Stickin' it to the cable man

So my cable company, which rhymes with Sharter, has been progressively ratcheting up our rates for quite some time now.  Up to this point, they've always played the game, offering discounts that magically appear whenever a threat was made to switch to a competitor.  This time, not so much.  Basically, it was a not even polite "go Berk yourself".  Wrong approach with me.  Unfortunately, Sharter offers the only decent high speed internet in our area, so I'm sort of stuck with that, but would like to cut the cord for television just to give them as little business as possible.  Any hive recommendations?

I cancelled cable on September 14th, 2001.

Neyflix for the family up until we got amazonprime. 

High speed internet from the phone company. 

The cable companies can suck it till they choke on tbe short and curlies.

Check the fiber optic options in you area.

Verizon has Fios.  Att has Fiber.  Then there are other more regional options like my Cincinnati Bell Fioptics.  

I'm afraid these guys are only going to get worse with net neutrality handcuffs off but we'll see.  

I've been able to keep internet and full cable with DVR to around 100 a month.  I think intro rates were ~75/month for the first year.

I generally think they are all weasels, but unfortunately necessary ones...

I am one of the "lucky" ones who has two of the big evil corporations to choose from; Fios and Xfinity.

Xfinity offered $49.95 for 50d/5u and it changed to $74.xx after a year
Fios offered 50d/50u for $39.99 and it goes to $47 after a year.

No brainer.

I don't do cable.  I pay for Netflix and Prime.  That, plus all the free channels on Roku keep me more than happy, but I'm not a big TV watcher.  I have an HD antenna for locals.

So for me I get all the binge watching I need for a total of about $60/mo with more internet speed than I'll ever use.  50down/50up is plenty for surfing, 4K HD streaming, and anything else.

Buy a Roku box.

install and configure.

download Netflix, Hulu and Prime channels.

sign up for their services.

enjoy streaming and paying less for programs.

install antennae to pick up HD channels for local sports, etc.

Add Roku boxes and antennae to other TV’s

Add channels to your account that interest you, they’ll show up on the boxes.

I don't have cable. You don't need it when you have internet

In reply to Stefan :

That's the approach we use too. Between Netflix, Prime, and Crunchyroll I don't miss cable.

I've cut ties years ago. Granted, I pay a small fortune foe my internet, but I'm also heavy gamer,  and we're ususally.running multiple devices and or streaming at the same time. Internet, subscription of your choice, go. 

Dumped cable TV and cable phone last year. Kept cable internet. Dropped the cable bill by over $120 a month. Don't really watch TV that much. Did this when I got a ROKU TV for Xmas last year. Between Hulu, Netflix, Youtube and Roku have everything I want to watch. Trying Sling right now, it's alright if you watch more TV than I do. Sometimes the TV isn't turned on for more than a week. Getting ready to cancel Sling as I only turned it on as a trial basis when mom when was visiting during the holidays. Didn't really watch it much but does have regular scheduled programs, news and sports. Mainly watch movies on a weekend night. Go to bed kinda early during the week as I'm up at 0500 AM so just mess around on the computer, mainly on our favorite site in the evenings. As for SWMBO, she doesn't watch TV too. She has a computer in her study and watches streaming Korean TV and movies when the grandkids aren't here and has kids stuff for them when they are here. Amazing how much kids stuff, in both English and Korean is on Youtube.

Where I live is slated to get wired for wireless fiber-optic by Verizon in the next couple years. Hope it comes to the outskirts of town that I live in. I have an uncle in KC that has it and he loves it. And he's a retired programmer. Had a door-to-door salesman try to sell me ATT fiber-optic but it isn't run in my neighborhood yet so I passed.

I would cut the ties but I have not found a source for the motorsports coverage I get.

We will get screwed soon enough with sharter because they are shifting their rates to make internet more expensive without cable. Plus this net neutrality going out the window is going to make things a whole lot uglier online for streaming content. Rumor going around for awhile is Sharter wants to team up with Netflix for exclusive streaming. I hope that really does not happen. 

