Soundoff on Cable/Internet

Sorry for another non-surfing thread ladies and gents, but this is not advice on brain surgery, but rather just checking in with yall about who is getting a deal on internet/cable.

Backstory: I use Time Warner here. We have another local company (Hargray), then there is dish and direct TV.... I see commericials every day for TW talking about these crazy bunbdles for $79.99 and all this. I have a landline phone, 2 DVR HD boxes and 15MB internet. For that, I am paying like $200 or so a month. Seems WAY to high to me. Wife handles the bills, but I was looking at it the other day, like damn!

So, The local company just quoted for $125 a month for the same thing, but its with the lowest high speed internet, 5MB and they said that the internet is $60.00 of it. I don't need HBO and all that, as I usually just download all that anyway....

Guess my question is. I am sure there are a few heads on here that use dish or Direct TV.... If so, how much are yall paying and who do you get internet through? Because Dish and Direct don't do internet?

I am not ready to scrap cable and go all streaming, although I know many people that do. I need standard cable (espn and all that)....

Whats the deal? I mean, with such basic needs, I would think I could accomplish this for like $100 a month. I would even scrap the useless landline phone. I don't even know the number.

 

Haha. Seriously though, I use pirate bay for most of it, but Time Warner is one of the few lame companies that has monitors on their services. I got a nice little message from them a couple months ago.

My think is this. I use the internet for news etc, but every night, I am watching sports. And finding good live streams on sports is no good. Ever stream torrent and acestream through wiziwig is hit or miss on quality. Always about 2 minute delay....

So, like I said, I need only the basics in cable. My daughter watches a few nick jr shows each day, so there is that too.

But I think I can get a good deal on direct tv. But its the net now. $60.00 for high speed internet is ridiculous and Time Warner runs all these ads for $14.99 and $19.99 stand alone internet. So, I could go direct tv and then scrap the rest of their services.

 

If TW is in your area, they keep running ads for $19.99 a month internet, stand alone. Period.

 

Dang, Dish network is asking me for my life story right now.

 

I already hate dish. This d-bag sales guy is trying to get me to commit. I said, thanks for the quote homes. But you are lacking in you understanding of the consumer here.

 

Well, I made a lot of calls yesterday and did some of the online chats with the customer service people. To start with, the other local cable company, hargray basically offered me the same package I get now for about $125 per year (first 12 months) then it goes up $30.00....

I called Dish. They are as$clowns. Did the chat, told him "I WANT A QUOTE"... So, he ran the numbers, ran my credit, took forever, got me a good package with the hopper and 4 HD tv hookups. It was like $103 or something, but then the internet pricing brought it up to like $160.00 and the guy just woulnd't shut up. "Lets seal the deal"... Give me your CC # and lets lock this in. yada yada. I gave him a little "speech" at the end about being a consumer and ended the chat... I did not like there business model at all. But the price was not bad I suppose, aside from internet....

So, DirectTV is the only company I have not talked to directly. I will call them today, because if their online shopping cart is correct, they may be the call for sure.

So, my final call was to Time Warner. I spoke with customer care. They works on some things, and took my bill down from $201.00 per month to $153.00 per month and upgraded my internet speeds to 5-MBPS. They said there is no commitment and if I want to jump ship, the new price won't affect it, so I took that deal but told them I am still shopping around. Even if I stay, I will probably make that call one more time to see if they can knock it down $20.

Ill keep you posted.

 

If I was in a different time, I would agree with you. I would not have needed/wanted at TV for my entire 20s, as the TV was primarily used for surf videos and the occasional football game.

I am not stuck to the TV all the time by any means, but I put my daughter to bed every night at 8:00 on the dot, and it's not like the wife and I can go out and do much at that point. We will sit, talk for a bit, have some wine, dinner and all that, but like I said, I need to feed my sports addiction. Yes, I can "stream" live games, but they are poor quality and always on a bad delay. My daughter watches a few shows on NickJR everyday.

I am just not quite to the point of writing it all off.

What I will say, is that in 5 years, cable and satellite as we know it are going to be almost obsolete. Cable will be like landline home phones. Yeah, a few people have it, but almost no one needs it. And I can't wait for those days.

There should be a much more simplistic approach to all this. One master network intake box in the home, stream live wifi feeds to any TV or device in your home. In this utopian world I have in my mind, the cost of this would max out at about $50.00 per month. Everything can be accomplished over the internet and a little wifi.