I went to my local cable office with a set-top box that I purchased from an ebay storefront.

I explained that I had very old TVs and bought the set-top box as an alternative to getting a digital converter for the switchover next February.

My problem? The serial number of the set-top box was not in Time Warner's system. And the customer service rep on the phone had told me to bring it in to have the serial number entered into the system. Which the rep at the office tried to do. And the system would not take it.

A supervisor came over and told me, “You can buy equipment, but we can't enter the serial number of equipment that we don't lease to you.”

Now, even if I bring in the documentation showing that consumers can own the equipment, what does that do? THEIR SYSTEM WON'T LET THEM ENTER NON-TIME WARNER SERIAL NUMBERS!

As far as I am concerned, that is precisely the reason NOT to rent the equipment from the cable company. In fact, with so many choices out there today, a $49 bill for something that they could have told me over the phone BEFORE sending a technician would simply prompt me to switch providers. I am pretty sure the cable repair people are trained to blame consumer equipment and trained to charge whenever the consumer's equipment is involved, even if the consumer's equipment wasn't the direct cause, as was your case. They are losing on the legal front, so they are conditioning us on the home front to need them and be happy about it. Your story tells of a perfectly executed scam, basically. They change something, blame it on your equipment, tell you it will only cost you $2 more a month for their equipment, install it and, when everything is done and it is too late, present you with a bill and explain to you that they stand behind their equipment, but you had gone out and gotten something inferior. So, like a good little consumer, you pay the bill, which is likely more than they paid for the low end equipment they are often known to provide and then they get your $2 a month besides. Besides that, you are conditioned to 'know better' than to try to think for yourself again.

Personally, I can't wait to buy my own box, but I won't do it until the features are there. It has to be able to do at least what my current box does (video on demand and built in guide). I also don't see a benefit to buying one until a 'hackable' one comes out. I want one I can 'play with'. I'm not talking about getting channels I'm not paying for or anything, but it would be nice to have one where I can move content from the box to my computer and then to a DVD. Who doesn't have an old VHS of a football game or some show we just love recorded off the TV? Why should we no longer be able to do that, and in HD to boot?

Now that the 'packaged channels' have been challenged in court I can't wait for the cable companies to go down another notch. I figured it out one day and something like 63% of the channels I was paying for were channels I would never watch! I'm not talking about things that had programs that just didn't normally interest me. I'm talking about channels which were completely useless to me. Spanish channels for an English speaker, religious channels for an atheist, sports channels for a geek, music channels for someone who realizes how much less electricity is used by playing music on a stereo instead of a television. I can't wait to tell the cable company that I no longer need their box or remote and, by the way, I'm dropping more than half the channels you've forced on me over the past 5 years. Quite frankly, I don't care if it does cost me more, as long as the profits don't go to the cable company.

This past weekend, I had my Comcast internet service stop working. It was about 10:30PM and I was in the middle of working on the site (of all things). I called Comcast and explained the problem and they scheduled a technician to come out and check things over. I have had a Linksys cable modem for about 3 years now, one I purchased from Fry's after my original Comcast modem died on me. I figured I could save some money in the long-term by purchasing my own.

Well when the technician came out, he said the problem is that Comcast moved my account to another “node” and I am now on a frequency that my current cable modem does not support. He says only their “newer” modems support this, and proceeded to hook up a Comcast cable modem. At an extra $2/mo I figured it was worth the hassle of just leasing the new modem.

The kicker here is that when the technician finished up, he said I owed $49 dollars for him to come out and fix the interuption in service since it was my own modem that was the problem, and not theirs. If it would have been a leased modem, the call would have been at no charge. In my mind, I think it's their problem since they moved me to a new node. But this would not be a battle I would win – I am out $49 bucks.

The moral of the story? Buy a leased cable box, or in my case a cable modem. Because once you have a problem with that box, it's up to your TV provider to fix it – at their cost. And at an extra $5-$10/mo that may seem like a lot, but you are at least safe when they decide to upgrade their service, your box will either support it without a hitch, or get upgraded for free. You are not left with a cable box that doesn't work with your TV provider (like I am now hosed with this Linksys modem).