually that has to be set up weeks in advance). There is no excuse for not doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Considering that a DOCSIS 3.1 modem costs right about $150 right now, this actually doesn't seem like such a bad deal. Add a decent-quality consumer router and you can be looking at around two years to break even, which is right about there with replacement cycle on some of these things.

</comment><comment><USER60> Here's something to think about: how many people renting their routers can actually afford the initial $100 plus that buying your own router costs? Given just how little people have in savings (what is it, like the average american can't afford an emergency over $500?) it's likely the $5 or $10 a month charge on your bill is more manageable at the start than shopping and spending the money on the router.

Of course, the added charge is more than the upfront cost of the router and we should be making it easier and cheaper for people to access the internet, but this is more me musing about the upfront cost.

And this doesn't even get into companies just charging anyway or not even allowing third party routers on their network.

<comment><USER61> I don't think there's a legal interest rate that's as bad as paying $150 annually to rent a $100 router, that's basically 150% interest.

So regardless how bad your credit rating and interest rate are, it's overwhelmingly worth putting a router onto your credit card.

<comment><USER60> Oh I absolutely don't disagree with that at all. I just think it's an interesting aspect to it, _especially_ for me, having recently been inundated with ads about "Xfinity's awesome router that you need for ~MAXIMUM GAMING~", which directs people to the idea that they _need_ the "official" router from their ISP to get the most of their service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> In France, a router is rented about 3€ ($4) per month by the majors ISPs (the renting cost is not shown idependently by two of the three major ISPs. Orange explicitly shows its renting cost on bills.

That's cheap for a broadband router-modem-WiFi AC-2 channel voice box. They are all customized broadcom boards.

Using another router is technically very hard for anything other than the IP data : Orange for example uses ATM QoS with specific DHCP WAN string initialization options, specific SIP channel setup and even worse for IPTV VLAN. The SIP channel sold is almost impossible to use with a third party SIP client device.

Let's add they won't lift a finger in case of an issue if you use your own router.

To sum it up : not worth the trouble !

</comment><comment><USER63> Being the tech-savvy person I am, I opted to buy my own router using Verizon FiOS. Now because I use my own router, I cannot get Live Cable Listings. That feature doesn't work if you don't opt-in and get the ISP's router.

<comment><USER64> This is literally what made me cut the cord and realize I didn't need cable and the 300 channels of garbage to begin with. The basic package I had included ESPN which I don't watch, but did not include BBC World or cspan. CSPAN!!!!

I use an OTA antenna hooked up to my plex server for dvr and just pay for internet now. Much better experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I seem to return my cable modems, in NV & CA, about every 14-18 months. I walk in, ask for a new one, give them the (busted) old one.

Not losing sleep over this.

Feels akin to the "control your finances, stop buying coffee at coffee shops!" kind of content.

</comment><comment><USER66> While we're on this topic:

Anyone have recommendations for a decent (secure) 5G router to by, in May 2020? That is, to get (decent-ish) wifi service from the air (and fully without cable).

Ditto for any VPN providers that seem good to work with.

</comment><comment><USER67> I recently switched to Spectrum and wanted to use my old cable modem (purchased back when I had time Warner before the merger), but the installation technician told me that they no longer do rental fees for a modem, only a router! I actually didn't believe it so I used my old modem anyways but he was correct when I got around to checking!

Spectrum does charge a rental fee for a WiFi router, which seems ok to me but I do wish there was an option to just buy it directly from them.

</comment><comment><USER68> I'm currently renting one for $5/month. The technician who setup my internet told me that I'd need to talk to the main company about returning that since he was just a contractor. I tried their support chat one time, and they said I'd need to call instead. Instead I decided to keep it for the time being and use it as an AP in my network instead of as the router. Once I buy a matching set of APs I'll probably try to return it again.

</comment><comment><USER69> Home routers are simple when they work and could be go terribly wrong when they don't.

The issue is: a lot of ISP-provided routers are total trash that are buggy and reset themselves sometimes. So on the one hand, you get better support, but on the other hand, you may be getting a worse product. This may still be a better trade-off for most people.

I wish ISP's would partner with eero or some other router company that actually make good quality fast routers.

</comment><comment><USER70> I have Comcast at home, and they flat out require me to rent a modem from them in order to receive static IPs. I have their modem set up in bridge mode and a BSD router behind it, but would really love the option of sourcing my own modem.

At least the tech who came out to do the install was kind enough to give me a rackmount modem! I hadn't seen many before, but asked for one just in case they could provide it.

</comment><comment><USER71> Living in the UK, most ISPs will give you with a router if you sign a contract of a year or more. They are are usually branded $ISP-hub but really just generic ADSL or fiber modem/routers with a colorful casing (and in some cases just a sticker).

