Totally my cable/internet bill

$180 per month. Per freaking Month!

The product is only electrons. Last thing I knew, electrons were free, as long as they were in a conductor.

Is there any solution?

I have a smart phone, but not enough "g"s at my house.

I feel your pain, if you have comcast, you can call and complain that your bill is too big and instead of removing services, they will typically give you a discounted rate for 6 months, problem is you have to call every 6 months and complain. I think our bill is around 160, we have HD digital prefered or whatever it is. the cheapest cable tv we could get that also had HD channels and it includes high speed internet which we need for our VOIP phones since we have no cell signal at our house.

Get ride of add ons like showtime, DVR if you have them.

DVR is a nice feature but i find most things are on-demand anyways

I have Dish network with the middle of the road (America's Top 200) package with DVR, HD, etc...but no premium channels. We ditched phone service entirely and just get DSL through the local phone company which we run VOIP via an Ooma box through (no monthly fee), so total bill is about $110. I'd love to cut the cord entirely but I like my sports and cable channels (Discovery, History, National Geographic, etc...)

1Mb DSL $24.99/mo. Netflix $16.99/mo. Antenna for OTA TV $0/mo. Your life will be richer for it.

TE

The problem with OTA is that I live too close to PA and too far from NY (there are also some topographical challenges to the east) which causes problems given my sports preferences (Devils and Giants)

The other problem with this game plan (for me at least) is DSL is too slow, specially since we have a air-rave through sprint so our cell phones work in the house.

Its not the cost of electrons, its what's used to organize and convey them.

IMO it's easier to get by without cable than internet.
I've tried dialup but that's torture.

Shop around, every 2 years i switch between the directv/verizon triple play and the comcast triple play. 99/month for 2 years then it spikes up and i switch. Usually get a $150-$300 visa prepaid gift card out of the deal.

Same here, I would have to call Comcast and complain about the price every so often and they'd reorganize the features and I'd save for awhile. Last time, though, I dropped down to limited basic (the lowest package) and returned the HD box. I really don't need all that mindless drivel (and I don't watch sports). I'd probably drop them completely, but i need them for the cable.

Comcast will work with you, call and ask them to go over your plan as you are looking into other providers. I have HBO, Max, Showtime, the digital plus package (not hd, old tvs still) plus internet renting their modem and pay $140 a month with taxes and fees. I mark it on my calendar a month before the year price is up and every year, I make out better. I don't have their phone service because we lose cable too often and I can't be without a landline since I work from home. That is still Verizon as is my blackberry so I can tether to my laptop for internet access when were are out of service.

Get a roku or silmiliar product and stream through hulu, playon or netflicks. This will let you watch every thing on the TV and still control it with a remote. For the local news I hook my laptop up to the TV w/ a hdmi output and watch the shows. After about a month you get the hang of the new controls, and enjoy watching what you want, at whatever time you want.
You only have to pay for internet service which cuts the bill down.

Felt the pain, went for the pain reliever. Canceled satellite TV and DVR service - saved $80/mo. Had 5Mbs DSL, called the phone company, and they offered "up to" 15 Mbs for $10/mo cheaper, plus unlimited long distance (another $10-20/mo cost reduction). Actual DSL moved from 4.5 Mbs to 11+ Mbs. Already had Netflix streaming, added Amazon Prime ($79/yr), have Vudu and Hulu+ available for rentals, lots of free channels (Pandora is fabulous), have a Roku and more channels again than we can watch. Also have OTA TV, get CBS and 6 public stations in HD, also ABC and Fox watchable, no NBC. Life improved greatly. Almost pain free.

I ditched cable a few years ago. Still need internet, but it's only $19.99 a month. I have to laugh when folks around me complain about what they pay for cable/dish. Nobody needs cable TV. It's a 100% luxury item. Just imagine what this country would be like if instead of sitting around the boob tube for X number of hours per week we all actually did STUFF?

You will HAVE to give me the name of your electric company, then I guess maybe if the electrons are just 'laying' there, they are free. If you want them to MOVE, it usually costs some money.

