ot: do modems die?
 

Have had Comcast installed for a few years. That is triple play with phone, net, and TV. I was renting my modem for a long time and then decided to buy my own instead of rent. Think I paid upward toward $300 for the modem. Yesterday when I woke up the modem seemed dead. No lights blinking at all.

Called Comcast and they tried to troubleshoot over the phone and reboot the modem from their office. No luck. Sent out a live tech and he tested everything and thought my modem was dead. So now I am renting their modem again :).

Why am is suspicious that Comcast could kill my modem if they wanted to? If they can re set it over the line, could they just as easily kill it?

Regardless the uptime over the years has been great and their service yesterday was exemplary.

capacitors dry up, IC's fail, exceed tolerance. They can die. RIP your modem, but a large part of me is skeptical of comcast. Did you try a factor reset?

what's a factor reset?
 

we plugged, unplugged, decabled, recabled, pushed the reset button on the back, still no lights at all.

A power surge can certainly kill it.

well now i'm paying
 

$10 per month for full modem security. Their modem, their responsibility.

Interestingly enough I spoke to a friend yesterday who also lives in Santa Rosa and has Comcast and rents a modem. He woke up yesterday, his modem needed to be reset, but it worked after that. So maybe there was and electricity event in our town. His lived, mine died.

I'd reconsider, if you're in it for the long haul.

A DOCSIS 3 modem (the current standard) can be had for $50.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...0?ie=UTF8&th=1

At that rate, if it stays alive for 5 months (5 years, more likely) you haven't lost a cent.

I don't know what your router situation is but they're similarly inexpensive.

To add to all the other things they are probably done with lead free solder for environmental concerns and that doesn't last forever.

*Definitely* buy your own modem. Comcast (I'm a customer) even has a list of approved modems.

I think mine was $40 last summer (Motorola). I don't do TV/Voice, just internet, but the key thing is there is no hardware in my house that is property of the carrier, so the # of games they can play is reduced.

I had Verizon for 6 years.. they gave me the hardware at one point, then tried to say you had to buy new hardware at your own cost (something insane like $250) or start paying a monthly fee to keep using the old hardware. The hardware they were selling for $250 was worth less than $100, and they have a pretty bad track record in terms of security updates... I don't expect Comcast to be much better.

Invest in surge protection and your own modem.

A few questions:

How long have you owned/used your own modem? Might it still be under warranty?

Is the Comcast modem you are now renting a combined modem & Wi-Fi router? If so, are you aware that Comcast is likely using the Wi-Fi router to create a public Hotspot in your home?

https://www.extremetech.com/computin...nd-of-the-year

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...blic-hotspots/

dead modem is at least a couple of years old, maybe older
 

so I think I at least broke even by not renting for that period of time.

Yes, modem is combined voice, data, wifi. What happens if I'm a hotspot?

I am sorry for your loss.

I have been with Comcast for 16 years and am on my third modem. The first lasted 4 years and was supplied free of charge by Comcast as a sign-up bonus. When it "died", Comcast offered to rent me a new one at a monthly price that would have effectively paid for the modem in 2 years time. I bought the replacement myself and it ended up lasting 6 years before I started having performance issues. The latest one was also purchased outright and is still going strong after 6 years. I'm hoping to get a few more years use out of it but would not worry about replacing it if necessary (besides I still have modem No. 2 that still works, if sub optimally for the case in which my modem were to die unexpectedly)

HOWEVER!!!!! Comcast did add in an item charge onto my monthly statement a few years back for an equipment rental charge, which they claimed was for my personally-owned modem. This is apparently common practice with Comcast. They did refund the charge to me because I was sufficiently vigilant to catch it, but I would guess than many people would simply miss it amongst the many miscellaneous charges and taxes and fees that litter their account statements.

A lightning strike can also kill a modem. Were there any thunderstorms in the area lately?

dead modem lasted 42 months
 

new triple play Arris modem is $240. In some ways a no brainer, in others it's a crap shoot.

No lightening here I am aware of.

240 for a modem is a complete ripoff. This modem will work: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...E&gclsrc=aw.ds

http://forums.xfinity.com/t5/Home-Ph...m/td-p/2632277

$50