Having moving several times and switching ISPs I now have one spare fiber modem/router and 2 spare ADSL modem/routers, plus all sorts of cables :)

</comment><comment><USER72> I had been using my own adsl modem up until the point it completely stopped working. I decided to rent a modem from the company after that. And I was surprised how stable to connection can be with the modem provided by telecom.

I think that if somebody is renting you a wire it has some sense to rent terminators as well. In this case the company can tweak entire infrastructure for their customers.

</comment><comment><USER73> This seems like mostly a problem in the US? I live in Spain and have Movistar as my ISP. I only pay for the service(600/600) and they provided me with an ONT and a router free of charge. Granted, the router is absolute garbage(WiFi is 802.11g, and I received it in 2020) but it was free. I use my own router, so doesn't matter for me anyway.

</comment><comment><USER74> Ok, but for the "average" person, if there's an issue and they call Comcast to come out, if it is _your_ router that is the problem, they'll charge you for the visit. That in itself isn't the issue, but, Comcast being Comcast, you need to sometimes be savvy because they _will_ try and pull stuff.

</comment><comment><USER75> At least in the past I was able to buy a modem on Ebay (used) for $40. I returned the one that came with the package. When I moved, Comcast wanted to bill me for a lost modem. Get a receipt when you return the modem. Take a picture and store it on OneDrive/DropBox in a folder called "Comcast Sucks"

</comment><comment><USER76> jeez, that's how much I pay in Europe for like 7 months of 150Mb internet including renting router

also the rental fee is like 2-3$ per month, I don't think I could buy similar router for 36$ and even for 72$ if I have decided to change ISP would be much more than retail price

I don't think the problem you have is the rental fee.

</comment><comment><USER77> Of course, if it wasn't a profitable business, they would not be doing it.

Given such devices having 'backdoors' directly connecting to ISPs' internal systems (looking at you; TR069)

Some vendors also customizing firmware to not to allow customers change DNS, so they can hijack whatever they want into your pages.

</comment><comment><USER78> \+ a set top box too. The combined amount is probably more than most European countries pay for their whole bill.

</comment><comment><USER79> Is this particular to Comcast? In 20+ years of having home internet service, I've never rented (or purchased a modem/router). In every instance they have been provided to me for free. I've even been sent new updated ones on a number of occasions without cost.

<comment><USER80> I recently got AT&T Fiber, and I was forced to pay an extra $10/month for their modem/router.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Given a choice of renting a router from Centurylink for $10/month and purchasing it for roughly $100, I purchased it a couple years ago. It already paid off for itself, but an interesting thing happened in December:

I received a phone call from CenturyLink saying that I'm eligible for free upgrade from 100Mbps to 1Gbps. Surprised with their benevolence, I double checked the agent to verify that this is not a scam. They ran some checks and determined that I will need to replace the router with a newer model to handle faster speeds. I said that I purchased the router from CenturyLink, and I'm ok swapping it for a newer model, as long as there are no extra fees, and that I will own (and not rent) the new model. They agreed to this. I got the new modem in mail, swapped it, got the gigabit speed and sent the original one back. Next month I saw a $10 modem rental charge. I called them, they argued, I argued back, they said that they'll need my permission to transcribe the earlier conversation (that's strange, because they always play the message that a conversation will be recorded). A few days later they called back saying that they transcribed the call, found out that they agreed to not renting the modem, apologized and gave me a refund.

I still don't fully understand why they offered me higher speed without paying more. I had no recording of the phone call and they had the upper hand, but they were fair in resolution. Overall, I had a very good run with Centurylink despite hearing only horror stories about American ISPs.

TLDR: Be very explicit on the call when someone offers to upgrade the modem that you own.

</comment><comment><USER82> On the one hand its super convenient to have the ISP router. They can reboot it remotely and troubleshoot. On the other hand its fully locked down, I cant even change DNS. I don't pay for renting the router, but if it was an unreasonable amount I would move.

</comment><comment><USER83> Lol this is exactly the reason I bought a surfboard the first month I moved in, and it's already paid for itself (and it's very easy to configure - <USER3> phone call to their support, read 'em a barcode, and you're ready to go).

</comment><comment><USER84> I happily pay $150 a year to rent my router. I want nothing less than to ever think about a router. Something goes wrong the cable company deals with it. I configure nothing, I troubleshoot nothing. I love it and it's a bargain.

</comment><comment><USER85> The "Average Consumer" is problematic as a concept as different demographics and households have vastly different needs.

tl;dr: If you're comfortable having a worse router for multiple years and missing out on new technology, yes, you can save a few bucks.

I'm a tech professional (not IT), but fairly comfortable, did a considerable amount of research to try to replace Comcasts router with a $90 model -- the range didn't cover the house, couldn't handle as many devices and was more flakey.

The routers they use are often $200-300 in range. In addition, they are often setup with defaults that make sense. In addition, they can support and troubleshoot them.

There are many specifics that go into choosing a router -- and it can be really complicated to figure out what makes sense to you.

