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Is TV Over the 'Net Really Cheaper Than Cable?

Posted by Soulskill on from the depends-on-your-morals dept.

jfruh writes "More and more people are joining the ranks of 'cord-cutters' — those who cancel their cable TV subscriptions and get their televisied entertainment either for free over the airwaves or over the Internet. But, assuming you're going to do things legally, is this really a cheaper option? It depends on what you watch. Brian Proffitt contemplated this move, and he walks you through the calculations he made to figure out the prices of cutting the cord. He weighed the costs of various a la carte and all-you-can-eat Internet streaming services, and took into account the fact that Internet service on its own is often pricier than it would be if bundled with cable TV."

9 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. Quality and quantity by jmorris42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lets do the math. The most my ISP (Suddenlink) will sell is 250GB/mo at up to 15mbps. Put two TVs in a home, that is pretty minimal these days. So you can't expect to stream more than six or seven Mb/s and have any hope of keeping a second set going. Now an hour of HD programming on my MythTV system scarfs down GB/hr when recording HD and perhaps one GB/hr for standard def.

    Add it up and if you stream you are going to settle for a lot lower quality and still be watching the bandwidth counter the last part of the month. The bandwidth caps ended cord cutting as a viable tactic for any home where the TV runs a lot, i.e. children are involved.

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    Democrat delenda est
    1. Re:Quality and quantity by cpu6502 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If children are involved, you can stream as low as 300 kbit/s (like I do) and they won't care. That's about equal to VHS or youtube-360p in quality.

      I watch about 2 hours a day... 8 on weekends. So that's 16+2*5 == 26 per week or 111 for the month. 250GB/111 hours == 5 Mbit/s. Most streams don't come anywhere near that amount so I'd not worry about going over the limit. And just to be sure I'd watch everything in SD (which is what comcast cable serves anyway).

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    2. Re:Quality and quantity by icebike · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I feel pretty much the same about movies.
      So, you watch what you want, and I'll ask for no explanations from you, an provide none of my own.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  2. I'm sure about one thing... by grumpyman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...OTA is cheaper than cable and that's all I need.

  3. Providers aren't dummies by biometrizilla · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can be assured that there are people within the cable and satellite TV providers that run this math to help them set their pricing. If you have cable the satellite promo pricing always looks better until you start to match it box by box and channel by channel. Same goes for satellite users that look into switching to cable. Every time I do the math it's so close it's not worth the trouble. Unless you are willing to give up content expect to pay about the same no matter what path you take. The only true break in costs can't come until governments stop enabling collusion. Same story applies to cell phones.

  4. My story.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I used to pay just over $100 for Internet and Digital Cable - 90% of which I never watched.

    I now pay $54 for internet, $8 for netflix, $8 for hulu, and OTA is free.

    Yup, its cheaper.

  5. TFA missed the most important consideration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not having to deal with the cable company ever again?

    **PRICELESS**

  6. The article in a nutshell by Jim+Hall · · Score: 5, Informative

    The author took 4 pages (you start on page "1" and click through 3 other pages ... ads at each step) and basically he says this:

    Open a spreadsheet. Enter in all the shows that you like to watch on cable. For shows that are available on HuluPlus, assume you'll subscribe to HuluPlus ($8/mo). For a show that is available on Amazon, enter it's cost per episode (less than $2). Same if your show is only available on iTunes or some other media center. Add up the costs, calculate a "monthly" cost to stream your shows. Compare to your monthly cost for cable TV.

    That's pretty much what the article is about. I've just saved you a bunch of clicks and ads.

    It is what I have been saying about my own television watching. When my wife & I moved two years ago, we opted not to sign up for cable TV, choosing to stream everything instead. We have Netflix for movies and "TV on DVD", HuluPlus for most of our current shows, Amazon for a few others. We bought a Roku ($99) to stream everything to our television - and it effectively paid for itself over a couple of months. Our monthly cost for all that is way less than the monthly cost of cable TV. And as long as the math continues to be in our favor, we'll keep streaming.

  7. No longer slave to the marketing overlords... by ZephyrQ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My daughter summed it up best in a tweet to her friends: (paraphrase)

    "wow, now the television doesn't tell me what I want to watch, I tell *it* what I want to watch". Unfortunately, she skewed my Netflix preferences so now I have a bunch of 'one-tree-hormoneville' shows suggested to me...

    AND my son has his pick of whatever anime he could ever desire.

    It takes a little time to adjust (you can't just plop in front of the tv and turn it on for 'whatever'), but everyone I show it to loves it. And I save US$60 a month!

    Other than the quality of my OTA channels going down (a problem I had for awhile with DTV as well), I haven't missed my sat/cable stuff.

    However, it DID take me over a week of arguing with the satellite company to get it disconnected. (go ahead...ask me about it...please...).