From time to time I see articles on tech sites mentioning people who have dropped cable in favor of Netflix or some other service. I don’t know if I’m understanding this correctly. Are they getting internet without cable service? From whom?
From any sort of internet provider. If you’re happy with a cable provider, you can always just drop the TV portion of the service. You’ll probably lose out on bundle discounts, but $60 for internet alone is still cheaper than a $100 cable tv + internet bundle. In addition, there are DSL and fiber optic ISPs run by Verizon, AT&T, and any number of smaller local telcos.
I use Clear but they are not everywhere. Clear is wi-max wireless internet which I can pick up anywhere in town that gets cell reception. 13 mb/s at home and 6 mb/s mobile. Fast enough for streaming Netflix and Hulu.
Comcast, for one.
I plan on getting this, eventually. As for right now, I just browse on my phone and watch documentaries that I had downloaded onto my laptop while at work.
We didnt really see the point in getting a TV bc neither my roommate nor I ever watch it. There’s so rarely anything on it I want to watch. I’ll miss PBS WORLD, but I haven’t had it for the last year and have been doing fine anyway.
I still watch stuff / have stuff on in the background constantly, so it’s not like I’m above it. It’s just cheaper and more efficient this way right now .
HughesNet via (allegedly military) satellite.
I have 24 Mbps Internet via AT&T U-Verse with no home phone or TV service. You have to dig around a bit sometimes since providers really want to sell you the more expensive bundles, but the standalone Internet service is usually available, in my experience.
I have cable internet without TV for about $30 a month. There’s also DSL, satellite, various forms of wifi, and college campus networks.
You’re misunderstanding. When people say they’re dropping cable for Netflix, they mean they’cw stopped watching cable television channels for content and instead watching Netflix content. They aren’t changing their internet service provider.
That’s not quite accurate. I stopped my cable TV service with Comcast, but I still have their internet service, so not only have I stopped watching cable, I have dropped it, as in I no longer have it, nor am I paying for it. I pay approximately $60/month for Internet and $8/month for Netflix, which combined is still less than I was paying when I had cable TV.
It’s accurate in the context of the OP’s question. YMMV.
And not just Netflix or Hulu. You can go to many networks websites and watch their shows a day or week after they’ve aired.
Imho, is the only way to watch. Nothing but Net (and dvds) since 2006.
I cut the cord, so to speak, about a year ago. Prior to that, we were with DirecTV, but received our Internet through Verizon. We discontinued DirecTV after we started using Roku for streaming Netflix, HuluPlus and a number of other applications on Roku. I’d wanted to get rid of paid television for a long time before this, but my husband was against it. After we bought our first Roku, however, we noticed that we accessed content via Roku far more often than we did DirecTV. After using Roku for close to a year, hubby was ripe for convincing and we finally made the snip and ditched DirecTV completely.
Since then, we’ve moved and we now have Charter for our Internet, but have never received cable from them. About once per month I get a call from Charter as they continue to try to get me to upgrade my service to include cable television and a home telephone (we also gave up on landlines a few years ago). When the Charter agent finds out that we are a happy cable-free family who accesses all of our content via the Internet, they try to sell us a higher speed and actually sound disappointed that our current speed comfortably accommodates multiple Roku boxes, as well as Internet on multiple computers, tablets and phones.
Just in case anyone is interested, we’ve moved beyond Roku-only entertainment (which really is enough by itself) and now also access content via XBMC both from a laptop that is connected to a tv set, as well as having XBMC on our tablets. Between Roku and XBMC, I cannot ever imagine we’ll ever go back to paid television. And, yes, we get live sports, news, etc. 
No sacrifices here…in fact, we get far more content than we ever could have even dreamed of through DirecTV or a cable company and we only pay $16 per month (for Netflix and HuluPlus) now as opposed to the $75/mo that we were paying prior to the snip. Of course, we still have a $45/mo Charter bill for Internet only, which is about the same as we paid for Verizon’s Internet before we moved to a new area.
So, to recap, we ONLY use cable for Internet and watch all of our programming via Internet streaming either through Roku or XBMC. We do not pay extra for cable television service.
Hope this helps clarify things a bit better for you.
We get high speed internet from Comcast and nothing else. We use Netflix, the internet, and redbox for tv and movies. While we aren’t up to speed on the latest tv series or shows we do just fine and save money and time not having cable.
I’m paying less than $100 for cable right now. I’d need to see a huge drop in price to make that a good idea for me.
That occurred to me. I wasn’t sure how to interpret the “dropped cable” phrase.
I’m paying 32$CAN for a 10Mbps, 100GB bandwidth per month from Electronic Box.
I live in Queens, NYC. I have Verizon Internet. They are using what is called a “dry line”. That is a telephone line that no longer provides telephone service. ( No phone # in this house for MANY years ). Using existing hardware, Verizon provides DSL.
Aside from a few difficult days at the beginning, I have to say that the service is exactly what I am paying for. ( 10 down, 1 up ). I can stream with nary a delay and upload large photo files quickly enough for my tastes. I’m paying $ 49.00 a month for it. We don’t have cable television, we watch through the air.
It does appear- and I’ve no idea why- that turning the modem off and obtaining a new IP Address every month or so keeps things moving smoothly.
ETA: MichaelEMouse, wow. WOW. Great price for amazing speeds…
I considered dropping cable and just going internet, but I have FiOS and dropping cable TV service literally saves me nothing. I have them bundled and with the bundled price the cable is essentially free.
I’ve previously tried every one of the alternative providers in the area, and unfortunately while FiOS is the most expensive option, it’s the only one I’ve gotten consistent, reliable service from.
Quite. You can check out their prices here to get an idea:
http://www.electronicbox.net/en/montreal/residential/internet/cable.html
I got tired of getting shafted by the two big ISPs in my province and decided to shop around. If you do enough research, you may very well find up and comer ISPs who know they have to provide good value for money and don’t take their customers for granted*.
For someone who really wants speed, they got a 60 Mbps and 250GB bandwidth for 62$. With my plan, the actual speed is quite close to the theoretical speed so perhaps it really can give you 60 Mbps. In which case, the only appropriate comment is this: Space Balls - Ludicrous Speed - YouTube
*Lookin’ at you, Bell and Videotron.