I own a tm 822g which is compatible with the Comcast. When I purchased my service they refused the tm822g and stated that I must use theirs. Not only that but the technician even told me he had just installed multiple tm822gs a few days ago. Logan in one of the past episodes of the tek mentioned their is someway to provision it yourself.
Comcast requires telephony modem for Xfinity voice (voip) but this seems like bullshit to me... they said the 722g would work but it seems nearly impossible to find and the 822g supports higher bandwidth and is the newer model. This is freaking insane
Why do you prefer your modem over theirs? What I do with TWC is use their normal modem/gateway just for telephony, then also use my own Surfboard modem for internet.
I remember what you are talking about, he was talking about a modem for internet service and if I read this correctly you are ordering phone services, which are different (I believe so at least). He had a motorola surfboard and comcast didn't have it on their approved list but over the phone he told them it was one of the modems on the approved list and they activated it as it was compatible but not approved.
If you want to use CC VoIP you have to use their modem. If you don't want their VOIP buy a magic jack or Vonage or Ooma or etc. And buy your own modem. Unfortunately I have not heard of anyone circumventing their policy on telephony modems by purchasing their own, though in theory if you bought your own unit of the same type and had it provisioned there's no reason it shouldn't work, but CC tracks MACs and they might shut it down because of their policy on telephony.
Ex-Comcast Level-3 support here. Yes for the telephone you have to use their stuff. but since you have the gateway (modem/router combo) you can bridge it and use it as a basic modem and hook up your own router to it.
It, sucks I know. Not sure if there is a technological reason you cant use a 3rd party modem for tele, but that's what they told all of us.
On the technical side, I don't think they want the hassle of dealing with third party telephony links. By forcing customers to use their own equipment they're avoiding a huge amount of headaches for most consumers who "Just want it to work". In theory you can configure other telephony boxes to work on the CC network, but they'd block the MAC's or do something to break them on their end.
Most likely a more significant factor is the financial reasoning behind increasing the MRC for the customer. If you want a landline, you're better off doing your own VOIP for this reason.
Comcast technically can indeed force you to use their equipment. In fact most ips i know, will not allow you to use your own modem on their network. Unless you have a very specific reason for it. But otherwise, you will just have to use the modem they provide to you. The only thing you could do, is switch the modem / router into bridge mode and use your own router. One of the reasons being for trouble shooting support and new technologies. Their modems have a special firmware in it, with back doors they can use for trouble shooting. But also install new firmware on their modem to support new services.