Learn me: Getting the cable company's foot off my neck

Since we discovered the awesomness that is smartphone/wireless interwebz/xbox live, mama and I have considered killing our cable for months now. Literally THE only thing we watch on cable is football. Bonus: A friend of ours gave us her username/pw for HBO GO, so we've got a ton of series to keep us entertained after the kiddo goes to bed.

We are no longer under contract, and are getting asshammered for $145/month for 90 channels, 15mbps internet, and a home phone line which hasn't been used in over a year.

Both of our smartphones are with AT&T, so I figured maybe we'd go through them for internet, but holy jesus their website is just a bout berkeleying worthless. They made me set up an online account to check rates as an existing customer, which took FOREVER, then every time I checked to see whether or not we could get internet service through them, it threw a "try again later" error. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Comcast's prices looked good for internet and basic-basic cable (local channels so we can watch the Stillers,) but apparently they don't offer internet in our area :(

Thoughts from the braintrust?

Avoid buying more than one service from the same company, for this reason. The more you're bundled, the more they've got their foot on your neck.

Maybe get Comcast for the basic cable (they suck at Internet, even by US ISP standards).

We dropped cable and home phone about 3 years ago. We just upgraded our interwebz to the middle (18 mbps) rate option.

I also bought an $80 exterior mount antenna to get all the local channels (in 1080p BTW) to get local news and sports.

Torrents, streaming, Hulu, Netflix are all great options for watching all the shows you want.

Unless you hate life, I wouldn't recommend uverse......the service is OK(with a high ping) when it works, but god help you if you ever have problems.

30mb internetz and Netflix with Blu-ray and two disc option take care of us here.............has for ~3.5 years..........although it would be nice to have HBO and a few other channels.

I'm nearby in Cobb. Our ATT U-verse internet service came with a wireless router and costs $30/mo all in. We're paying about $100/mo for satellite/+whole house hd-dvr and are also looking to cut back. ClarkHoward.com has a breakdown of cheaper services which we'll look at when our sat-tv contract expires in a few more months.

I went the last 6 years or so with only OTA HDTV thanks to the large terrestrial UHF/VHF antenna on the roof of my house, and about $40/month for fairly fast cable internet. Only have cable again thanks to the GF having so many shows she wants to watch and 'needing' the on-demand capability due to her rarely being able to watch anything 'live'.

We dropped cable. We have AT&T internet, mid level speed (don't remember the exact specs) and it's fine. I get almost 40 OTA channels via a $90 Radio Shack antenna and have a mac mini hooked up to my TV with an eye-TV as a PVR.
The only thing I am missing that cable offers is the show about midget tow truck drivers that had octuplets and can slow-roast a pig like nobody's business!!

no cable, no landline, basic comcrap interwebs, netflix and we are good to go.

only thing I miss, watching F1 races live.

Why not look into other options for TV service besides cable or AT&T? 8)

OTA, ATT internet and Netflix here. We ditched Direct TV when we moved 2 years ago. I really don't miss it.

Apexcarver wrote: no cable, no landline, basic comcrap interwebs, netflix and we are good to go. only thing I miss, watching F1 races live.

I think that's what I'm going to do after my lease is up at my current place. $150/mo is a giant PITA for cable/TV. I can get my AdventureTime fix online. I'll definitely miss watching F1 races live, but I can always just go to my parents' place for that.

Comcast charges 80 for just a cable modem so... you are only going to save $60 by turning it off. It would be better off for you to call and tell them you are going to drop the whole service if they don't cut you some kind of deal.

EDIT: This worked for my father who threatened them with a Dish ad.

OK, so ATT doesn't even provide service in our area. Lame. Looks like the way to go is going to be the "The other" phone/tv provider, who will do basic dish and 15mbps (the fastest anyone provides here) for $70 a month (total - introductory rate X 12 + "real rate" X 12 divided by 24.)

Half price + dish (more channels) sounds like a win-win...or I might just end up doing the Radio Shack antenna...my only apprehension is how big of a pain in the dick the antenna would be to mount and wire (assuming it's outdoor. We're in a split-level house on a steep-ass lot so the peak of the roof is about 40' off the ground.) I could mount it on the back deck and run the cable through the basement I suppose.

