To unplug the cable, or not to unplug the cable, that is the question
Comcast just announced that they’re raising their monthly fee by around 7% starting in January:
The package price will rise by an average of $3.13 per month, or about $44.80 to $47.93. Prices vary depending on the community.
I already pay $49.61 per month (with tax) here in Palo Alto, so the new rate will be around $53 per month. The old rate seems too high for what little we watch in our household, and the new rate is worse.
“Comcast’s Bay Area market prices reflect increasing operating expenses,'’ said spokesman Andrew Johnson, “as well as investments that Comcast is making to improve the value of the service.'’ He cited improvements in customer service as well as more programming choices that have come through advances in technology and partnerships with new programming providers.
We haven’t noticed any service improvements, and had already been thinking about getting rid of the subscription. Last month our cable service went out for most of a week, and it didn’t really change our daily routine at all. Over the long weekend I also made some good progress on moving our DVDs and VHS videos onto the house server, so I had pretty much decided to reallocate something less than $600 per year to purchasing / buying video content and unplug the cable after December.
Another way to think of it is that for the same price, I can subscribe to Netflix, and also purchase 2 or 3 DVDs a month, and still end up ahead.
One sticking point is likely to be Emily’s cartoons on the weekends. Another is that nobody else in our household can get videos to play over the network reliably, which puts a big dent in the convenience factor.
In the meantime, the channel unbundling discussion seems to have come back to life at the FCC, although the a la carte services would probably be even more expensive.
Tags: comcast, media, cable, video, palo alto
