Any penalties for canceling DirectTV? In north Texas, AT&T only provides DSL internet (sucks big time, I won't even try). I believe Comcast is now Spectrum. They seem to have very good offers for a 12 month period. After that? Right now I have 30 MBPS internet; supposed to be changing to 60 MBPS. There are 2 prices for their internet service depending on whether or not you have cable service through them. If you have cell phone service why do you need a land line? I haven't had a land line since 2003 and don't miss it a bit.

I have Comcast and I'd love to switch. I have a bundle that includes a landline phone (which I don't need since I have a cell phone), Internet and cable (I basically only watch CNN, MSNBC). I pay $161.00 per month which I think is too high.

I would love to find a cheaper alternative to Comcast which is why your post caught my attention.

An alternative to Comcast could be dropping the cable portion of service and just go with internet (price for internet would probably go up) and then get Netflix, &/or Hulu, possibly Amazon Prime. I believe most regular series end up on Hulu a week after showing on regular TV.

Mike C, that is what we did about 7 years ago. We have At&t Fiber for our internet now. $70 a month. Worth every penny. We also have Netflix ($12), Hulu ($8), Amazon Prime (pay yearly which comes to $9 a month and of course comes with other perks, and we also have Slingtv ($27 which includes the sports package). Can't miss college football season. And an indoor antennae (free) that we watch PBS, ABC, CBS, NBC & any other channels we can pick up where we live. We have plenty of movies & tv shows to watch. Best decision we ever made.

Is your current DirecTV/AT&T service satisfactory? If yes, then the money by itself is probably not worth making the switch...IMHO. Any "deal" you get from Comcast is likely to be temporary. Yes, if you make the switch any email sent to your sbcglobal address will get bounced back to the sender as undeliverable. Why would you think otherwise?

We had the same bundle with Direct and switched to Xfinity/Comcast and could not be happier it is all Awesome!!! fastest internet around 100mps the DVR is amazing, we talk to our remotes and they do as we ask. Unlimited long distance phone even other countries. And no more satellite going out every day with just a little bit of weather. Plus we pay less per, month than with lousy Direct.

Thank you everyone... thank you aputernut. How long have you been with comcast?? Also, if I do decide to switch is there a way of making a list of my send to addresses? so once I switch I can do a mass broadcast to my friends of my new email etc.

You may be able to keep using your email address if you change internet service providers - contact them to ask. I myself dropped telcom DSL service about 8 years ago in favor of cable internet and found yesterday I could access my old email account. But do check if that's important to you. A good reason to use or switch to a web-based service like Gmail all the same.

Unless you're in a household of several simultaneous internet users who stream video at the same time, it's unlikely that higher levels of bandwidth above 15 megs would even be discernible for you. Don't feel like you need to reach (and pay) for the higher levels of capacity, you'll never notice any difference.

PS - in many parts of the country, it's the Telcos who provide the highest level of internet "speed" using fiber optic networks. As for sat TV, I've been a satisfied DISH customer for nearly 10 years and have never had an outage. Not once. Those experiencing weather related problems probably also experience weather related problems with other utility services too. So maybe it's not fair to point a finger at any particular sat provider but rather to consider it's because of extreme local weather conditions where you live or a poorly done installation. Satellite signals continue to be sent no matter what is happening at the earth's surface.

big-al I don't use my servers e-mail client, I use Outlook and Incredimail and for both I still use my Hotmail addy and I have my address books in each. We are with Xfinity almost a year, and hope to never change back to satellite, By the way make sure you get all the discounts they offer, if you go to "My Xfinity" online it's great, we got a discount for signing up for auto pay, I think $10.00 per month off our bill. Turns out Dh knew the tech who came to our home for yrs. and we found out, the company has gone through a major overhaul, Comcast of yrs. ago had a reputation of being rude money grubbers (No More) they were all retrained even the folks who speak to you by phone, it is all now customer oriented! Dh did all the wheeling and dealing LOL but he even said what nice helpful folks he spoke to, getting used to the new remote etc. was a learning curve however one phone call and an awesome support tech and all was good! They have become #1 with us no more Direct or Dish had problems with both back and forth for way to many yrs.

Don't be naive. Once you've signed up, whether with Comcast or any other telcom provider, the honeymoon period may be over when the first contract period ends.

I've been a Comcast customer for awhile, something more than 5 and less than 10 years. I'm satisfied with my internet connection (all I use them for) and I'll keep it until and unless AT&T brings fiber optic connections to my neighborhood.

