Cable cutters -- how do you get internet?

[ShrinkDoc]

I'm not a big TV watcher...mostly watch TiVo'd recordings of shows I enjoy. Sometimes the TV stays off for days/weeks.

As costs keep skyrocketing, I'm thinking of cutting cable. But I'm wondering what to do about internet, which I use heavily?

As we have others here who have successfully cut their cable...how did you handle it? Are you on long-term contracts for internet service? And for TV -- what are you doing... hulu, Netflix, antenna (OTA) or what?

Antenna OTA saves us $90 per month - Spectrum. We still have internet at 300 plus mbps.......Our bill WAS 190 something........We get the 3 ABC, NBC, CBS and we're good. Oh we also have a Firestick, (jailbroke...ooops)

 

[Chuckanut]

Here's a reason I don't want to sign up with cable. Today I get an offer for a 12 month deal - $40 for Internet and TV - when I bundle with a one year agreement. In big bold letters Internet and TV $40.

Then I read the very small type on the back of the letter. (bold emphasis mine)

Equipment, installation, taxes and fees, including Broadcast TV Fee (up to $8.00 a month), Regional Sports Fee (up to $6.50/mo) and other applicable charges extra and subject to change during and after the promo.

There is a penalty (not specified) if I cancel early.

Sorry, no deal.

 

[pb4uski]

...As costs keep skyrocketing, I'm thinking of cutting cable. But I'm wondering what to do about internet, which I use heavily? ...

While we haven't cut cable... actually satellite in our case, we do get internet separately and have for years. We get DSL... not real speedy... 10 mbps IIRC but plenty fast for our needs and we do some streaming... ~$64/month currently... was $50/month when we first started using it about 10 years ago.

Another option for us would be Spectrum internet only. I just bought for my mom. $30/month for 12 month promotional period then $65/month but much better speed.... I'm considering switching.

in any event, overdue to squeeze them for a better rate.

 

[indiajust]

Keep in mind, some of the cable costs are disguised city taxes that promote the monopoly and prevent competition. You have to look in the city/town budget and hunt for revenue. Then divide by town population (or total customer count to be even more accurate) to figure out how much is really just taxes.


Very few cities actually allow competition in services. I have shared internet access via wifi with neighbors in the past.

 

[Katsmeow]

With moving to our new house for the first time we have neither cable nor satellite TV. We have signed up for Directv Now for 3 months.

Anyway -- for Internet we have Frontier Fios for $40 a month (plus taxes/fees -- haven't gotten first bill yet so don't know what that will be like). It is 100/100 service. We considered the 150/150 service for $50 a month and could upgrade if we decide it is necessary.

When we moved into this house we couldn't get the Fios service installed for several days so had no internet. What I did in the meantime was use my iPhone as a Hotspot. I was actually pleasantly surprised that it was quite usable and didn't use a lot of bandwidth. I get 15 GB a month before it slows me down (well, 30 with my iPad). As long as I didn't stream video or music I found that web surfing and email really didn't use up all that much.

My daughter who is on a tight budget only has her cell phone for Internet. She uses it as a Hotspot for her notebook and can exceed the 15 GB. She also uses enough internet on her phone that she can get slowed down. Still, she finds it adequate for her needs. As I say - as long as I fit with the 15 GB hotspot budget I found that general web surfing was just fine.

 

[Chuckanut]

Anyway -- for Internet we have Frontier Fios for $40 a month (plus taxes/fees -- haven't gotten first bill yet so don't know what that will be like). It is 100/100 service. We considered the 150/150 service for $50 a month and could upgrade if we decide it is necessary.

.

Not a bad deal on FIOS. Was it one of those offers only available to new subscribers?

 

[cbslc]

Promo kills cutting

I work from home so I need good internets. Xcrapity forces me to bundle to get a good deal. So I have basic cable and 60MBPs internet for $65/mo. I hookup the crappy cable to my AV1 and have my normal OTA antenna in my coax input. So I get 1080 broadcast and 720 crappy cable by switching to AV1. I tried cable cutting, but it would have actually been more expensive. I've hijacked all the coax (-2, 1 for modem, 1 for box to AV1) through the house for my OTA antanna. I hate cable companies!

 

[ncbill]

I'm not a big TV watcher...mostly watch TiVo'd recordings of shows I enjoy. Sometimes the TV stays off for days/weeks.

As costs keep skyrocketing, I'm thinking of cutting cable. But I'm wondering what to do about internet, which I use heavily?

As we have others here who have successfully cut their cable...how did you handle it? Are you on long-term contracts for internet service? And for TV -- what are you doing... hulu, Netflix, antenna (OTA) or what?

Antenna OTA saves us $90 per month - Spectrum. We still have internet at 300 plus mbps.......Our bill WAS 190 something........We get the 3 ABC, NBC, CBS and we're good. Oh we also have a Firestick, (jailbroke...ooops)

Here "up to" 200MBps internet from Spectrum is $60/month regular price, no contracts.

No taxes/fees on broadband, & this is a former TWC area, so I had already bought my own cable modem.

 

[jkrm]

I'm not a big TV watcher...mostly watch TiVo'd recordings of shows I enjoy. Sometimes the TV stays off for days/weeks.

As costs keep skyrocketing, I'm thinking of cutting cable. But I'm wondering what to do about internet, which I use heavily?

As we have others here who have successfully cut their cable...how did you handle it? Are you on long-term contracts for internet service? And for TV -- what are you doing... hulu, Netflix, antenna (OTA) or what?

Anything I should be on the lookout for?

Also, I am a snowbird effectively each location for ~ 6 months. The FL condo fees include basic Comcast cable, so this question applies to my northern location only.

omni

We don't watch TV much either, but were paying around $100 a month (TV portion of the bill) to Cox Communications - and some months the TV wasn't even turned on! We went with YouTube TV for $35 per month (they recently raised the price to $40 for new subscribers, but we still get it at $35). There is no contract - if we get into a TV lull we can cancel the service and restart it any time we want.

When I called Cox to cancel the TV they said the cost of my Internet would go up since I no longer had a bundle. But I just dropped the connection speed to get the cost back down. Still too expensive at $65 per month for (I think) 30 Mbps download, but the total per month for internet and TV is now about $100 - same as I was paying for TV alone before. Don't let anyone try to convince you that you need a fast internet connection for TV - see this for example: https://clark.com/technology/tvsatellite-cable/live-tv-streaming-speedtest-internet-download-speeds/