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The parents switched from Charter cable (100/10Mbps) to TDS DSL (300/300Mbps) about a month ago. The aunt/uncle a few blocks away got 600/400. They owned the cable gateway (modem/router), but will soon begin paying a rental fee for the Actiontec T3200M which I'm told isn't available except through ISPs who don't sell them. I'm told the tech who installed it claimed compatible gateways were available at BestBuy if they wanted to avoid the rental fee, but I physically went there and spoke to them after only seeing cable gateways on the shelves. I'd previously looked online for DSL gateways capable of similar speeds and come up empty as well.

Does anyone know what specific model fiber DSL gateways (or even modems) are available to actually buy so they can avoid the monthly rental fee?

I would definitely recommend separating the modem from the router.

Fiber (glass) is different from DSL (copper). What is the actual connection that they have? If it is over DSL is it ADSL, ADSL2, VDSL, pair bonded? Only then can we tell what will work with what they have.

I was a little confused, too. I don't see any mention of DSL here, though. https://tdstelecom.com/shop/internet-se ... plans.html

We have fiber to the home and our provider gave us a ZHONE box that goes to our router. No idea if you can actually buy those things, though. No rental, it's just part of the service. Rental of boxes where there's no purchase alternative available is really scuzzy, IMO.

Good point, I'd been looking at the ActionTec box. It seems that doesn't have any fiber ports (i.e. SFP / SFP+ or similar) so something else has to be converting from the glass to something that will work with that router. It does have a MoCA 2.0 port, but if that is not being used and there is a fiber to Ethernet converter somewhere and an RJ45 is just plugged in to the WAN port on that router than you should be able to replace it with any other router. You will need to determine if it is straight DHCP or PPPoE to configure your new router the same way.