Roku’s great, but until there’s live feed of *anything*, forget it, streaming boxes are merely supplemental to (for example) cable, dish, and local broadcasts. Boxee attempts to merge the streaming box with the broadcast TV tuner box and fails, the software aboard her is just terrible. Thanks delacoert.
Hate to tell you this, but you're way behind the times. WE dumped DirecTV in August shortly after I bought my Roku device. We were the LAST in our very large group of friends to dump cable/satellite/AT&T U-Verse in favor of Roku.
When I called to cancel my DirecTV which was on month-to-month for the third year and cost $100/mo. they panicked when I said I have a Roku device as my primary content now. DirecTV called my house FIVE TIMES the day I cancelled and I turned down every offer they tried making to keep me as a customer, including cutting my bill to $50/mo. for the 250 channel package. They couldn't believe I told them "NO" and to stop calling.
As for my Comcast Cable modem, I'm paying $19.95/mo. and get 25mb down/5mb up and have that price loced for another 6 months. I threatened Comcast that I'd switch to AT&T U-Verse for DSL if they didn't drop the price. Once they confirmed AT&T was in my neighborhood, I got the $19.95 price for a year.
You gotta know how to tell Comcast/AT&T/DirecTV etc.. what YOU'LL pay, not what THEY will charge you. Helps that I have multiple options to play them off each other too.