Time Warner Cable charges will exceed my Tipping Point. (Brea: 2014, apartment)

[benshaton]

$200 a month is my tipping point. I live in an apartment in Bay Park, and have a old school non digital TV which requires a converter. I've lived here exactly one year and received a letter from Time Warner Cable that my so called promotional rate of $167.96 a month for the TWC Triple Package plus various charges and fees will convert to a new special offer of $203.45 a month on October 8, 2013 which they say will save me $49.99 a month over the "standard rate" to expire on September 13, 2014 to be raised to god knows how high.

All I really need is high speed internet since I take care of some personal business online such as banking and ordering, a phone, and basic extended cable TV. I don't need most of the channels I have and can get by on just the local stations and some lower tier channels carried on cable such as The Weather Channel and Comedy Central. I'll give up the movie channels, higher tier and on demand channels if I can get gouged significantly less that way as I have to work and have neither the money or time to enjoy premium content that often. I'm online much more than I watch TV anyway. I'm having a difficult time finding relevant information even online to pin down how much I can save by throwing overboard the channels that aren't worth the cost to me.

Is AT&T U-verse any better? Their quoted internet speed doesn't impress me much.

I posted my letter and charges just received from TMC HERE.

[docmcstuffin]

Why not just get Internet through Time Warner, DirecTV for TV, and use your cellphone? If you must have land line, I have Verizon Wireless and they have a home connect that cost $10/month. So, right now, I pay $65 for 30Mb down/5Mb up internet, DirecTV Ultimate for $55 (average over 2 years with referral discounts), since I have whole home DVR, and $10/month through VZW home connect. So, total, I'm paying $130/month for all 3 services.

[earlyretirement]

Why even have a home phone line these days? Just get a Vonage (Vonage | Home Phone Service - Domestic & International Calls, Low Rates) line. I've been happy for Time Warner for Internet. My HOA uses them and it's included with my monthly HOA bill along with my digital cable. This is actually why I prefer this is included with my HOA fee. The rates haven't gone up the past few years because we have the power of 1,000 accounts and I think if they tried raising them too much they would just switch to another company.

Doc's route sounds affordable so I'd try that.

[shmoov_groovzsd]

I have Cox for internet. No problems.

People still use cable for TV?

[SandyCo]

I suggest that you call Time Warner Cable directly, and when the rep tells you that there's nothing they can do, ask to speak to a supervisor. I did this, and my bill went back to down to $140 or $150, something like that. The supervisor can usually find some obscure deal that the lowly rep either doesn't know about or isn't allowed to offer.

[malcorub16]

Originally Posted by shmoov_groovzsd

I have Cox for internet. No problems.

People still use cable for TV?

I can't bring myself to cut Cox Cable even though every month I think about it. I don't enjoy much of the reality TV crap that prevails on channels 25 thru 55 during the weekday evenings.... but there is just something comforting about being able to mindlessly channel surf for 30 minutes to an hour before bed time that I won't get from watching TV on the internet....sounds silly right..?

I do however have no need for a land line. I am part of the 35 and under crowd that never felt the need for one because I haven't had one since I lived with my folks and they paid for it. The exception to actually getting one would be If I worked at home more instead of the office and needed it for teleconferencing or if I had to get a home alarm, I don't see either of these happening soon.

[RD5050]

First thing I would do is dump that old analog TV in the trash (ie use a free recycle center or give it away free on Craigslist) and head over to WalMart or Best Buy.

The prices of LCD and LED flat panel TVs have become so cheap, it makes absolutely no sense to continue using an old tube set.

Next get an indoor or outdoor digital TV antenna, and see if the free digital broadcast channels will suit your needs. I do this now, and I receive the following channels for free in HD stereo digital broadcasts: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, FOX, K-U-S-I and a few additional channels that show old TV shows and old movies.

You can also pay $7.99 for a monthly Netflix account and have it stream TV shows and movies over your internet connection, and play on your LCD TV.

I can not see anyone paying $160 a month or more for a TV / Internet connection, and not investing in a newer flat panel TV set, which would take advantage of all the new advances in TV technology (High Definition picture, use TV as large computer monitor to watch streamed TV shows and movies).

So dump that old tube TV and start shopping for a new flat panel TV. You will be extremely glad you did! And consider mounting it on your wall if your property allows it.

