? for those that have canceled cable and still have internet

[VirataMama4]

I am looking at dropping cable (Comcast), but not sure if its worth it with internet prices so high without the "bundle." Its looking like if we want to keep the same speed internet we have now, its going to run us about $50-60 a month, just for the internet. That is a savings of about $20 a month...

So, who do you use for internet and is it really cheaper?

 

[mommyrosa2]

We dropped Comcast about 5 yrs ago and switched to Verizon. We have a bundle package thru Verizon for our phone, internet and TV (we have Directv billed thru Verizon). We ended up saving about $40/month - Verizon was cheaper for phone and internet than Comcast and we do have high speed internet. We're paying a little more for Directv than we did with Comcast for the cable but we have more premium channels...we've been very happy with the customer service provided by Verizon over Comcast and would never go back to Comcast.

 

[carj]

We dropped cable, sort of and went with internet only for most things. We have super basic cable which is $10 plus tax and internet. We got an intro rate and the total was $55. That was considerably less than we were paying for internet and expanded basic cable. Now, that the intro period is over, we are paying $85 a month and I don't think the savings is worth it. We also have Play On, Hulu and Netflix.

The biggest advantage for us has been that we don't get sucked into new shows all the time. You have to actively look for shows, when one ends, it's over. Nothing is on the screen to entice you to keep watching. There is also so much less advertising. This impacts how much we want to buy new products. Just watching fewer commercials has probably been a savings for us!

It's neat but there are some things that I miss and the savings, for us, have not been worth the added hassle. If you are doing it to save money, then I would say start small with your existing equipment and free services.

To be honest, we will probably switch back to cable at some point. It's not terrible or anything, but cable is better and not much more expensive.

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

We have never had internet thru cable, ours is thru AT&T and for the $20 a month, it is pretty good, but I don't really have anything to compare it to. I like that we can have it without having a phone.

 

[SandrA9810]

AT&T is fairly reasonable with the U-verse internet. You don't need a phone line for U-verse.

 

[ociana]

We dropped cable and our landline phone about 5 years ago. We have comcast and pay $60 a month, but it could be cheaper - our plan includes the speed boost since me, DH, and both my DS are online gamers. We hooked up a digital antenna for local channels, but almost never use it (maybe once a month). All our TV watching is now on Hulu and Netflix, with a few splurges from Amazon on Demand. We really love that we can watch one show at a time from the first episode to the last, know when to expect it to end (instead of cancellation wonders) and watch on our own schedule without paying for DVR. The decrease in commercials and greater control over what we watch has actually made us appreciate good TV shows much more than we used to. There are some amazing shows in the world!

If you REALLY want to go cheap, you can make sure that your cell phone service includes using your phone as a wireless access point, then ditch your home internet entirely. One single cell phone bill can keep you online with that service. I have some friends that rely on this and they love it.

 

[usnuzuloose]

We have internet and phone through AT&T for around 65 a month. We use netflix and hulu. When we had comcast for all 3 it was around 160 a month. so saving a hundred is well worth it.

 

[kerplop]

We had AT&T Uverse cable for a year and finally managed to pull the plug on that, but it was bundled with our internet. If we wanted to keep the DSL but get rid of the cable we had to buy our $99 router/modem and our per month is about $45+ tax for 12mbps download speed. Best deal we can find here.

 

[mrodgers]

It takes me 20 minutes to buffer a 6 minute youtube video at the full screen 480p, I couldn't imagine trying to watch real movies over the internet....

Had basic phone and phone only for $85 and $25 for dial-up until 2006. Finally had broadband available in 2006 and changed to a phone/internet bundle that had call waiting, caller ID, and all the other useless stuff and dSL internet for.... $85. I don't know if it is the ancient computer or the internet now, but it is worse than back then when I was on dial-up. I can't justify upgrading to the next level for an extra $75 just to surf the internet though.

 

[mrudman]

We had AT&T U-Verse for our TV and our internet connection (also had phone through AT&T, but not U-Verse).

We ended up cancelling U-Verse back in February I think, and keeping just the internet portion of it.

At that time, we upgraded the internet, knowing that we'd need a higher speed for streaming Netflix, etc, so we went up to the "Max" level (there's 5 levels total, we are the 3rd one down).

It is costing us $35/month for this, where we were spending approximately $85 for the TV and internet, so savings of about $50/month.

Of course, adding in the $8 for Netflix, we're really only saving $42/month, but it was an easy adjustment for us overall.. I love being able to just go select a show or movie to watch.. and dd's love being able to find new shows to watch, then being able to watch the entire season on their own timeframe (also use Hulu/Play-on/whatever other free things are on our Roku box).

We then proceeded to cut our phone a month or so later, and start using Ooma, so that is saving us another $25/month ($28 phone bill minus about $2.60 in ooma taxes)... and bonus, we get caller ID, which I'd always wanted, but wasn't going to spend another $10/month to get it.

Overall, I'm very happy with the changes we made,

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

We have good old fashioned AT&T, U-verse is not available in our area.

 

[DawnM]

That is something wrong here.

I don't have that problem at all. A Netflix in 720p has no buffering issues here.
Have you run a speed test?

Dawn

It takes me 20 minutes to buffer a 6 minute youtube video at the full screen 480p, I couldn't imagine trying to watch real movies over the internet....

Had basic phone and phone only for $85 and $25 for dial-up until 2006. Finally had broadband available in 2006 and changed to a phone/internet bundle that had call waiting, caller ID, and all the other useless stuff and dSL internet for.... $85. I don't know if it is the ancient computer or the internet now, but it is worse than back then when I was on dial-up. I can't justify upgrading to the next level for an extra $75 just to surf the internet though.

 

[JB2K]

AT&T is fairly reasonable with the U-verse internet. You don't need a phone line for U-verse.

You also don't need a phone line for AT&T DSL (unofficially known as "Naked" DSL), since that was a condition placed on AT&T's merger with BellSouth a couple of years ago...