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Cable vs. Internet

Matt8

All? No, ALL!
NLC
About this time every month, I curse my self for living without a roommate because the stupid bills come rolling in.

Sure, I have my rent, my electric which can't be avoided. Then my cable/internet bill.

I pay approx 40 a month for internet and 60 for cable TV. Now, really that is a deal. Because of a "hook-up" I have with someone who works for my cable company, I am getting employee discounts and that 60 includes every channel. Every HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc. movie channels, all sport channels, all local, even in HD. I also get an HD DVR included in the package.

Its great, except for one thing. I don't watch TV.

Okay, I do, but very little. I watch The Office and Scrubs every episode. Past that, it does little for me but an hour here and there.
Except hockey season, where I like to watch hockey, of course.
Now, I also pay for a netflix subscription, which is great. I love movies and watch DVDs pretty often.

Is it possible to get rid of cable and survive on online downloading (yes, I realize the legality of that is gray at best but a lot of these you can watch online, for legal and free) and just netflix it like crazy? Do any of you do this same thing? Help me FWSers
 
I watch tv sometimes. You could though if you are downloading the episodes, just bring your computer to your tv area and hook it up there so it's like watching TV.

The only downside would be that you always have to wait to get the episode.
 
Internet for sure.

TV is just force fed BS. Id rather pick what i want to watch and when :D
 
I hate the cable company here so I got rid of it a long time ago. We (the wife and I) have little problem watching local over the air channels and going online for what ever else we need. There is a ton of free streaming movie and tv stations out there and just about every network lets you watch past episodes i.e. abc.com - so yeah, it can be done.
 
I'm the same as you, that's why I don't bother buying something like Sky, though I do miss my Kerrang. Then again, you can always just get an TV card in your PC, with no extra fees.
 
I don't really watch much TV since I'm either on the PC or playing on the Xbox... When I do watch TV I have freeview which has quite a few decent TV channels and most UK radio stations.

If you don't really watch much TV like me then it's possibly just a waste of money keeping the cable subscription and you could survive downloading or watching online if your connection is fast enough.

Have you heard of Zattoo? It lets you watch some channels that are broadcast for free - online.
 
I never watch TV on the actual box nowadays, literally everything (at least in the UK) is available online directly after or even during - Zattoo like John says. And of course there's the huge backcatalogue that is the 'pirate' scene.
 
Go with internet - you can go to ABC.com, Fox.com, etc, and watch your favorite TV shows right there, perfectly legally. You could also upgrade netflix to 2 DVDs out at once, and have one movie and one tv series DVD with you at all times ;)
 
I am a big advocate of scrapping Cable and Sat service for internet instead. Most network TV shows are free on the networks site anyway (like The Office for example, which you can watch on NBC.com for FREE).

For TV shows that aren't on that list, you can always turn to iTunes and buy them at $1.99 per episode. Sounds like a lot, but if you only watch maybe 5-7 episodes a month (when the new ones come out and maybe a rerun or two) you are only paying ~$14.

If you consider you are paying $60 for cable TV now, that's 30 episodes of various TV shows you can get (or a little less if you combine it with some iTunes movie rentals). If you hardly watch TV, it sounds like 30 is going to be far more than necessary anyway.

The TV shows you would get this way online would be better anyway, because they would be commercial-free and in perfect quality. And unlike with cable, you would be able to watch them anytime you wanted and watch them over and over if you want.

It's like having a TiVo/DVR and Cable all rolled into one, and on a pay as you go basis.

And with Media Center extenders or Apple TV you can also watch them on your TV.

If you do go the illegal route, obviously your "cost" is cheaper in the short run, but in the long run your cost is greater in terms of having virus and spyware issues, things slowing down, etc. Not to mention the legal/moral aspect.

But yeah, I say ditch cable by all means. Go with iTunes or a competing service + Network TV websites or another service. It makes fiscal sense.
 
Go with Cable Internet, DSL is no good, but if you don't watch a lot of TV, you can download them off iTunes or what not.

Stay with DSL, cable is expensive and shared between you and your neighbors. I dunno about you, but I like my internet to be MINE. If I have a download-crazy neighbor, like everyone I know with cable, I'd be screwed. Now I only worry about what I download.


Ditch the cable, keep the internet.
 
It all depends on your area. If you are in an area with fast DSL (like 6mbps or better) by all means stick with that.

I was in an area where DSL was 768kbps down and 384kbps up. It was pretty bad. My peak speed was 80KB/sec.

With Cable, granted its a shared line with my neighbors, but I regularly get speeds of 950kb/sec and my peak speed is around 2MB/sec. So despite being a shared line its a heck of a lot faster than DSL ever was for me.

So its all relative. I would ask around some neighbors who are likely to be on the same node. Also examine the neighborhood. If you have mostly old people living in yours like me, who don't use computers, you'll probably have the whole node to yourself and get great speeds any time of day.
 
If you have mostly old people living in yours like me, who don't use computers, you'll probably have the whole node to yourself and get great speeds any time of day.

Now I wish I had all old people down my street, I would just run and get cable.
 
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