AtlStockLurker

Depends on the monthly rental. You can usually pay for one yourself with about 1 - 2 yrs rental. But if you rent there is never any finger pointing if there is a problem. You might get a better unit than you provider supplies but if you rent and better equipment becomes available most providers will upgrade for free or for shipping. Someone mentioned cable sharing. Your provider will most likely install a cable splitter just outside of the box leading into your home. This will insure you get a good strong signal to your modem. If you can insure that you aren't 3/4 splits down from the incoming line you should be fine. I have been sharing my modem with a TV in my office for a couple of years and its has been working fine.

I too spent weeks with marginal vonage service. Vonage techs were able to tune my system but still conversations were choppy. The fix to my problem turned out not to be vonage OR comcast but my cable modem. Turns out I had an older 3com modem and it did not have the speed capability now available with comcast. Replaced with a LinkSys modem because I like the brand and it was on sale. The Motorola Surfboard 5100 was recommended by vonage and comcast techs. Installed new modem and everything is working fine now. Based on your upload/download speeds I suspect you may have same problem.