How do costs of equipment purchase compare to rental costs?
When satellite providers offer equipment at no charge, they generally require at least a one-year subscription commitment or a contract of similar duration. When they charge for the equipment, it usually costs anywhere from $49 for a basic standard TV set-top box, to as much as $299 for a set-top box that can record HDTV signals. Cable operators generally charge $3 per set-top box per month ($36 a year) for basic standard TV devices, and up to $10 a month ($120 per year) for set-top boxes that can record HDTV signals. If you stay with either provider longer than two or three years, the satellite service costs come out somewhat lower than the cable service costs because you’ll typically pay off that equipment somewhere in the second or third year of ownership, as compared with cable TV costs. But such equipment generally needs to be replaced every five to seven years (if not more often for real equipment aficionados), so equipment costs do continue to factor into the overall burden for