I too, am stuck with sharter.

If you cancel tv like people above suggest, your internet bill will be 65$. Add sling and everything else, and your not really saving much. There's 2 options. Call charter, and when it asks what your calling for, say cancel everything. You get customer retention people, who can offer you deals. 

If that doesn't work, charter considers you a new customer after 30 days. Cancel it all, and resign up as a new customer.

Stefan said:

Buy a Roku box.

install and configure.

download Netflix, Hulu and Prime channels.

sign up for their services.

enjoy streaming and paying less for programs.

install antennae to pick up HD channels for local sports, etc.

Add Roku boxes and antennae to other TV’s

Add channels to your account that interest you, they’ll show up on the boxes.

Yarr, this be a good setup...for a landlubber

(Salty dogs use torrents and Kodi plugins)

I dropped cable almost a year ago and I don’t miss it a bit. I use appleTV with Sling, Netflix, and amazon prime. More than enough for me and it saves me $100 a month compared to when I had cable. The only thing that sucks is that I don’t have any of the local news channels and I’m too far away from Louisville to pick them up with an antenna. Luckily with the internet handy, it’s not that big of a problem. 

Haven't paid for TV since G.W. was in the White House.  Now, with 2 kids, we really don't watch TV.

We have this wonderful company for Internet that rhymes with "Bomfast".  For the past 4 years we've been on this "introductory" plan for basic basic internet that costs us 29.99 per month total (after all taxes, fees, and what have you).  I just speed tested it he other day and it was around 25 Meg down and 5 Meg up.  Plenty fast enough to stream video.  Every year (right about this time, incidentally, so this reminds me to keep an eye out for it) we get a bill that puts us back on the "normal" rate, which is somewhere around 49.99 per month.  I then send a text to our local Bomfast rep, who remembers me, and puts our account back on the introductory rate.  

We recently got a letter stating that Bomfast was working to improve service, yadda yadda, increased costs of doing business, something something, and our rate went up about 4 bucks per month.  Which, after 4 years, I'm not going to quibble at.

If these "introductory" rates ever go away, I may look at just using our mobile devices to tether/ mobile hotspot.  We don't burn through a ton of data and speed isn't a great concern.  

We get good over the air reception, have Uverse internet, subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime, and I just got a FireTV with Kodi installed. More TV than we need.

lnlogauge said:

I too, am stuck with sharter.

If you cancel tv like people above suggest, your internet bill will be 65$. Add sling and everything else, and your not really saving much. There's 2 options. Call charter, and when it asks what your calling for, say cancel everything. You get customer retention people, who can offer you deals. 

If that doesn't work, charter considers you a new customer after 30 days. Cancel it all, and resign up as a new customer.

Realistically with the three services I use I save around 40 dollars a month (including my 30 Mbps connection) so about $480 a year if you use the special pricing. Not a huge chunk of cash but not inconsequential either. It scales up from there if there's no competition in your area to switch back and forth.

The bonus is two fold:

1. I get to laugh as ESPN hemorrhages subscribers.
2. I watch what I want, when I want, without advertising eating up 30% of the show time.

I'm fairly certain #1 is why Disney went on a buying spree purchasing Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. ESPN is still a money printing machine right at the moment but the writing is on the wall as consumers realize they can ditch the forced bundling of ESPN which comprises a significant portion of the cost for cable.

Comcast/Xfinity slave here. Never had true cable TV, we exclusively use streaming services.

I pay $78 for "75 Mbps" and whatever minimum basic channel set they force you to buy. I speed test regularly and it's rarely up to 10 Mbps. Recently got an email saying "Good news! We've increased your internet speed from 75 to 100 Mbps!"

Speed test is still under 10 Mbps. Guess how much their customer service over in India cares?  And threats to switch are empty because the only other option is ATT which is twice as much for "up to" 1.5 Mbps. 

berkeley cable and internet companies. berkeley them all. They should either be public utilities or regulated in a way that allows competitors. It is not free market when you have no competition and you can berkeley over your customers however you see fit. 