In addition -- the technology changes ever year or two -- while renting, it's easy to swap out for the latest model, otherwise you have to dish out for the newest router, which may have it's own flaws.

</comment><comment><USER86> I bought a cable modem & never rented but then had my cable company try to collect money for not returning "their" router... It's like $20 deposit, but I get nasty-grams every once in a while.

</comment><comment><USER87> The average consumer spends over $150 a year to not think about their router.

Don't get me wrong, I hate on the big ISPs as much as the next guy, but this is pretty far down the list of their worst behavior.

</comment><comment><USER88> AT&T forces usage of their modem for fiber service - $10/month

</comment><comment><USER89> I'm currently using Comcast and brought my own router _and_ modem. I was able to bring my own router for Verizon FiOS as well.

I'm wondering if most commentors here are edge cases.

<comment><USER90> I switched to my own router and modem last year with Comcast, and it was shockingly easy to get the old router returned and the fee removed on monthly bills going forward. I haven't seen it come back since. I was previously paying $7/month for it.

I was able to go drop off the old equipment I was renting at one of those physical Comcast support centers, though. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> I got tired of the Comcast charge and bought a decent cable router off Amazon.

I rarely have had any problems over the past 4 years since I have made the switch.

</comment><comment><USER92> My grandmother used to pay $3.99 (iirc) a month to the ISP for a "protection plan" on the cable wire underneath her house.

</comment><comment><USER93> My 86-year-old mom is better off renting the equipment and having the ISP come over and fix it when something gets screwed up.

</comment><comment><USER94> Can't wait until we just get internet from the air and this chokehold by local cable companies goes away

</comment><comment><USER48> What is the value of the time I save when my internet acts up and my ISP blames the router though? :)

</comment><comment><USER95> this doesn't surprise me at all, and for a very simple reason: this being a zero-sum game, it's inevitable that consumers lose money on this proposition because otherwise it wouldn't be profitable for them and they wouldn't do it.

<comment><USER96> It's not a zero-sum game. The consumer benefits by not having to spend their time doing research and configuring routers they buy themselves.

If there is sufficient margin in installing and configuring routers for individual consumers, then why are there not competing businesses which do specifically this? Have you not identified a market gap?

Perhaps the margins are actually quite low, and it's not really a business, but just an extra revenue stream for an existing business model - <USER4> the internet connection.

Most consumers are happy to pay the money simply because they want convenience, and also, because they're getting "credit," by paying off the router in instalments rather than a lump sum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Tangential question: could you recommend a good not-too-expensive wireless router?

</comment><comment><USER98> Well all residential isps ive dealt with at home give u no choice.. U have to use their router.

<comment><USER14> AFAIK the FCC requires that ISPs allow customers to use their own modems. random source I found: [https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/201...](https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2016/db0510/DA-16-512A1.pdf)

<comment><USER98> ok, but thats only relevant in the US then.

<comment><USER14> This site is pretty US-centric. Also, I'd imagine that Canada/EU would have similar rules, given how they're generally more pro-consumer than the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> The average modem+router costs about $150, maybe more for a good one. To keep up with technology, you need to buy a new one every 1-2 years (DOCSIS, Wifi, etc). If you aren't having your ISP swap you to their newest hardware, you are missing out. Comcast's latest XB6/XB7 gateways are actually pretty darn good.

<comment><USER100> Where are you getting 1-2 years from? Even if you are trying to stay on the bleeding edge it would be about once every five years, and with the lower speed packages that most people are actually paying for, even 10 year old equipment would be fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> The average consumer has gotten dumber in regards to tech over the last 40 years. People have treated computers like appliances. When I meet a 70 year old that can't email, it's not 1995, they were 50 in the year 2000. People's heads are in the sand and want tv apps. Good they can pay the price for thier stupidity.

Sorry for the rant but, seriously?

<comment><USER102> I don't agree at all.

Profiting from people who can afford stupid only encourages stupid. Then we end up with stupid being promoted as what people want because it's profitable.

<comment><USER103> > Profiting from people who can afford stupid only encourages stupid.

How? It would seem like a disincentive to being "stupid" (naive is a better word for it).

<comment><USER104> How people live isn't entirely their own decision -- it's also determined by the world they're a part of. We've given profit-seeking systems a lot of control over how this world is structured.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Peacock – Late Night Coding FTW - <AUTHOR> https://johnpapa.net/peacock-late-night-coding-ftw/ <comment><AUTHOR> TLDR;

A VS Code extension for those of us that have multiple windows open, and want to visually differentiate them by subtly changing colours.</comment>


TweetSum - calculate the Douche-Bag Index of your followers on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://tweetsum.com/

<comment><USER2> Hmm, now I wonder if we can calculate the Douche-Bag rating of the guy narrating the video - honestly, I just wouldn't trust putting my details into that site after having watched the video.

