Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

If you own your own router, you control your port access. Aside from the fact that the router and modem provided by the ISP aren't free (You lease them at like $15 a month), the added control over your own hardware makes a very compelling argument for just having your own Router or even modem.

You can own your router (or even modem) and still be behind an internal ISP NAT. There are ISPs out there that you can buy own hardware for only to be foreced to set it up in a way that blocks you.

Also i had instances of the opposite too, hardware completely sealed with no user access, but was possible to call them physically, ask politely and bam you have ports open. Its really not about the hardware but how ISP has its network set up.

With the limited ipv4 numbers and ever growing number of users, its only gonna get worse.