Cable cutters: Who is your ISP?

I'm at that point, finally . . . 

Internet only and a new smart TV would be fine for my needs. Who has a reasonable deal for internet service with no contract required?


Define reasonable. I have Verizon double play. Internet and Fios basic TV. I pay $72 and this includes renting their box and remote. I assumed the basic TV would only have the basic channels 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 and 13. But I have a lot more, plus Fios on Demand  which is nice for when I’ve missed shows. 


FiOS is the most reliable ISP in the area, still. I pay 59.99 a month for 75/75, internet only, but that’s a 2 year contract and not what you want. also we have no idea what you consider reasonable..


Regarding Fios on demand, they charge you to watch many shows from stations that are part of your plan and which you could have recorded free of charge.  


Reasonable is less than $175 without HBO, which is the cost of my Fios triple play bundle now that the contract has expired. The disconnect fee for a new Fios contract of any kind is $350, and given my plans, I'm not willing to risk incurring it. 

Comcast has a no-contract internet/TV deal right now for $50/month with free installation. The savings in a few months would cover the cost of a big smart TV and several annual subscriptions. That's the way I'm leaning.



j_r said:
Reasonable is less than $175 without HBO, which is the cost of my Fios triple play bundle now that the contract has expired. The disconnect fee for a new Fios contract of any kind is $350, a fee that  I'm not willing to risk. 
Comcast has a no-contract internet/TV deal right now for $50/month with free installation. The savings in a few months would cover the cost of a big smart TV and several annual subscriptions. That's the way I'm leaning.

 Then go for it. Nothing would make me go back to comcast, tbh, and I watch a ton of TV through YouTube, and my 10/month amazon prime subscription. I have an ota aerial which is spotty because of my location, but in general there’s nothing on live tv I really need to see.

Does the Comcast deal include set top box and router rental? What upload/download speeds would you get?


Edited to add: apologies for the tone of this post, I’m a little gruff this morning.


bub said:
Regarding Fios on demand, they charge you to watch many shows from stations that are part of your plan and which you could have recorded free of charge.  

I usually see them charge after the episode is 3-4 weeks old so you just have to catch up on missed tv faster. Recording requires a DVR which incurs it’s own charge. Between the very basic Fios, Hulu $6 Prime (free share with sister) and & Netflix $12 I haven’t missed cable at all. 


my experience with getting internet only deals is that the published price doesn't include the modem.  It costs about $200 to buy a modem, or if you rent, it adds about $11-12 to the monthly bill.  We went with the rental, because I've found that we need to get an upgrade every couple of years anyway, so I doubt we'd save much money by buying our own modem.


ElizMcCord said:


bub said:
Regarding Fios on demand, they charge you to watch many shows from stations that are part of your plan and which you could have recorded free of charge.  
I usually see them charge after the episode is 3-4 weeks old so you just have to catch up on missed tv faster. Recording requires a DVR which incurs it’s own charge. Between the very basic Fios, Hulu $6 Prime (free share with sister) and & Netflix $12 I haven’t missed cable at all. 

 Comcast has done this in the past on some programs.  I don't think it's the decision of Comcast or Verizon to charge.  It's the studio or network that owns the program that requires charging the customer to watch.


ml1 said:
my experience with getting internet only deals is that the published price doesn't include the modem.  It costs about $200 to buy a modem, or if you rent, it adds about $11-12 to the monthly bill.  We went with the rental, because I've found that we need to get an upgrade every couple of years anyway, so I doubt we'd save much money by buying our own modem.

 I got an Asus router for $70 from Amazon and it works fine. No need for a separate modem.


ml1 said:
my experience with getting internet only deals is that the published price doesn't include the modem.  It costs about $200 to buy a modem, or if you rent, it adds about $11-12 to the monthly bill.  We went with the rental, because I've found that we need to get an upgrade every couple of years anyway, so I doubt we'd save much money by buying our own modem.

 $200?

My $40 modem works perfectly fine.

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-TC-7610-Download-343Mbps-Certified/dp/B010Q29YF8/ref=sr_1_1


maybe I got bad advice from Verizon, but the specs I was given for a FIOS compatible modem ran about $200.