We pay about $85 for internet and something just a step over basic cable. yer getting screwed, dude. I'd gladly ditch the cable if I could get even one TV channel ota. Actually, when we moved in we had no TV for about the first two years. My bedroom is on the second floor, so I could get a fuzzy PBS channel on the little TV up there at bedtime. Going digital didn't fix everything like they claimed it would.

Remember VHS tapes? When they started going bad stuff would get garbled and fuzzy and that really sucked? Do you know what happens when a DVD goes bad? You are lucky if it skips, probably won't play at all. Same is true for Digital vs analog TV. I used to get one pretty fuzzy channel that I could watch shows on, now I get three digital channels that don't show anything except a random frozen picture or usually nothing at all, just a black screen with "poor signal quality" or something to that effect.

Do you have an antenna and amplifier? For under $100, I went from what you describe to virtually perfect OTA DTV reception in all but the strongest winds. I am only 30 miles from the transmitters, but on the wrong side of a hill, surrounded my trees. If you haven't already, check out antennaweb.org or tvfool.com. Both are over-conservative in what they estimate you will be able to receive. One is super-conservative, I forget which.

TE

oh yeah, tried several amplifiers and antenna systems. I have NOT, however, tried one of these type deals (see below), although I suspect it's what i'd need to come even close. My neighbor has one and he said it never worked well for him, they have cable now.
http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.as...ase&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=google_base

I could reduce my life to just "needs," but I choose not to. I don't "need" to heat with wood, I made a conscious choice to. That choice allows me to spend less on oil and more on stuff I don't "need," like satellite service. I'm plenty productive for the 14-15 hours a day I'm at work/home doing the necessary chores. I don't think it's all that extravagant to sit down for two hours at night with a cold one (which I don't "need") and watch a show or two.

Fool is the better one.

But every time I switch, they install new wires rather than use the old ones....I have like 3 sets of comcast cables coming into my house!

Mediacom guy comes out and installs a bunch of lines from here to there with connectors, etc. System starts working poorly out of the blue. Call mediacom, they tell us that something is messed up internally because their services are just peachy keen. Mediacom comes out and the guy complains about our cheap connectors and tells wife not to buy cheap walmart connectors and wires, that's our problem. Proceeds to change out old mediacom connectors for new mediacom connectors. Problems don't get better until a week later they randomly fix themselves. Problems come back another year later. Mediacom guy comes out and complains to wife about us using cheap connectors and cables again. proceeds to replace an entire line and several connectors.

Those guys clearly don't know what the heck they are doing.

I have comcast running my landline. Landline dies. I go check on the (phoneline) modem in the garage. Dripping water. Water has followed the cable through the concrete garage wall, and run downhill to fill the electronic box. Zot. Tech comes out, sees the wet box, asks me if my ceiling is leaking. I say "No, the water ran down the cable you installed, why don't you make the cable a little longer so it makes a 'U' before it gets to the box?'. Guy says, that'll never work, installs a new box and leaves short straight cable. A month later, Zot, and a second box is filled with water. Repeat whole act, second tech leaves with same short straight cable in place. I pull a little extra length, make a 'U' and now we have no problem.

Not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

For those of you guys who live in cable territory, think about satellite service. I've found them to be, if nothing else, much more transparent. When I had considered cable it took arm twisting and cajoling to finally get the sales rep on the phone to tell me what my "introductory rate" would skyrocket to after all of the promotional periods ran out. The Dish folks told me flat out. Also, on day five of the seven day power (and cable outage) after Sandy, my wife was happy to have the Dish as a link to the outside world. I've only had one service outage in the five years I've had it because of snow when we had 2' or whatever it was back in '09. I had to climb up and dig the snow out from around the dish but no problems after that. Never lost service in even the hardest rain either.

I was not trying to say we don't have the right to enjoy all the wants in the world. I would be the last person you would call "minimalist". My point was only the irony of complaining about the cost of such things. You will never hear me complain about the price of beer, the cost of my wood burner nor the countless other toys I have but don't need. When the time came for me to start complaining about the cost of cable - I cancelled it. That's all.

My complaint isn't so much the cost, but rather the "all or nothing" factor. I have about 225 channels. I watch maybe 25 of them, but in order to get the specific 25 that I want I have to order a package of 225.