cable or not?

[kingroot]

How many on here have cable? We're debating it. My DH is lusting for it again with football season on. He didn't have it last year and we had a lot of trouble getting games with the antenna. We have that flat antenna. Unfortunately we're stuck with only comcast for internet we have no other choices. So our internet special only price is $69/month for a year.

Before where we lived we had local channels and a box for a deal of $5 more than FIOS internet so it was worth it to us. He wanted super fast internet and it was ridiculous to add the box we had it free and the package deal was $5 more.

I'm not sure what they will offer us now. What do most people have? No cable and just internet? Is it cheap? Realize we can't switch. We had to have comcast come out special to install internet when we moved in. Previous tenants didn't have internet. We've called and asked everywhere and it's just not available.

I am using a high-speed internet connection from Acanac(we are using a high-speed Cable internet). Now we can watch tv and use the internet on the same device. Now we are planning to buy a new android smart TV. So that we can directly connect our TV to the internet

[kingroot]

If you really need to watch TV shows and use the internet at low cost I recommend you for a high-speed cable internet. You can do both things through this connection

[LivingAlmostLarge]

We've found we only get one channel with our antenna. That's the problem. Even the regular channels we get ABC not NBC or FOX or CBS. UGGH.

[bennkar]

I can get 8 channels (and another 20 subchannels) over the air (only NBC doesn't work - don't know why). Other than an occasional football game on Sundays I don't even turn the TV on. I have been without cable since.... sheesh lets think... 1990 I believe. Wow, how much would I have spent? Lets guess $75 / mo. for 25 years ==> 25 * 12 * 75 = $22,500. Assuming that money got invested over the years, maybe another 50% in value (hopefully more). And then there is lack of desire to buy crap, and how much that saved me. Add it all up, and it may have added a year or two worth of living expenses to my retirement accounts by not having TV.

I used to love watching football. Now its like I have detoxed, and some weekends I don't even watch it at all. Same for baseball. If you really want to, you can live without.

[GoodSteward]

I can get 8 channels (and another 20 subchannels) over the air (only NBC doesn't work - don't know why). Other than an occasional football game on Sundays I don't even turn the TV on. I have been without cable since.... sheesh lets think... 1990 I believe. Wow, how much would I have spent? Lets guess $75 / mo. for 25 years ==> 25 * 12 * 75 = $22,500. Assuming that money got invested over the years, maybe another 50% in value (hopefully more). And then there is lack of desire to buy crap, and how much that saved me. Add it all up, and it may have added a year or two worth of living expenses to my retirement accounts by not having TV.

I used to love watching football. Now its like I have detoxed, and some weekends I don't even watch it at all. Same for baseball. If you really want to, you can live without.

That's a good point to make about saving money. It's amazing to see how much you would spend on it over decades. Since I had to do without for a while years ago I can't stomach the price anymore. Plenty to keep me busy.

As a side note, I could care less about watching some guys run around throwing a ball making ridiculous incomes. I am not against the sport, just what Americans have done to it. I think America's obsession with sports is embarrassing. People gladly spend thousands to support people that could care less about them, but "can't afford" to save for retirement. SMH..sorry I'm off my box now.

[HundredK]

We have cable but don't use it (very rarely anyway). It was cheaper to get a package with cable included to get the internet speed that we need for work stuff. If we were to buy just internet at that speed it would cost us $50 a month more than it does currently. It's a pain in the neck with Comcast though because you have to keep on them every two years when your promo rate expires to make them extend it. It's do-able, but a total PITA.

[GoodSteward]

We have cable but don't use it (very rarely anyway). It was cheaper to get a package with cable included to get the internet speed that we need for work stuff. If we were to buy just internet at that speed it would cost us $50 a month more than it does currently. It's a pain in the neck with Comcast though because you have to keep on them every two years when your promo rate expires to make them extend it. It's do-able, but a total PITA.

I guess they do that because so many are dropping the cable side, so they are losing the viewer base for advertisements, therefore losing advertisements. I still think it's stupid and I'm glad to have a locally based internet company. I had ATT, but they are terrible. Charing me 48$ a month for internet that was only 1.5mb(fastest I could get where I live at the time). That is very slow by today's standards. You can't even watch HD with that(that's some of that 1st world stuff I was talking about sv2007 ). Our local cable company has a monopoly, so no other cable can come in to reduce the price with competition. They also have terrible prices and speeds compared to comcast and other companies. I imagine our internet prices will keep going up since we are moving away from satalite/cable and going streaming only.

[HundredK]

... 48$ a month for internet that was only 1.5mb(fastest I could get where I live at the time). That is very slow by today's standards.

That is BRUTAL!