I also should add that there were modems for less than that, but they didn't include a wireless router.


ml1 said:
maybe I got bad advice from Verizon, but the specs I was given for a FIOS compatible modem ran about $200.

 You don't need a modem at all. i have a router with an ethernet cord plugged directly into my FIOS ONT. That runs both my hardwired computer and all the wifi devices in my (granted pretty small) house. There are a lot of good threads on what to do (including posts about how I did it) on SOMA Lounge if you search for cord cutting. Buy your own router, send their rental back. You don't need it unless you're actually getting cable TV through FIOS.


j_r said:
Reasonable is less than $175 without HBO, which is the cost of my Fios triple play bundle now that the contract has expired. The disconnect fee for a new Fios contract of any kind is $350, and given my plans, I'm not willing to risk incurring it. 
Comcast has a no-contract internet/TV deal right now for $50/month with free installation. The savings in a few months would cover the cost of a big smart TV and several annual subscriptions. That's the way I'm leaning.


 We just did that. Xfinity, about $50 a month. We use a smart tv and also got Netflix free from T-MOBILE. My husband will,subscribe or otherwise figure out how to watch Yankee games' but for now I'm happy saving over $100 a month from FIOS. 


I have a Comcast package and I find their TV platform to be unstable.  Can't tell you how many times it tells me "Unable to connect to the X1 Platform".  Rebooting does not always solve the problem.  It seems to me that they have made some changes to the system that haven't been thoroughly pretested.


It was a LONG time ago that we switched from Comcast to Verizon FIOS for TV.  (We never had Comcast for internet or phone, but we now have Verizon for everything.)  I was SO glad to get away from all of the billing and customer service hassles of Comcast and I never heard anything good from their internet customers about the quality of that service either.  (But that was over ten years ago, so things may have changed.)


Fios comes up short in one category compared to Comcast.  The Comcast user interface/menu for movies and TV shows was excellent.  Fios' is useless.


bub said:
Fios comes up short in one category compared to Comcast.  The Comcast user interface/menu for movies and TV shows was excellent.  Fios' is useless.

 From what I hear, FIOS has far better/faster internet or at least did around the time we switched.  I'll live with a lousy interface before I can live with glitchy internet service.  But it also shouldn't be so hard for Verizon to fix their menu/interface ... I just wouldn't switch services for that reason.


sac said:


bub said:
Fios comes up short in one category compared to Comcast.  The Comcast user interface/menu for movies and TV shows was excellent.  Fios' is useless.
 From what I hear, FIOS has far better/faster internet or at least did around the time we switched.  I'll live with a lousy interface before I can live with glitchy internet service.  But it also shouldn't be so hard for Verizon to fix their menu/interface ... I just wouldn't switch services for that reason.

 I agree. I wouldn't switch because of it. It shouldn't be hard for them to fix it, but it seems to be low on their list. Or they don't understand how bad it is. I notice Verizon also has lousy web pages. Some companies are clueless about user interface design, and Verizon is a champion of that cluelessness. We don't have fios available where we are, and it's too bad, because it is the best consumer ISP I have ever seen.


Reviving this subject (hopefully) as I am gearing up for a change due to the significant creep-up in my Fios triple play bill.  I'm thinking of getting one of the more recent streaming TV packages, like YoutubeTV, and reducing Fios to just internet and phone or just internet alone (we have a landline but I see you can get landline service from Google and others for $10 per month).  Has anyone cut back this way from Fios (or Comcast)?  What kind of prices do thy charge for reduced services?  Can you haggle with them about the 1 or 2 services you keep after cutting TV? 

I already have Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, btw.  Not concerned about losing movies at all.

All thoughts welcome.


bub said:
Reviving this subject (hopefully) as I am gearing up for a change due to the significant creep-up in my Fios triple play bill.  I'm thinking of getting one of the more recent streaming TV packages, like YoutubeTV, and reducing Fios to just internet and phone or just internet alone (we have a landline but I see you can get landline service from Google and others for $10 per month).  Has anyone cut back this way from Fios (or Comcast)?  What kind of prices do thy charge for reduced services?  Can you haggle with them about the 1 or 2 services you keep after cutting TV? 