I know they say "we don't store your info", but I'm not 100% convinced.

Anyway, this might be a worthwhile if it was part of a twitter client itself, like an adobe air app.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I think that video is an example of (good intended ?) sarcasm gone wrong. I'm sure the creator wanted to convey a feeling of "fun-ness", but instead I feel that it just diminishes the validity of his app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I tried this, and the results were useless. I do have a queue of people that want to follow me that I haven't followed back yet, and it seems like this tool would help. However, obvious spammers like "ebaytochina" had scores of 100%, where as members of my family were near the bottom of the list. I don't understand what the DBI is (other than a database module for Perl), so I don't see how it can help me.

Anyway, it's kind of sad that people think that this is their path to "fuck you" money.

<comment><AUTHOR> The higher the rating, the more of a douchebag they are. Plus, from what I know about the project it's not something they're trying to make money on -- they're having fun.

There's an article about the creators on Seattle 2.0 - <http://www.seattle20.com/blog/Startup-Profile-TweetSum.aspx>

<comment><USER2>
      Plus, from what I know about the project it's not something they're trying to make money on

I disagree after having read the terms of use and privacy policy.

Here are some gems.

\- _In addition, from time to time we may collect personal information that you provide in connection with participation in surveys, sweepstakes, contests, games, promotional offers, and other activities on the Site._

\- _we also will collect your credit card and billing information._

\- _contact you about our or a third party's services, products, activities, special events or offers_

Given the tone of what they plan to do with your information once they've collected it, this isn't a site I'd sign up for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish Twitter would put in the new follower mail notification the amount of followers vs. following; 10 to 100 someone worth following, while 1000 to 10 not worth following back as they are most likely a spammer!

</comment><comment><USER6> Oh great, another pointless Twitter application that needs my password.

</comment><comment><USER7> not sure if the guy(s) who wrote this is/are here, but I don't think this should need my pass.

You can fetch someone's followers without the pass. (I've done it.)

In Ruby, it would be (from a working Sinatra app that I really need to get deployed):

        Twitter::Base.new('username', 'password').all_followers_for(params[:user1])

<comment><USER7> oh, I guess they need it for following/unfollowing. but there should be a passwordless version that just shows everyone's douchebag index</comment></comment>


Fat arrows for JavaScript – aka lambda expressions like in C# - <AUTHOR> http://bdadam.com/blog/fat-arrows-for-javascript.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you like to see this feature also in Chrome? I'm really a fan of this syntax, because it's so easy to read and understand what is really happening.</comment>


Is Using Hash Tables a Good Thing? - <AUTHOR> http://coliveira.net/2008/11/is-using-hash-tables-a-good-thing/

<comment><USER2> This post focuses almost exclusively on speed of the resulting program. That's a mistake. Using hash tables is a good thing because they are usually simpler than an ad hoc multi-level structure made just of pointers and arrays.</comment>


From today, anyone can get one free Copyright certificate - <AUTHOR>

From today, anyone can get one free certificate of ownership of intellectual property. This certificate will also be stored forever at the directory of intellectual property Copyrightys.com <comment><USER2> If you need proof of copyright interest (in order to realize damages in case of infringement), it's already possible to just file with the Library of Congress, and this is how professionals do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Free certificate after 10 bucks to paypal?</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any quants successfully using RNNs for time series? - <AUTHOR> I'm working on a small research project about beta estimation/prediction. I have the presumption that some of the published results about neural networks' use in financial time series prediction is a bit overhyped. I was wondering if someone is using them successfully in practice and if so are there any useful tips?<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> I have not tried RNN and use ARMA models. Regarding beta estimation, I recommend the recent paper "Simpler Better Market Betas" by Ivo Welch [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3371240](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3371240) .

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not aware of production RNN use at quant firms. But then if anyone has gotten them to actually work, then it is probably something the firm keeps secret. I for one wouldn't be surprised if RenTec is using them.</comment>


Google's giant 4K digital whiteboard, Jamboard, will cost $4,999 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/9/14863862/google-jamboard-4k-digital-whiteboard-price-release-date-announced <comment><USER2> Has anyone ever found a good use case for a digital whiteboard? They've existed for a decade or two and I've been in several organizations where we had them -- but they were usually in the corner or behind a 'dumb' whiteboard that we used instead.

<comment><USER3> Smartboards are better than whiteboards anytime where direct interactive manipulation and rearranging without rewriting adds value to the presentation of the content. Education is the obvious example.

My experience is from using them in a number of German language courses at the Goethe Institut over the past seven years. They nicely replaced the functionality of whiteboards, overhead projectors, normal projectors, epidiascopes, and their modern equivalent document cameras.

\- They are more efficient for changing and rearranging content compared to erasing and rewriting.