[bennkar]

I can get 8 channels (and another 20 subchannels) over the air (only NBC doesn't work - don't know why). Other than an occasional football game on Sundays I don't even turn the TV on.

I used to love watching football. Now its like I have detoxed, and some weekends I don't even watch it at all. Same for baseball. If you really want to, you can live without.

You know, I noticed my picture is a football logo, and the irony hit me hard. Still root for the team, just don't pay the money for the privilege I guess.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Ended up with cable $99 for internet and cable bundle. Comcast refused to continue to give us a deal on internet. $82 for internet only. I hate them. And yes we did not have fast internet but our other choice was nothing. So they allowed us to have them or no one.

[JoeP]

To be honest, TV has become a chore for me. Commercials are annoying and way too frequent, what passes for "media" these days is insulting to my intelligence, sports has gotten way too commercial for my tastes, reality shows bore me to death, and the rest is a tired mess of recycled sitcoms with predictable quirky characters with cheap laughs.

And that's what we get on the antenna! Paying for more of the same on steroids just doesn't compute.

We are perfectly content with old reruns on sub-channels and Netflix for original programming and a wide variety of movies and series we love.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I'm still angry at comcast. It's lovely for them when they are the only internet providers. They can charge whatever they want and if you want internet at home you do it. Arrgh.

[sv2007]

I'm still angry at comcast. It's lovely for them when they are the only internet providers. They can charge whatever they want and if you want internet at home you do it. Arrgh.

There's 4G LTE, which is pretty reasonable in price these days and available almost everywhere. I don't know why, but ATT stopped adding new DSL customers here (stopped adding new DSL ports) but in other markets, they may have free ports.

Prior to Comcast, I used Sprint's WiMax for 3 years. It was $70/mo, unlimited 4G (3-5Gbps downstream; 2-400kbps up), and pretty low latency. Then I switched to Clear at $55/mo for the exact same for a year until Sprint decommissioned their WiMax network.

I'm currently testing T-mobile's 4G mobile Wifi hotspot (will be switching my parents over, as they travel between here and Las Vegas). Speed is pretty good at 4-6Gbps down and 300kbps up. It is only $35/mo for 6GB of 4G and unlimited 2G speed. Perfect for them (actually might even be perfect for me.)

But we aren't big internet users (we don't watch youtube or anything, my VM that I use for internet doesn't even have sound : )

[LivingAlmostLarge]

We use a ton I think I posted 200 GB a month or more. Lots of streaming without cable. I'm just annoyed that we have no choice.

[GoodSteward]

There's 4G LTE, which is pretty reasonable in price these days and available almost everywhere. I don't know why, but ATT stopped adding new DSL customers here (stopped adding new DSL ports) but in other markets, they may have free ports.

Prior to Comcast, I used Sprint's WiMax for 3 years. It was $70/mo, unlimited 4G (3-5Gbps downstream; 2-400kbps up), and pretty low latency. Then I switched to Clear at $55/mo for the exact same for a year until Sprint decommissioned their WiMax network.

I'm currently testing T-mobile's 4G mobile Wifi hotspot (will be switching my parents over, as they travel between here and Las Vegas). Speed is pretty good at 4-6Gbps down and 300kbps up. It is only $35/mo for 6GB of 4G and unlimited 2G speed. Perfect for them (actually might even be perfect for me.)

But we aren't big internet users (we don't watch youtube or anything, my VM that I use for internet doesn't even have sound : )

Unlimited LTE is making it's way back around to most carriers as an option, so I would think eventually home use might work as well. I know the internet company I switched to is actually testing equipment to upgrade to an LTE based system to offer their home internet customers that are too far or have interfereance with their normal radio frequcy people (like me). I'm direct line of sight to the tower so I'm getting better pings than DSL gave me.

As for ATT Dropping DSL slots, it's because they have used up the copper system to the point they have overloaded it. I had 6mb dsl when I moved here in 2009, dropped it to 756k dsl trying to save money but realized that was terrible and couldn't even hardly stream SD netflix, so I tried to go back but no slots. They gave me 1.5mb, then I finally got into a 3mb slot. Around a year ago I got a letter stating they were decreasing me to 1.5 because they couldn't support the speed. That made me furious. Finally a new company doing wireless internet came in and I switched to them. Now I can no longer get DSL. I hope this new company stays around! I was paying 48$ for 1.5mb DSL. Now I pay 60$ for 10-30mb (I'm helping test and monitor the system so they leave me unthrottled ) The best I've seen is around 40mb down and 40mb Up. Normal is about 25/25. Technically I'm not paying for it since I get a reimbursement check for it through work once a year but ehh...comes out of my pocket monthly.