Replacing cable television

After getting a basic media center set up and doing a trial run for about a week, my wife and I figured that we were ready to make the jump and cancel the cable television service.  Total savings per month comes out to just over $170 per month.

Almost two years ago, we signed up for the "triple play" package, which included high speed internet, phone service (and long distance) and a ton of cable television.  We opted for the phone because it cut back on cell phone minutes and the bundling of services gave us a sweet discount.  The bill was about $125 per month and included two HD DVRs for both of the televisions along with some things like HBO and other movie channels.  After twelve months, the deals expired and there were a few price hikes along the way and our bill had ballooned to almost $230 per month!

I called this morning and was quickly routed to a local account specialist (their voicemail was local anyway), who detailed a few options for reducing the monthly bill.  I went into this call knowing that I could get almost all of the content that I've been watching over the past year with an antenna and the internet, which comes to about $58 per month if I stay with Comcast internet.  The next highest package that the rep offered came to around $90, but didn't add too much in terms of content, just the next set of cable channels.  I believe ESPN is included in this package, but not the HD versions (this has not been verified).  There were several packages that included almost all of the current content for $118-$160 per month, which would still be a savings of around $1200 per year.  

In the end, I decided that it wasn't yet worth it to even pay for the extra channels.  Part of this is because the rep was 45 late in returning a phone call and I was forced to call them back.  Apparently they are extremely busy right now, handing out deals to existing customers.  If you're not ready to try out cable alternatives, at least call your cable provider and try to bring your bill down!