You can use your own modem with Comcast business service (I do) but it took about two weeks of calling all the tech support numbers I could find until I finally got a tech who was able to do it. Not because it's hard to do, but because most of the people I talked to were lying or incompetent.

The guy seemed a bit weirded out at how profusely I thanked him -- after all, all I'd done was tell him the model and MAC address of my generic Motorola modem.

Don't waste your time explaining to them why you want to use a real modem (I have my own router/firewall, their modem had NAT I could not disable) or that it's the same modem that works on the residential service (which is the same physical network). It won't help, just say "I bought a <VENDOR> <MODEL> modem, can you set it up on my account?" and hang up and try again if they act like your request is bizarre.

Not if you have a static IP. I talked to 5-6 reps to try and ended up returning the equipment to Amazon.

Thanks for this. I've been wondering, so tomorrow. I'm going to start the process.

It saddens me that I feel like every interaction with Comcast is a "process" at best and an outer circle of hell on average.

They have a list of approved modems for the both the residential and business services, with the business one being a small subset of the residential one. But I was able to get a modem approved only for the residential service on my business account by calling around. What worked for me after only a few tries was calling into the residential tech support and having them add it. It's apparently all the same infrastructure on the back end.

If you don't want a static IP, you can use anthing on their approved list:

http://mydeviceinfo.comcast.net/

(Which has all the usual SB* suspects).

If you want a static IP, AFAIK, you still have to use what they give you.

I am currently running on Comcast Business with 5 static IPs, and while I do have to use their modem to terminate the coax connection, I have my TomatoUSB'd Asus RT-66u router playing just fine with it. Their modem has some sort of weird 'automatic bridge mode'; I configured the external IPs on my Asus router and plugged the WAN port on the Asus into one of the four internal ports on their modem, everything works just fine.

Granted I still think Comcast is the scum of the universe for myriad and sundry reasons, but at least this aspect of their service was fairly easy to set up. I still miss the FiOS I had back in Boston though :-(

It requires at least a year long contract and a hefty set up fee ($200 for a one year contract and $100 for a 2 year if I remember correctly).

When I signed up for their business class service about a year ago, it was not required that I use their modem, but they did suggest it (noting that any failure of equipment would be taken care of on their end). It was the bosses dime and my time if a failure happened, so I just went with their leasing options.

Dunno. I've never tried any other modems besides the one they gave (leased?) me.