After talking about it for months we are closing in on ending our cable subscription. For many years we were Time Warner Cable subscribers and took advantage of bundling our cable, phone and internet service. Last year we switched to AT&T UVerse (U200) service in an effort to save money and get more options for our cable box. We did save money and were generally very happy with the new options. AT&T has been great and we have had no real complaints (a minority view these days, maybe). In any event, the services were not the problem.
The problem was the price and priority we were placing on television. We like to think that we don't spend inordinate time watching TV. We limit ourselves to about 90-120 minutes and our kids to about 60-90 minutes per day. We watch about 15 channels with any regularity. The kids watch about 10. The convenience of switching on the box, even with a time-shifting DVR, is inescapable. I think the main reason for keeping it all to this point was the kids and the ease with which they could be entertained.
Entertainment costs a ton. Our current monthly bill is $160. I don't think that I need to justify my horror.
Breaking It Down
It's all bundled so it gets a little complicated, here is a more straightforward version of my normally incomprehensible billing statement.
$67/cable
$33/phone
$25/internet (18Mb connex) Normally $55 for internet (- $30 promo credit for 12 months)
$18/non-monthly charges (taxes and fees)
$17/additional charges (wtf?)
Another way of looking at it:
$160/month
$5/day
$1,920.00/year 2010
$2,280.00/year 2011 In 2011, we lose the $30/mo. Internet promo credit
Our Goals
For us, that is way too much to be spending on a system that offers us too few price points on content packages: We have 200 channels of which we watch 15 to 30. Spendy overkill for the convenience of a cable box and DVR. That's gotta go. Savings ~$804/year
Historically, we kept a "land line" for Susan's benefit, but I think we have turned the corner on that one with a new iPhone 3GS for her. So, the AT&T Phone is going as well. Savings ~$396/year
Reducing the Internet portion is a non-starter: we have an internet business, we play games, we surf all the time and have a computer in every room. 12-18Mb is probably just fine for our media needs, but we might need to move to a 24-30Mb connex in the future. Savings ~$0/year
So...cable pricing sucks and the content packages are overdelivered with stuff that we will never watch. The "land line" is really just a voip phone that is delivered over the internet connection anyway. What are we planning to do?
- Replace Cable with internet delivered content: Netflix, Hulu, PlayOn and content websites.
- Reduce our monthly AT&T bill to $55/mo. + charges for internet
- Replace AT&T land line with a pair of smart phones that offer better service and the ability to access the content on Netflix, Hulu, etc.
- Add a new iPhone (~$99 one-time) and data plan ($20/mo.)
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2 comments:
Danny, are you getting a new TV that's Internet ready or, how are you getting to hulu etc. without a computer? Or do you have a computer in your room(s) with the TVs? We have 3 TVs and I would love to do this too, but we only have 1 Wii for the Netflix streaming.
No. I have a Sony KDS-50A2000 TV for HD and a Sony Wega 480p TV for SD.
For SD we are using a Wii for Netflix streaming.
Using a wired Gb network and a computer in my office in conjunction with a PS/3 for the HD streaming. Gonna thread HULU, Netflix and other content through the PS3 media server. Will also have access to my media library on a NAS or desktop HD running through the PS/3
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