According to the all-wise and knowing FCC, I actually get a "strong" signal from ATL at my house (60 miles south of us) and a "moderate" signal from Chattanooga. Anybody tried one of these?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13845_3-57590197-58/get-a-mohu-leaf-ultimate-amplified-indoor-antenna-for-$49.99-shipped/

We moved into a new house 2 years ago. That summer we were very busy and i had cable internet turned on but not TV. It was an experiment and succeeded, we still do not have it. I had noticed that for my wife and I, when we watched TV, we also had a second screen (laptop/tablet) on our lap while doing it. I realized that if I could only have one, I would keep the internet and get rid of the TV.
I also had come to the belief that all that is on TV is midget, truckers, with tattoos and 19 kids, who sing while looking to not be a bachelor/bachelorette.
About a year after, my conviction was reconfirmed as we visited friends who were genuinely interested in watching other people open garage doors of storage lockers. Really?

I saw an interesting article recently where in New Jersey, after Huricane Sandy, Verizon was unwilling to reinstall traditional phone lines since they saw everything going cell phone.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2013/0709/No-more-landlines-on-Fire-Island-Verizon-seeks-to-go-wireless

For me, TV stations would come from Toledo or Cleveland, OH; both about 1 hour away. I tried every indoor antenna that Best Buy sold (one at a time with return policy.) Even the $99 unit could not solve my issues which were mostly being in a pretty heavily wooded area. I did not try the outdoor versions due to difficult runs.
My cable company has an unadvertised $19 plan that gets me little better than "local TV" with two other channels thrown in, on which is Canada CBC Channel 9.

Also: Again, the only thing I'm interested in watching on "regular" TV is NFL. Is there a way to watch games online? Do you guys know if CBS/FOX streams NFL games?

Im in the same boat as poopie...I pay about $150 for HD Cable/DVR/On Demand, and wireless intrew3bz. SWMBO is hooked on a few cable channels (ABC Family and DIY/HGTV networks). I love Velocity, AMC, and FX. If I Could get just those 6 channels, Id get rid of the rest. I wish a la cart channel shopping were available.

I guess Hulu should have all the shows we want to watch available on demand (provided I dont mind being a season behind everything). Would it be that much cheaper to ditch the DVR and go with one of those slingbox type things that can broadcast my internet streaming service onto my TV? Or maybe just hook a desktop tower up to the TV, and use an antenna for OTA programming?

poopshovel wrote: Also: Again, the only thing I'm interested in watching on "regular" TV is NFL. Is there a way to watch games online? Do you guys know if CBS/FOX streams NFL games?

NFL Sunday Ticket? I'm not entirely sure... I think they have a deal with Direct TV, though...

This Fall will be the first time I've been home "full time" in over a decade... I don't know if I'll enjoy it without the occasional Sunday/Monday Night Football fix. During the day, I'm usually out doing stuff (riding, auto-x, car shows, etc) so I never watched day games often.

NFL Sunday Ticket?

= $$$$$

poopshovel wrote:

NFL Sunday Ticket?

= $$$$$

Yeah... looking at that now: $300 for the season. Ouch. And I'm not sure if you can sign up unless you're on Direct TV as well. Maybe you can, but it's (intentionally?) vague.

Unfortunately, live sports is one area where the cable/satellite providers seem to have us by the stones. They made sure to sign into long-term contracts with the leagues so if we want to watch live games we don't have much choice.

Cool thing with the current cable is I get ATL AND Chattanooga CBS and FOX, so I saw a LOOOT of Stiller games last season with no Sunday ticket.

I've got an old ass set of rabbit ears here at the shop. If I can access the cable input (bigass flat-screen - flat-mounted to wall - dumb move there,) I'll hook it up tonight and see if I'm pleasantly surprised. If I can get 2 CBS's and 2 Fox's, that's all I need!

Careful. Around here, Scamcast sucks a wet donkey dick. So bad in fact, they changed the name to Xfinity. I suppose to sucker more idiots in.

Directv's deal right now is Sunday Ticket free for new customers. Granted that is for this season only. Packages start at 29.99, but you'd want at least choice which will run you 34.99.

As for internet, how fast does it need to be? Most cell companies have wifi hotspots w/4G service.

moparman76_69 wrote: Most cell companies have wifi hotspots w/4G service.

Which are neither Unlimited or cheap.
Unlimited is a highly abused word in wireless internet. Though many advertise Unlimited, they are only high speed up to a certain amount like 2GB. After that 2GB threshold, you still get unlimited but at throttled back, slow speeds.

Yeah, you can have all the slow and useless speed internet you want but really, it is still not cheap.

I've got Comcast's fastest internet package at home with no TV, no phone. $125 a month for just internet. Use Bittorrent and set up RSS feeds to download your fav shows. Haven't set up an antenna yet, but I expect to when I drop a TV tuner card in my server.