I have my internet without my extender, my extender was in my garage. The internet providers are trying to get to bill everyone who uses the internet to pay for usage. In other words, not free as it is now. Example: if you pay $40 a month for the connection, and they get the usage charge of $10 per Gigabite, if you watch a video streamed, you will pay $80 for the month.
They are getting ready for that time, if you don't update your firmware, they will have problems of knowing how much you use. So they are ( I think, no proof yet ) updating the firmware without your permission.
One other problems with usage charges, if someone writes a virus with your IP address, they can signal that you downloaded 100 Gigabites, and cost you $1000 for the month now including connection fees.