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Cable Cutters.... how do you exactly save money?

themumu said:
If you really can only get ATT and Comcast, then you obviously can only get what they offer :(

There are very few real Internet providers where I live (Toronto, Canada), but because of certain regulations the big providers allow third party resellers to buy their services in bulk and provide them in whatever retail packages they choose. So with a few of such resellers, we can get Internet-only plans that are much more competitive than what the underlying wholesale provider offers to retail customers directly.

Example:

- Bell (large ISP) offers 50/10Mbps (download/upload) service with a 175GB cap for $87 (they offer a $4 discount for bundling it with TV/phone service, for a reduced price of only $83)
- Teksavvy (smaller ISP which resells Bell's services) offers the same speed with a 300GB cap for $55, no bundles required.

But that's on the higher end. Their cheapest service can be had for $44 with Bell for 5/1Mbps and 20GB cap, or $25 with Teksavvy for 7/1Mbps and 75GB cap.

As you can see, it's all about having some competition. Going off tangent a bit, but here in Canada various organizations and companies like Teksavvy fought very hard to make sure Bell and the like are obliged to offer their services at wholesale to enable this competition. Big ISPs received significant government assistance for building out their infrastructure back in the day, and that's how they are made to pay back.
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The thing that I hate about Bell is their varying prices. I just signed up for Bell Fibe internet, which is fiber directly into my house. The speed is 50/50, with the 175GB cap. It's crazy fast. It's $86 or so, but I get a recurring $34 discount, plus the $4 bundle discount, so it works out a lot cheaper. That's great for me, but crappy for everyone else. It should be just one price for everyone.
 
For me I have the Comcast triple play (never use the phone but it ends up being cheaper because I have a ton of HD boxes). Have like every single channel for $120 bucks a months. Split with 3 roommates so pretty cheap.

For my parents who had dish network 54 bucks(no HD but a 50inch samsung LED I got them.....) jumped to $68 and $83 for Internet and phone. Their internet was super fast at 50mbp/s. I didn't mind paying that because It seemed around what I pay in Boston. Then Comcast jumped their internet/phone to $118.

Now I switched everything to mine name
$30 for Performance Internet from Comcast. Suppose to be 20mbp/s tho I have been getting 27-28mbp/s up and around 5-6 down.
$10 bucks and added home phone to my AT&T plan
$30 for HD Dish Network with more channels as I switched it to my name.

Going to be around 80-90 bucks after tax But a huge saving from the close to $200 I was paying for it.

I think the big thing is every year just get someone else to take the billing responsibility and you save a ton of cash.
 
JAT said:
Used my 5 for a couple hours of hotspot yesterday during long car rides. Kids in the backseat actually stop fighting when they can all surf! 10 days into this month and I'm already over 3GB.

Anyway, I'm thinking "hotspot" is a reference to the phone turning into a small heater. Long term, it would not surprise me if using it in this manner shortened the life of the phone. It got real hot in just a few minutes and stayed that way the whole time. This isn't a real deterrent, but it may be worth Applecare with this usage.

Verizon doesn't throttle afaik.


To some comments above, I got in on Tivo's brief "antenna-only" bargain price of $10. It no longer exists for new subscribers, so sorry if people were looking for that after reading my first post. Tivo is really catering to cable customers these days, trying to get them to not switch off cable, but just switch off the crappy cable DVR, the Tivo boxes take cable cards. It is always $15/month now. Which isn't too bad, for a while it was $20.

I also have EyeTV and a couple tuners. Works ok, but I got tired of fighting with their software and teaching everyone to use computers instead of specialty boxes. And trying to figure out how to set up parental security when your "TV" is a computer. If you set up automated conversions like other people discuss, this can be a great method, I just never quite got that far. Also, Tivo is much better at figuring out when TV shows are moved, they update their guide better than TV Guide, which EyeTV partners with.
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Good point on the heat production... Thank you
 
CenturyLink - $50 for 10mb/s
Hulu
Netflix Streaming
OTA HD TV

All told, about $67/month. No phone.

Way cheaper than $90 for directv + $50 for DSL.

Also... I subscribe to Showtime for $12.00 through a friend's Directv service and use Showtime Anytime.
 
Madmic23 said:
The thing that I hate about Bell is their varying prices. I just signed up for Bell Fibe internet, which is fiber directly into my house. The speed is 50/50, with the 175GB cap. It's crazy fast. It's $86 or so, but I get a recurring $34 discount, plus the $4 bundle discount, so it works out a lot cheaper. That's great for me, but crappy for everyone else. It should be just one price for everyone.
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That's why I've ditched Bell Internet and home phone for Teksavvy like 7 years ago. I'm still sticking to an obnoxiously good grandfathered cellphone plan I have with them, but cell phone plan prices are a whole other story.
 
slu said:
That is because it is not true.
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haha he maybe if he splits it with roommates :)

I am going to see if my roommates want to cut cable. We pay $115 for basically all channels and 50mpb/s internet. If we just get internet it will be $50 or 60 bucks. Between 4 of us would be super cheap. We don't really watch tv any way other than game of thrones. Would be even cheaper if we charged our girlfriends who basiclally live with us to use our network.
 
Even better than Ooma - NetTalk. It's like $40ish a year for service (and a year of service is included for free with the device).

Pretty reliable, though not as many features as Ooma. I use it as my fax line mostly for work.
 
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