switch or what?

[Medsport]

I've had my Roku for several months now and had planned on ditching cable and tried leaving it off for a couple weeks, but the Roku just doesn't seem to cut it for watching current episodes of certain shows that keep starting up about the time I think about cancelling. I recently lost my 2nd job and Time Warner keeps raising the rates so I have to do something. Every time I call and try to cancel they give me a "deal" like 10 or 15 bucks off a month, but lately the deals haven't been as good and the price is now up to an all time high of about $155 for internet, digital phone and basic cable. I'm not sure how much it would be if I cancelled the cable part because the prices aren't broken down and they won't give me a direct answer.

?I'm in the process of buying a new computer and somehow signed up for amazon prime so it looks like I can watch a lot of the programming I like on that (I usually only watch A&E, AMC, USA, TNT, HIST and only watch the local channels occasionally for some NFL). But I was also thinking of getting Dish or Direct since its only supposed to be $20-30 a month. The only thing that's holding me back is you have to lock in for 2 years and I know it goes up the second year, but I'm not sure exactly how much. I've had Dish in the past and it looks like it is a little cheaper than Direct, but I think I have to get the top 120 package to get all the channels I like so its a toss up I think. One advantage to Direct is they are offering a $200 prepaid card which would come in handy right now, but I think they are a little more expensive the 2nd year. Another option would be to drop the cable and then see if they try to give me a deal to come back, but I'm not sure how long you have to be off of it to get something like that. Any advice what I should do?

 

[jayn_j]

There is always pain in initially cutting the cable. I really missed the USA shows for awhile. However, if you are patient it all shows up for download sooner or later. All the USA network stuff is now showing up on netflix or amazon. I am a year behind everyone else, but since I haven't seen them, they are fresh to me. Basically, if you can wait, it becomes less painful after a year, and there is a sense of Christmas eve anticipating the new stuff.

All of the providers will tell you they have the lowest cost, but the costs are all driven by the program licensing fees, which in turn are being driven by sports. We end up talking about $5 differences on a $100 monthly cable bill.

 

[Medsport]

Yea, I'm estimating the cable part of my bill is around $80 or so and that is crazy for the small amount of channels and time I watch tv. I was looking into the Century link triple play and it doesn't make sense since it says the internet is about $20, direct tv about $35 and phone about $40 and yet the total comes out to about $110 for some reason and you have to pay a bunch up front to set everything up. I guess the double play ($60) for internet and tv would be a decent choice. But I believe their download speed is around 10Mpbs max and TWC is about 15Mpbs. Although I just did a speed test and it said it was only about 2.5 now (I wonder if my slow failing computer has anything to do with that)? Also seems silly to stick with TW for phone as that's what century link is supposed to specialize in. I just hate the hassle of switching though as I keep putting it off and already have two dishes in the back yard I don't use and don't know how to get rid of (don't really want another one back there). I guess I'll have to bite the bullet at some point and at least cancel the TWC and maybe they will give me a deal to sign back up-but do I have to get rid of the phone and internet too to do that I wonder?

 

[. Raine]

In my household we got rid of cable five or six months ago, I set things up and unhooked the cable for a month before having it shut off to make sure we'd all be happy with the change. Like Jayn_j said, if you don't mind waiting a bit everything shows up on Netflix, Amazon or somewhere sooner or later. We put up an OTA antenna, a Ku dish and C-band dish and have Amazon Prime and Netflix, a couple of Roku 3's, Plenty to watch.

One thing that may be an option for you to save money if you have the money to spend on it upfront is Ooma phone. It cost us a hundred and twenty or so dollars for the Ooma and forty dollars to port our phone number to it but now our phone bill is only $3.71 a month, the Ooma has already paid for itself in what we've saved and works great for us.

We had cable, phone and internet through our cable company and it was costing us $156.00 a month, we cancelled the cable and phone, kept the internet, now our bill is $42.00 a month. We did this because the quality and content of our cable TV was lousy, not so much as to save money, but Ooma phone may be a way for you to save a bit and maybe an OTA antenna for local stations, you could look on Tvfool.com or some site like that and get an idea of what local stations you might be able to get.

Ooma phone is a VOIP phone, so you would need high speed internet to use it.

 

[Medsport]

Thanks for the input. I actually have a nettalk duo which is similar to ooma. It was about $50 and a waste of money because they misled you into believing you could port your phone number and they say they can't transfer mine for some reason. It was partly my fault though as I didn't check into it for awhile after I purchased it and it was too late to return it. I guess I could use it if I get hard-up enough. I would have to use the new number and I don't really use my phone that much anyway. I mostly just call my parents once in awhile and maybe work. I was keeping my old number because I had a few resumes out with it, but it looks like I'm not not going to get any calls so I could switch any time to save some money. Now that I think about it, If I was to drop the digital phone and cable and went with dish or direct, I could save around $80 a month and maybe $100 or so if I try to get by without any type of cable and use Netflix and Amazon.