\- Prepared content can be revealed incrementally in the same way overhead projectors are commonly used but the teacher is located and can stay at the screen. They can use their entire body to direct attention to the relevant portion of the content rather than the projected pen's shadow, giant fat fingers, mouse pointer, or a dancing laser point. I have no references but I suspect that attention direction in education is hugely important.

\- Space savings because of low to zero time or effort to go from whiteboard functionality to it being simply another projected screen. Perhaps not important with institutions with large classrooms.

The Goethe smart boards are the overhead short throw projector type with a few pens and an eraser paired with a low spec, but good enough, Fujitsu desktop. The classrooms that I used are small but just about sufficient for class sizes of 10-15 people. The rooms usually have one or two other whiteboards which were usually used as single use per class extra space. E.g. top vocab to learn from that lesson etc. Here's an example classroom [0]

Every teacher and student struggled to some degree using the device because it is hard to know if you drawing or selecting something. Only drawing with pens and only selecting with hands helped a lot. Teachers who only used one or other tended to make more mistakes. The notebook and drawing overly software are good enough but a bit janky and inconsistent.

Only one teacher in my experience didn't really understand computers enough to not waste time searching for simple functionality. Most had little interest but were able to use basic drawing and selection functions. They were the most efficient users. A couple teachers might be described as power users and were delighted by the system. Unfortunately the more advanced features take more time to use. The inefficiency of the extra steps wasted about as much time as the computer-inept teacher overall.

I liked the content of the printed textbooks that we used. The digital versions were styled almost identically as a 2-up pages with inline links to the multimedia content. Unfortunately it had different page numbering and a very awkward zoom function to make the text legible which apparently had obviously never been tested other than with a mouse. Both problems disrupted the class briefly but regularly. The wasted time was still less than finding the right CD track or DVD menu for similar multimedia content let alone having the teacher leave the room to collect a CD player/computer/tv/whatever.

The 55 inch screen is a little smaller than the 4:3 projected displays that I used seven years ago. I believe both are too small. The larger area of a bigger screens used today, and presumably the 84 inch version, noticeably increases the amount of time that content stays on the screen before a new page or scrolling is required. When the screen is full the mind map is done! More space means more content.

The smartboard's brightness, contrast, resolution, and touch and pen tracking are all average to poor but they are all good enough that it doesn't matter. A fancy screen won't fix the UX problems.

Digital whiteboards might be sexed up by describing them as a fixed multi-user augmented reality overlay with direct tactile manipulation and no need for glasses. I think when we have good UX for augmented reality those capabilities will make the advantages of digital whiteboards obvious.

[0] [https://www.goethe.de/resources/files/jpg457/3-Unterricht_Co...](https://www.goethe.de/resources/files/jpg457/3-Unterricht_Copyright_Goethe- Institut1.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm in the position to make my company buy it. I really would like to. But Google's horrible history of dropping products shortly after release makes me not even remotely consider this.

</comment><comment><USER5> How do you suppose the customer service will be?

</comment><comment><USER6> I want one but not sure why.

<comment><USER7> It's a giant 4k touchscreen. What's not to want? ;-P</comment></comment>


Facebook's phone as obvious as nose on your face - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2010/09/19/facebooksPhoneIsAsObviousA.html <comment><USER2> He couldn't be more dead wrong about the mom-usability factor of the iPhone.

I know this because _my_ mom bought one a couple years ago and was able to set up her email and start emailing me photos from the camera before I even knew she had it. This is someone who can't set up her desktop email client without calling me for help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Guess this stuff comes more easily to your mom than it does to mine. Trust me, I was there -- she's learning how to use it very slowly, over a period of many months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd be very interested in just how much social plays into the mobile experience. For example, although Facebook is one of my most frequented apps, I also to check news, play casual games, view website statistics, manage email, listen to music, check my finances, track my weight, calculate tips, read ebooks, watch Youtube and Netflix, and manage to-dos.

Is it entirely certain that designing the operating system among sharing photos and posting status message updates will be optimal across all mobile functions? Not sure that it's the case.

</comment><comment><USER4> His links from "everyone" and "knew" are both from today... so how would everyone know this already?

That said, if they can penetrate the high school crowd, this might be a success. I don't think his mom is really the target market, but I could be wrong.

<comment><USER5> I thought I read a while back that FB's biggest growth area is middle aged women: [http://www.switched.com/2009/04/14/middle-aged-women- flockin...](http://www.switched.com/2009/04/14/middle-aged-women-flocking-to- facebook-and-getting-addicted/)

<comment><USER4> Yes, but would a facebook phone really appeal to them? Also, if a market is saturated (i.e. high school kids), it can't grow by definition, so growth can be a misleading statistic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The mobile versions of FB etc. won't cut it if the next 5-10 years are going to be all about mobile. And thus the need for a true mobile-only social app or "social OS" pending already existing vertical data.

</comment><comment><USER7> I bet not many saw that coming though. Is this really Dave Winer, the guy behind RSS?? What do you think their selling point would be? "The socially connected phone" And why would people want that??

