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.
I don’t get it? Can I watch the History channel, A&E, Fox, etc.? How about recording them? I like Gold Rush for example, how do you record/watch it?
I’ve had a Roku for over a year, and one reason I stand by my earlier “behind the times” statement is, there’s nothing on it but video store stuff, plus some selected classic TV reruns. I don’t take cable or dish, because where I lived before I didn’t have that kind of money, and spent all my time on the Internet, which is way more “live” than any other media; and where I live now, insufficient options. I run on wireless broadband, and I like it (I just found an unprotected router this morning, very weak, must be from some distance, but where I don’t know — before this I’d been on prepaid wireless) but streaming vid eats up bandwidth that I don’t care to pay for. If there were a cheaper wired option, I’d still use it. As it is ALL streaming boxes are dependent on availability of a network out of their control, basically, the customers are on their own to obtain it; and again, they lack new content.
That is great advice though, and I wholeheartedly agree — tell the bastards what you’re willing to pay, they do respond well to that, except in rural areas where there aren’t choices. And they will try to tie people down with 2 year contracts and such.
Comcast’s trial price deal is a load of sh@t — when they came to Grand Rapids, they said, first two months are free, normal price of broadband $40 a month. Before I got the first bill, I was informed that there had been a price increase to $48 a month — gosh, what’s more, 12 months at $40, or 10 months at $48...