And another thing to consider, is if you sign up for a free Google email account, you can also use Google Talk (a service Google provides) to make free phone calls anywhere in the U.S. and Canada, using your computer and a headset mike. This service allows outgoing calls for free. I believe you can also pay them a small amount to get a phone number that allow you to receive incoming calls as well. I never used the incoming call feature, so I'm not sure what it costs.

[Think4Yourself]

I cut them off when it got to $130 with internet. Now I have a Roku box and digital terrestrial and couldn't be happier especially with the netflix add on which only costs ~$8 per month. That's massive savings and I still get all the live local news, all my shows when they air, plus unlimited movies and shows on demand. It's great.

I honestly expect Roku and boxes like them to kill cable tv eventually.

[bloom]

Is there anyway to view live Padres baseball by these boxes?
What are major downsides of these boxes?

[Pedro2000]

Originally Posted by Think4Yourself

I cut them off when it got to $130 with internet. Now I have a Roku box and digital terrestrial and couldn't be happier especially with the netflix add on which only costs ~$8 per month. That's massive savings and I still get all the live local news, all my shows when they air, plus unlimited movies and shows on demand. It's great.

I honestly expect Roku and boxes like them to kill cable tv eventually.

I'm a cord cutter, but I find comments like this ridiculous. I have an AppleTV, ROku 3, a Chromecast, and so on. I like football so I bought the Madden25 edition so I could get the free sunday ticket on my android tablet or on my apple macbook air and cast it to my smart TV. Sports sucks on the interent. Sometimes it's HD, many times it's not. Or there are delays. OR hell, the first week Directtv had issues, as did TW, so the first games most users got "System is down right now."

And Hulu is owned by Disney, Comcast, etc. Not exactly cutting anything there. I have Amazon Prime and love them, but Amazon is honestly one of those companies who compare to Walmart in how they treat employees. Which isn't good. So how are they better than the Comcasts and TW? And Netflix... Netflix is great for what it is, but without the big companies, netflix would either be forced to charge the same rates or they'd go out of business. Remember they were once a competitor of Blockbuster and Redbox and figured a new way to do things. But they can't spend $100 Million on a original show and still charge $8 a month. That's what people dont' get.

Back to the other theory. You still will pay like 70 bucks or more for internet. Because if you get cheap slow internet, you aren't going to watch much in TV. It'll be to damn slow. And really, I pay for 50GBps internet with TW and most of the time they aren't even giving me 30. And these companies throttle the speed at times. Comcast is known to do that. SO if you are watching some Action Packed HD movie, the quality will eventually suck. It's just the way it is.


And this concept of "cheaper" is kind of a joke. For most of us cord cutters, we wind up spending money on Amazon Prime or Itunes to watch new shows. If you wanted to watch breaking bad, the walking dead coming up, dexter, etc, you were buying it per episode. And at $2.99 or more per show, and say 8-12+ shows, that adds up rather quick. I mean just say you wanted to finish Breaking Bad, otherwise it would be ruined because people talk. It's not just a block twitter thing or facebook thing. So at 2.99 a show, that's close to 24 bucks for one show. Add a couple of other shows to the mix, and suddenly you're closing in on a hundred bucks, plus the internet cost, plus the 7.99 costs.

Another thing is sometimes Hulu plus has season one, Amazon Prime has another season and Netflix has a different season. Add vudu and Redbox Instant and so on to the mix to. Roku is great in searching to see if any of those services are free. It's great in having a ton of apps that give you SkyNews, European news, RT, kid shows, and more. But many of those channel apps on Roku cost money per month. Mostly a rip off, but this concept of "it's so much cheaper" if I cut the cord is a joke. It's more from people who ignore the reality that it's more about when you want to see something compared to price. Because in the long run, adding NFL or any kind of sports cost money (MLB, NBA, NHL networks aren't free), buying Madden25 for 99 bucks wasn't free, etc.

I see how people get confused into thinking you save money, but the truth is, you don't have to spend 200 bucks to get every channel on cable either. People do it so they get all the channels. So if you try and do that as a cord cutter, you're going to spend just as much money. It just goes to the same companies under some other company or a new company who isn't all that different than the old ones. People just think they are.
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