[larusso]

We had this situation in Germany as well. The providers argued that their routers/etc. are part of their network and the user network starts behind that. If the user wants to use their own router etc they can connect it behind the provided one yadayadayada. In the end their lost the argument. The providers need to accept any router and have to hand out the connection credentials (the provided boxes came with backed in credentials) so users can connect with their own hardware. But most providers will now refuse to give support in case you run your own router. That’s all for internet though. Don‘t know how cable is handled nowadays.

But this reminds me of the day a nice telecom call center person wanted me to get their router. The argument he gave me was: „with our router we have access and can automatically fix update and optimize the router for you“. My answer was down the line of: „that’s precisely what I don‘t want“. A few years later a huge Telekom blackout happened across west Germany or so. Apparently the error was a faulty update which misconfigured the user credentials. All boxes went offline for the users (I guess the service ports where still available) Classic Murphy.