In the future I will not use cable. Why? Because I hate the tactics used by the cable companies. Not only that, but the price is outrageous. $150 a month for TV (w/ 500 or so channels full of ads) and a 5 download / 2 upload internet connection? Rip-off.
In the future I will only pay 1/3rd of the price. How will I manage that? Well, it’s really a simple plan actually.
Watching TV is basically dead for me. I have subscribed to various news aggregators for my daily news, as well as podcasts. So I could do without TV altogether. However, my local news stations are still important. Therefore I will be switching to… wait for it… rabbit ears! Or, more appropriately known as an antennae. Now, yes in 2009 analog connection for these antennae will be gone, however there is still a digital antennae you can buy, which is what I will buy.
So, why an antennae. Well, you get FREE TV signals from it, as well as FREE HDTV versions of those stations. Yeah, the keyword is free. You might not get many channels with it, but you do get the core channels for your local area. Plus since I live in hurricane-prone Florida, I don’t have to worry about the TV cutting out due to the cable-lines being down. All I’d have to worry about is power, in which I do have a generator to deal with that.
Well, that takes care of TV. What about the internet? Simple: Verizon’s FiOS internet service. For $47.99 a month I can get 10 download and 2 upload. Slightly better than my current plan. For only $10 more though, I can get a 20/5 connection. By far superior to any Cable internet plan out there, and without the crap companies like Comcast do to its users.
So screw cable, hello HD Antennae and FiOS!
