I tried. The modem didn't work. It was on the approved list. Had a tech come out, he installed a Comcast router and it worked. They waived the rental fee for 6 months. As much as I hate Comcast, I hate not having internet more.
It always surprises me how the US, as the paragon of the free market, is so comfortable with a lack of meaningful competition.
I think it's something like 70% of US households have only one 'choice' for ISP.
Then there was the discussion[0] here the other week about blitzscaling, and how it's basically "borrow money to do a land grab for monopoly, then use your money to stifle competitors".
Even the lack of preferential[1] voting contributes to a lack of choice - either vote for a major party, or your preference is irrelevant.
Unfortunately unless you live in a metro area your options in Australia aren't much better. Most rural or country areas and even some suburban zones are only serviced by a single ISP who may decide you don't need internet.
I lived in Ipswich for 1.5 years, prior to moving in I signed up for ADSL2 (no NBN available in the area yet) with Telstra as they are the only ISP servicing the area.
I was told that the local exchange has no available ports, and that I would need to go on a waiting list to be given a connection.
I was periodically getting their "Sorry we can't provide you usable internet yet, how about ADSL1 or some 4G data at rip-off prices?" for that entire time, until I moved out and cancelled the still-pending service.
Not since the NBN came about. Infra is owned by NBNco after they bought out Telstras infra (forced).
Before that Telstra owned an ageing, choppy and slow copper network and that was your monopoly unless another ISP decided your area was populated enough to set up something.
I admittedly have it much easier living in a metro area, but I have about 80 ISPs to choose from. But my relatives are all over Australia and the majority of them have at least a FTTN network to use now.
I still suspect it will be sold back to Telstra and/or privatised and it'll go to hell again, it's already been majorly neutered.
I’ve had multiple broadband choices in every metro area I’ve lived in, too (now on my fourth in the US).
Of course, I’ve lived in parts of those metro areas that were densely populated. I.e., where a competitor could reasonably expect to recoup the cost of overbuilding. In less dense areas, the economics would be far worse.
Counter anecdote: I live in Manhattan and have only one broadband option: Time Warner, a.k.a. Spectrum.
Verizon offers 5/1 "broadband" DSL for twice the price, and the other two regional providers (Optimum, RCN) don't service my neighborhood (which is by no means sparsely populated).
In the early 2010's we had their piece of shit rented SMC D3G modem for static ip's at our office. We couldn't figure out why the net would stall and we'd get huge packetloss. Dozens of support calls, lots of finger pointing. Years later, it would come out Intel was incompetent at designing modems [1]. (as shown again with the more recent iPhone designs)
This rental was required as even the approved modems couldn't be provisioned for statics, later on at other locations we just bought Motorola (now arris) SB6121's since dynamics were all that were needed for those locations and really never had an issue.
Get a new modem before getting rid of your old one. Plug it in, call up Comcast and give them the MAC address, see if it works. If it doesn't work, return the modem to Amazon or wherever and order a new one. If it does work, give Comcast's modem back.
With Comcast Business, they insist on making you rent a router if you have static IPs. It irks me knowing I could be using my own hardware if I gave up my IPs, which I can't see doing.
