Modem fees are one of the cable industry’s less popular financial innovations but there’s a good reason that cable companies use them: They rake in a lot of money. Reuters reports that Time Warner Cable is jacking up its monthly modem fees from $3.95 to $5.99, which ISI analyst Vijay Jayant tells the publication that could help the company add an additional $150 million per year in revenue. Time Warner Cable is justifying the huge fee increase, which comes less than a year after the company first started charging fees for modems, by saying that the “cost associated with providing the modem” is higher than the company had originally anticipated. All the same, Time Warner Cable’s modem fees are actually a “bargain” compared with rival Comcast, which charges subscribers $7 a month to lease modems.

Prior to joining BGR as News Editor, Brad Reed spent five years covering the wireless industry for Network World. His first smartphone was a BlackBerry but he has since become a loyal Android user.