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it really is me. Thanks for asking! :-)</comment></comment>


Why you should not buy Apple computer products - <AUTHOR> http://stallman.org/apple.html <comment><USER2> RMS is a smart man, but I can never seem to take him seriously. He has the tact of a sixteen year old who's looking to start a flame war. Between his iThings, his Micro$ofts, iBads, and "quotes" all over, I half expect him to end his statements in lol. The cause that he's fighting for is good, but the way he fights just doesn't attract anyone to his side.

<comment><USER3> > I half expect him to end his statements in lol.

There have been a lot of changes to language on the Internet in Stallman's time. Stuff that was cool just a year ago marks you as an undesirable now. "Micro$oft" used to be perfectly socially acceptable on USENET. I wonder who they paid to get that changed?

<comment><USER4> _"Micro$oft" used to be perfectly socially acceptable on USENET. I wonder who they paid to get that changed?_

The level of discourse was raised, MS didn't pay anyone.

<comment><USER3> > The level of discourse was raised

Uh, I would beg to differ. It's stayed about the same, but there's more a lot more hate motivating everything. Back in 1989, there was still such a thing as civil discourse. Now disingenuously veiled hate speech is the norm, with the noise being louder the more important the issue is to society.

If discourse is the lifeblood of our body politic, our body politic is an undead zombie.

Sorry. It's just depressing out there.

(It used to be that Micro$oft was just a joke. It wasn't until well after HN that it somehow became "offensive.")

<comment><USER5> yes, it was just a joke (depending on your definition of "joke"). but it was never funny. people who still say that are obviously stuck in the past -- in terms of their maturity, argumentative skills, critical thinking abilities, senses of humor, and general cultural awareness.

people who say "Micro$oft" are idiots. the existence of people who are humorless and lame enough to say it in the year 2013 -- that's what's offensive. it's not that people give a shit about microsoft or whatever

<comment><USER3> _> people who say "Micro$oft" are idiots. the existence of people who are humorless and lame enough to say it in the year 2013 -- that's what's offensive. it's not that people give a shit about microsoft or whatever_

This sentence contradicts itself through its sheer uninspired humorlessness.

<comment><USER6> Only the above sentence was never meant to be humorous to begin with.

Then again, you find "Micro$oft" funny, so what do you know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In case people haven't noticed - from the footer: "Copyright (c) 2012 Richard Stallman"

This isn't new writing, and the title should really have "(2012)" in it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think that Stallman is always interesting to listen to. So is ESR.

But he says: "Apple left a security hole in iTunes unfixed for 3 years after being informed about the problem. During that time, governments used that security hole to invade people's computers."

This is really take out of context rather than concrete proof. The original article is pretty vague even.

<comment><USER3> Government collusion is really immaterial to this just being bad.

<comment><USER8> what "just being bad"?

Stallman's rant or the lack of patching a hole for 3 years by Apple?

<comment><USER3> The lack of patching a hole for 3 years by Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Of course, he uses the Lemote Yeelong. Who knows what sort of atrocities went into the production of that thing?

<comment><USER10> Because X might do something bad, it doesn't matter if Y actually does something bad.

Do you apply this logic to all aspects of your life, or just Apple?

<comment><USER9> Well, comparing Lemote - a state-sponsored company in one of the most corrupt business environments on Earth and who likely enjoys almost no regulation whatsoever, vs. Apple whose manufacturing partnerships with Foxconn, Pegatron, and the like are probably the most scrutinized out of all the electronics manufacturers in China, which factory would you rather work for?

<comment><USER10> Yes, this line of logical reasoning absolves Apple of everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No surprise. Android isn't Gnu compliant either so according to the FSF we should be using nothing.

<comment><USER12> I think we can "officially" use triquel or parabola linux on lemote PCs...and that's about it.

<comment><USER13> Stone, chisels, maybe horsehair brushes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Apple lures people into the business of developing apps with visions of the great wealth that a few of them get"

I wonder if developing FOSS software is proven best in this area... (for individuals, not just companies)

<comment><USER15> or to rephrase, If your application a valuable is a labor saving or time saving advancement, what is the best model to make sure you can benefit the most from that?

How do you effectively distribute that advancement so that it "rises the tide"? Is a price a valid indicator of value? No, we see these days that free services are much more quickly adopted. Most people judge value by practicality and word of mouth.

If you start extracting value from that service by charging for it, aren't you effectively negating the benefit to society?

Imagine you invented a murder App. (lets call it iMurder) This app replaced the need to murder people, through a complex spanning tree alogirthm that combines social network data and communication and travel restriction protocols (commonly known as SAML) and a fully immersive augmented reality overlay. (compatible with Google Glass)

How much do _you_ charge for this app?

<comment><USER14> You change the metric of succes. If I wanna the most spread, do it for free. But he is saying about $$$, not reach. So the question remain.