I already have Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, btw.  Not concerned about losing movies at all.

All thoughts welcome.

I did almost the same thing with Comcast, but at the time I tried it, it was more expensive to cut Comcast back to internet only (those bastards!), so I got the cheapest package available which included cable TV and internet, which happened to include HBO.

I use YouTube TV for pretty much all of my TV viewing now. Can't remember the last time I used Comcast. I haven't even hooked up my cable box - if I watch Comcast at all, I stream it.

Youtube TV also has a cloud based "DVR" which is pretty cool. Super easy to record a show or an entire series. Occasionally a movie that's being shown might not be available for recording, but most seem to be.


ETA: So Comcast costs about $90 and Youtube is another $40.


Thanks.  A lot of the stuff online about this, even articles that purport to be making it "simple", bombard you with terms, including ones about hardware, ISPs, and content, that muddle rather than clarify the picture for me.

 


This subject is ongoing right now in our house. Noticed Verizon bill up to 170 and change for 50/50, phone and TV(no special channels or sports). Two weeks ago got OOMA VOIP phone.  Other than a defective unit intially and a 4 day wait for home phone # re porting, all is well. That cost $98 dollars, porting charge of 39 and $5/month upgrage service to cut down on robo calls and other neat features.  OOMA will also collect about $5 a month for taxes and fees, ie..911 fee. 

Already have Netflix and Prime, so no need for their set top box rental.  BTW the TV service easily adds 15 dollars in extra fees to your bill in addition to set top box.


Called Verizon Friday to ask for best internet only deal. When you call Verizon, at the appropriate prompt, say cancel service.  This is the person you want to say hey,

 "I like verizon, but I don't need or want the other stuff.  I would rather stay for a deal you can give me. I have a quote from Comcast for 39 dollars and 60/60. What can you do?" 

I was told I can get 75/75 for 40 dollars and a 100 dollar Tech visit. Due to problems on their end, they said they cannot go further till Tuesday.  I will let you all know how it goes. Also, I will probably buy my own router. (you are taxed on the monthly router rental every month)


Mountainchef said:
This subject is ongoing right now in our house. Noticed Verizon bill up to 170 and change for 50/50, phone and TV(no special channels or sports). Two weeks ago got OOMA VOIP phone.  Other than a defective unit intially and a 4 day wait for home phone # re porting, all is well. That cost $98 dollars, porting charge of 39 and $5/month upgrage service to cut down on robo calls and other neat features.  OOMA will also collect about $5 a month for taxes and fees, ie..911 fee. 
Already have Netflix and Prime, so no need for their set top box rental.  BTW the TV service easily adds 15 dollars in extra fees to your bill in addition to set top box.


Called Verizon Friday to ask for best internet only deal. When you call Verizon, at the appropriate prompt, say cancel service.  This is the person you want to say hey,
 "I like verizon, but I don't need or want the other stuff.  I would rather stay for a deal you can give me. I have a quote from Comcast for 39 dollars and 60/60. What can you do?" 
I was told I can get 75/75 for 40 dollars and a 100 dollar Tech visit. Due to problems on their end, they said they cannot go further till Tuesday.  I will let you all know how it goes. Also, I will probably buy my own router. (you are taxed on the monthly router rental every month)

 Wait - Comcast said they had internet-only for 40 bucks?  When I called them the cheapest internet only deal was $100+ - or so they said.


do the check online foe comcast. Get past all the TV deals and there it is.


Mountainchef said:
do the check online foe comcast. Get past all the TV deals and there it is.

 I checked xfinity.com and it said there were no internet only offers available in my area.


we had FIOS triple play with a high end tv package (don’t remember exactly which one) and a low internet speed.  when I checked it recently it had crept up to $235 a month. I called and they found same tv/phone and much faster internet with a free year of amazon prime and a free Echo device and it went down to $175 a month. Not great but not terrible considering decent internet alone comes to $100+ a month. Gotta call and check every so often I guess.


I’ll add that we have Spectrum at our FL place and I think the internet is better. GREAT customer service and soooo cheap. Would switch in a minute if it were available here.


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