About six months ago, my most recent Comcast two year contract period ended and my bill jumped about 20% the next month. Each prior time, I'd been able to call and get the bill cut for a new contract. This time, I called and asked if there were any better programs I could qualify for? Answer - "No". Said me, "Prior times when my contract ended, I got a better deal by calling in". Response - "We don't do that anymore for existing customers". As before, I like the service, will keep it, and will pay more as I seem to have no comparable alternatives.

Maybe this varies from place to place. From what I hear from friends, I think most are the same in my area.

Elmer,

I'm hardly an expert on this but the response to "we don't do that anymore..." is "well, then I would like to disconnect my service." At which point the customer service agent is supposed to send you to "retention specialist" who has amazing powers when it comes to adjusting the bill.

I said that, and the guy said "Well, that's your choice". I've spoken successfully to such retention specialists before (when earlier contracts ended) and at least in my area, that would seem to have been discontinued.

I said "How long until I'm considered no longer an existing customer"

The answer was either 6 or 12 months, I don't remember. But it was longer than I was willing to go without it and longer than I was willing to use DSL. I need the cable internet service to have a >10 meg upload rate and DSL in my area won't come close to that. I think it caps out at around 3 megs. That was why I switched to cable internet service, the download rate (which I think with DSL was about 20 at the tier I was using) was perfectly satisfactory.

I don't have a limited budget and I will pay whatever the charge is, I added my comment only to suggest that the "you can negotiate a better price" approach is no longer available in my area with Comcast.

I just now ran a speed test which I do now and then and my DL speed is 97.4Mbps and UL is 19.8Mbps. And yes we have a 2 yr. contract but renegotiating when the time comes is Dh's job and he's very good at it, usually get's what he wants. But still even if it goes up a few $$ it's still the best thing going and nothing to touch it so far here in FL. We just watched one of the 1500 on demand FREE movies since TV was crappy tonight.

Mine went from $75 to $89. My speed test hits about 1/3 higher than yours but as before, for downstream, there's little sent out at more than 20 megs and most transmissions have no need for even that capacity. Having service that will pass through at higher than that rate will accommodate many multiple users doing high capacity stuff like video streaming. But for normal internet use in a household, usage at even your rate would be rarely if ever be needed and the same for mine too.

If your husband knows how to negotiate with someone who gives him a fixed price and says there's no negotiating done, let me know.

We pay $238 a month for Comcast. This includes TV, Internet, and phone. This includes a $36 discount for one year. So next year, this will go up to $268 and when I call, I'm sure they will take a whopping $10 off. We don't have any other services where we live, or else we would switch to something a little less costly.

What did you decide to do, big al?

linda we pay $144.30 for the entire pkg. much depends on what pkg. you sign on for we do not need or want those sports channel pkgs. or any HBO, etc. so our phone person hooked us up with the right pkg. for us and that dramatically reduces your total. She even asked what channels do you really want? we got way over 100 enough for us plus our important ones. P.S. She was so nice she said OMG you're paying for channels you do not even watch or need, let's fix that. LOL

aputernut - I will definitely check into this. We have the sports channel, HBO. I think my dear hubby signed up for everything. I'm going to see if there is a way to reduce the channels. Especially the ones in spanish. We'll probably have to wait until this contract is up. Thanks for the tip.

You may not need to wait, I believe you can make changes? your not cancelling the contract after all. It cost nothing to call and ask. we're not into sports except Nascar and Olympics which we get. no need for HBO etc. with Xfinity on boring TV nights we have 1500 Free on demand movies to choose from most of which were on Cinemax etc a few yrs. ago anyway.

I'm willing to bet you can change a contract to increase services AND the monthly cost but not for decreases. That's why they have contracts, to get fixed customer commitments for an extended period of time. It makes little sense otherwise.

Elmer J I am still looking into things at my end.. But I want to thank all who voiced an opinion here.

Big_al I forgot to tell you if you get the whole pkg. including the phone it's great the way they block 800 or any scammer phone calls that try to come in, we get a half ring and it's cut off, we love it no more robo calls or unwanted calls at my house. also love to see our calls come up not only on phone ID but also on the TV screen.

Most phone service providers have a number blocking feature. Some also allow following group info, you can choose to piggyback and block numbers enough other users have complained about.

Many brands of telephone hardware block calls too. My Panasonic phones do.

yadda, yadda, YADDA!