<comment><USER6> > _You change the metric of succes. If I wanna the most spread, do it for > free._

Not sure. Linux is free but has less spread than Windows (on the desktop at least).

In the same vain GIMP is free, but more people use Photoshop.

And Ardour is free but has an very small number of users, even compared to $1000 DAWs.

So it can vary.

<comment><USER15> My badly (un)explained point is that you benefit from free software indirectly, through cheaper software built on top that you later buy or use, or in my extreme example, not being killed because the guy who killed you couldn't run your iMurder app, so you can no longer make money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So what smartphone should I use then?

<comment><USER17> Buy a non-Nexus and non-Motorola Android phone, install CyanogenMod or AOKP, and (optionally) install a non-Play Store app store. (This is all fairly quick and simple to do with recent-ish major Samsung phones, at the very least.)

Or wait until an Ubuntu phone comes out.

(EDIT: For clarification, I am NOT saying any of this would be RMS-friendly, just a bit more open and less privacy-invasive than the norm right now.)

<comment><USER18> Wouldn't the phone have to _ship_ with CyanogenMod/AOKP? Liberating a device after the purchase still rewards the wrong company.

And _Samsung_?

[http://developer.samsung.com/android/technical-docs/DRM- in-A...](http://developer.samsung.com/android/technical-docs/DRM-in-Android)

<http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20010533-1.html>

[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57559174/samsung-chip- pl...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57559174/samsung-chip-plant-caused- womans-breast-cancer-s-korean-govt-agency-rules/)

<comment><USER17> I'm not saying it's an ideal solution, but are there any better solutions smartphone-wise right now?

And yes, Samsung. Because if we're going to pick off every phone manufacturer for every misdeed they've done, there won't be any left to actually buy a phone from.

<comment><USER19> Not buying a phone at all would be the RMS-compliant option.

"I refuse to have a cell phone because they are tracking and surveillance devices." -- <http://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Mmm. _sips tea_

Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, the jailbreak-detection system mentioned here[1] was removed as of iOS 5.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/02/ibooks-to- jailbreakers-...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/02/ibooks-to-jailbreakers- no-yuo/)

<comment><USER21> No: was definitely present on iOS 5. In fact, this plagued people during the first week after the 5.0.1 jailbreak release[1] and was later defeated by planetbeing as part of "crazeles"[2].

[1] [http://www.redmondpie.com/fix-ibooks-on-ios-5.0.1-iphone- ipa...](http://www.redmondpie.com/fix-ibooks-on-ios-5.0.1-iphone-ipad-ipod- touch-after-untethered-jailbreak-using-corona-1.0.5-update/)

[2] <http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Crazeles>

<comment><USER3> What a waste. People don't know how to use a jailbreak detection system. One doesn't "plague" people with the information. Doing this actually destroys the value of it. One should _never_ restrict features and functionality based on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Ebooks with DRM ... due to intentional sabotage by Apple".

Nope. It's up to the publisher. For example, all of the Orson Scott Card books on the iBookstore advertise that they are DRM-free in the description.

</comment><comment><USER23> Apple is attacking free software with their mobile patents? Strange, I've only heard of the Android lawsuits.

Is there an actually-open OS that Apple is pursuing legal action against?

<comment><USER15> There is no "actually-open" OS that runs on handsets. The military use is obvious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I use what I like. I currently like the iPhone.

<comment><USER25> That is certainly the default position.

I use an iPhone as well, because I like it, and I could make that same statement, but it would be with significant self-deprecation, and the "currently" would be loaded with subtext.

I'm curious about what you think Stallman's purpose is here? Assuming you're as unapologetic as taking your statement at face value would imply.

<comment><USER24> >I'm curious about what you think Stallman's purpose is here?

I'm assuming he's taking a principled stand based on what he believes to be injustices carried out by Apple, and trying to convince others to do the same. Good for him.

<comment><USER25> Having some suspicions of what Stallman's wider goals are, I wouldn't assume that these "injustices" are the reason for his objection in isolation. I see from a quick stalk (sorry, I wanted to see if there was some common ground to build on) that just the other day, you wrote a comment about Google Reader that seemed to suggest (my interpretation; by all means object if this is mischaracterized) that controlling your own tools is a more far-sighted and responsible choice than locking yourself into a proprietary system out of your control.

Sorry to pick on you (and thank you for responding), but I really am genuinely curious if others who are aware of RMS and still make the choices that you and I have, are really on the same page as far as understanding his overarching philosophy.

<comment><USER24> No problem on reading other things I've written.

If I want to use today's hardware, software, and services - I'm probably going to come across products from Apple and Amazon (think EC2) and I'm probably going to do business, in some capacity, with a company that uses expensive accountants to minimize their tax bill.