The only power I have as a customer is to simply not have internet and entertain myself in ways that don't involve binging on latest Netflix series. Which maybe I should think about. 

Netflix and Prime are good enough for us, although I may create a Hulu account. The girlfriend turns on Sling during football season so we can watch our OSU Cowboys play. 

I pay $80/month for 100mb cable, speed test regularly has it in the 75-85 range. But I need the speed since when I work from home 2-3 days per week, the required VPN dramatically slows things down.

I got a TV with Roku for Christmas and we’ve already got Netflix / Prime so I’m no longer at the total mercy of the cable company which, in my case, sounds like sputum.

The first thing I did after hooking up my new TV was to search for “quantum physics” on Youtube and three hours later I noticed that nothing in my environment had changed except for some shadows making their way across the floor; mesmerizing.

Fascinating reading, considering my day job (and nights / weekends, holidays) is keeping the cable modems alive and kickin' in our little municipality.  I've seen the cable / internet sub count invert in the past three years, even our own people have gone to streaming, and you can point the finger at "The Mouse", Comcast and Fox.  Between ESPN and the OTA retransmission fiscal outrages, they constitute over half of the cable rate.  We're dropping one DC station from our retransmission schedule due to a ridiculous increase in fees.

I hate commercial sports, I LOATHE the networks, my cable box for the most part sits unused and unloved under the 4K monitor, while the cable modem hums along at decent enough speeds 24/7.  I use Amazon Prime, the lady has Netflix, we're good.

Our 100/5 service is $75/mo., no contract.  You want to change it up / down / sideways on speed, knock yourself out.

maschinenbau said:

Comcast/Xfinity slave here. Never had true cable TV, we exclusively use streaming services.

I pay $78 for "75 Mbps" and whatever minimum basic channel set they force you to buy. I speed test regularly and it's rarely up to 10 Mbps. Recently got an email saying "Good news! We've increased your internet speed from 75 to 100 Mbps!"

Speed test is still under 10 Mbps. Guess how much their customer service over in India cares?  And threats to switch are empty because the only other option is ATT which is twice as much for "up to" 1.5 Mbps. 

 

Out of curiosity, do you own your own modem/router or do you rent from them, and how old are those two devices?  You may need a newer cable modem compliant with the DOCSIS 3.0 standard in order to take advantage of your higher speeds.

szeis4cookie said:

maschinenbau said:

Comcast/Xfinity slave here. Never had true cable TV, we exclusively use streaming services.

I pay $78 for "75 Mbps" and whatever minimum basic channel set they force you to buy. I speed test regularly and it's rarely up to 10 Mbps. Recently got an email saying "Good news! We've increased your internet speed from 75 to 100 Mbps!"

Speed test is still under 10 Mbps. Guess how much their customer service over in India cares?  And threats to switch are empty because the only other option is ATT which is twice as much for "up to" 1.5 Mbps. 

 

Out of curiosity, do you own your own modem/router or do you rent from them, and how old are those two devices?  You may need a newer cable modem compliant with the DOCSIS 3.0 standard in order to take advantage of your higher speeds.

What Szeis4cookie said, but realize that not all DOCSIS 3.0 modems are equal.  The earlier modems like the SB6120 are only 4-channel bonding, a current SB6183 does 16-channels in the downstream (towards you, the user), and the 'new hotness', the SB8200, can bond up to 32 channels of DOCSIS 3.0 goodness for over a gigabit/sec of speed inbound.  The SB8200, in the right market, can also latch into the DOCSIS 3.1 spectrum for immediate future-proofing.

Ditched cable about 8 years ago.

Immediately bought an outdoor antenna for OTA broadcast.  It receives all the local San Diego network broadcasts and some from Los Angeles.

I installed a re-purposed desktop computer in my entertainment center and watch Netflix and Amazon through it or our Xbox.

With a VPN I also have many other resources for watching shows and movies, but we won't talk about that on here.