Did you, perhaps, have a special promotional deal for the first 12 or 24 months during which said router was free?
I see that COMMONLY.
I had a promo for 12 months, and my monthly went up when it expired. It’s a bummer, but one thing many ISPs will do is — if you call and squeak at them — they’ll find out what current promotional deal you may qualify for, and apply it to your account. Part and parcel with that, they’ll ask if you want to upgrade to a higher-level service, and that might make great sense if they’ve restructured their menu and have an upgraded service that’s on promo at a lower rate. Several times my ISP has waived the typical “new customers only” clause, and set me up with the better deal.
That was Astound/WAVE Broadband, BTW. Your mileage may vary.
I remember talking to the customer service specialist at Spectrum and saying, “You charging more for a router means you think a router is optional. That tells me you’re a 20th century company trying to operate in the 21st century. Should I look for a company that understands the times?”
She asked me what I meant.
I asked her, “How many people do you know who have a computer wired to the Internet?”
She said she didn’t know any. She didn’t even have a computer herself. She only used her phone.
I said, “So you admit that any company that thinks living without wireless is possible isn’t living in the 21st century. Do you realize what this tells me about your company?”
Eventually I just bought my own router.
No. I checked with my son who has been in this area for 20+ years, and he has the same company, but has never paid for the router, which is why I signed up for it.
Once the company changed hands, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and it did, because I’m low-income. He isn’t, so he probably pays three times what I do for monthly service, if not more.
He would probably not be affected, anyway. I’ll have to ask him if his rates went up. Meantime, I’ll make plans to call them next week, but I went ahead and paid because I need the Interwebs.