I _get_ his basic philosophy on free and open software. Great, great things have obviously come from companies and individuals that have embraced that model. But I also don't blame one company for the way things are on much broader issues like trade, labor, taxes or DRM.

Like I said - good for him, for taking a stand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> No mention about paying 2x for the branding? What's up with that?

</comment><comment><USER27> Does anybody listen to Stallman anymore? Boy crying wolf.

<comment><USER18> I make a living on iOS and I still hadn't heard all of these before. Nothing wrong with keeping track of a company's missteps.

The problem is that he then destroys all credibility by things like calling the iPad "iBad" ... :(

<comment><USER15> Apple lost all credibility with me for the reasons listed in the article. Given the motivations of each, which one would you trust more?

<comment><USER6> Apple.

At least they are in it for the money (and some proud in their products), not some ideology.

<comment><USER28> I'm sorry to be the one to pull on the yarn and unravel your sweater, but the belief that the pursuit of wealth is in some way meritorious or beneficial is in itself an ideology.

So either you mean that you like your ideology of "the invisible hand" more than Stallman's ideology of "freedom," or you have fallen into the trap of thinking that "ideology" is a word that only applies to the other guy's beliefs.

<comment><USER6> > _I'm sorry to be the one to pull on the yarn and unravel your sweater, but > the belief that the pursuit of wealth is in some way meritorious or > beneficial is in itself an ideology._

And I'm sorry to surprise you, but I also believe that. I'm not a liberal or in favor of the "free market" at all.

But, see, while the belief that the "pursuit of wealth is in some way meritorious or beneficial" is an ideology, mere pursuit of wealth is not an ideology.

With all this said, I can clarify my original comment.

My reasoning is, entities with one narrow and well understood goal (money) are easier to reason and deal with than entities dealing on ideology.

<comment><USER15> >My reasoning is, entities with one narrow and well understood goal (money) are easier to reason and deal with than entities dealing on ideology.

How do you reach such a conclusion? Because you said so?

<comment><USER6> > _How do you reach such a conclusion? Because you said so?_

No, by examining history (well, those facts available to me), and making some mental work of drawing connections and forming ideas.

Why not provide a counter-argument (or even just an alternative proposition) instead of insulting me with the "because you said so" thing?

For me it's obvious --to the point of making explaining it inane-- that a company dealing with money is easier to reason about and deal with than people deep in ideology.

A quick definition of ideology is that of a belief system not particularly moved by facts. This is what makes it frightening.

Sure, corporations have committed huge crimes for money -- but at least you know what they are after and how they will go about it.

With ideology? Not so much. There are hundreds of millions of victims of ideology all around the world. From the victims of Stalinism to the Holocaust, to the Spanish Inquisition, to the Manson family etc.

Whereas economy/money is the domain of greed, ideology is the domain of whatever. It can raise the more crazy and multi-faceted monsters.

<comment><USER15> >Why not provide a counter-argument (or even just an alternative proposition) instead of insulting me with the "because you said so" thing?

The irony of this statement is lost on you. Suck my dick.

The rest of your post is so god damn pointless I can't even read it. My brain rejects it outright.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Whither the Internet? An Interview with Cyber Security Expert Rafal Rohozinski - <AUTHOR> http://digital.report/whither-the-internet/ <comment><USER2> People must be educated by the cyber security experts like Rafal to enhance awareness.</comment>


TXR: An Original, New Programming Language for Convenient Data Munging - <AUTHOR> http://www.nongnu.org/txr/ <comment><USER2> TXR contains an original Lisp implementation (TXR Lisp), which can be used on its own for tasks that don't require the TXR pattern-based extraction language. Files with a .tl suffix are processed by the txr executable as TXR Lisp.

There is an interactive Lisp REPL (just run txr with no arguments, or txr -i to suppress the banner message). It has history, completion, multi-line editing with cut and paste and all those goodies. You can interrupt long computations with Ctrl-C, which actually works by turning a signal into an exception caught by the REPL.

TXR is ported to Windows; you can download a nicely wrapped installer version, your choice of 32 or 64 bit.

[https://bintray.com/kazinator/Binaries/TXR/](https://bintray.com/kazinator/Binaries/TXR/)

The REPL works nicely on Windows, in its own console window or right out of cmd.exe.

TXR has a built-in mechanism for wrapping up TXR code as an executable application (which is geared toward Windows, but works on other platforms):

[http://www.nongnu.org/txr/txr- manpage.html#N-037ACEFC](http://www.nongnu.org/txr/txr- manpage.html#N-037ACEFC)

On Windows, use the txr-win.exe flavor of the binary to avoid opening a console window.

</comment><comment><USER2> TXR example combining OOP with delimited continuations to implement "synchronous concurrency":

[https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Synchronous_concurrency#TXR](https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Synchronous_concurrency#TXR)

There is more to TXR than "unusual notation for matching documents and extracting data". The @ character occurs only once in this example. :)</comment>