Alternatives for Comcast cable?

Comcast, at least in Washington State, has steadily increasing cable prices to ridiculous price to over $100 a month for internet and cable. Is there another avenue I can take to watch channels such as news, cartoons, etc?

Do you live in a FiOS area?

I really like Verizon FiOS.

FiOS, Time Warner, Optimum, DirecTV, some local cable company, ect ect ect.

Or cut out the TV portion. Subscribe to things like Hulu and Netflix and watch everything online. Thats what I did and I couldn't be happier. I picked up an amplified antenna to pick up over the air HD local stations for news and what not and everything else I watch through those two services and various sports subscriptions like NHL gamecenter on my PS3.

Dish Network or DirecTv. I have Dish and haven't had nearly the number of issues that I did with Comcast.

You may be able to get Verizon or Qwest for internet, unfortunately where I am in WA Comcast is my only broadband option.

I really like AT&T U-verse. Had it at three different locations (with two services in between; always gone back to them). No complaints.

Step 1: Get FIOS service

Step 2: Download uTorrent

Step 3: Google eztv and piratebay

Watch anything you want commercial free withen hours of it's first showing anywhere in the world. If you want local news I think basic local service is usually under $10 a month from most cable carriers.

Once you pick an alternative, check to see if you can lower the fee of your current TV/Internet bill by calling Comcast up and explicitly saying that you are leaving them and getting the most expensive package from one of their rival services for a discount price. That should force them to at least haggle with you and drop their own price.

@Andorski said:

Once you pick an alternative, check to see if you can lower the fee of your current TV/Internet bill by calling Comcast up and explicitly saying that you are leaving them and getting the most expensive package from one of their rival services for a discount price. That should force them to at least haggle with you and drop their own price.

This. Works with any provider, really.

I just use Netflix as my Television and Movies provider. The UK has Sky which is the Comcast of the US but unfortunately it costs a lot and if you have Sky, you have to pay a TV License regardless. I can just convert the UK Netflix to US and I've got myself more content than I know what to do with.

We have comcast here in my house, ( Montgomery, Maryland ). Its a densely populated area, so i think that affects things. but I honestly have no idea what the prices are, because i dont pay the bills. if i did i would cancel cable, because i dont watch it. I do know that we got rid of the premium cable channels about a year ago to save money if thats any indication.

Comcast varies quite a bit in different areas, but try calling and telling them you want to switch and see if they'll lower your price. When I moved to San Francisco I called up and asked for the lowest advertised price that I could find online. The sales rep offered me an even lower price and waived the installation fee. I had cable two days later. When that introductory rate was almost up I called and said the new price would be too high and I wanted to cancel and go with the local DSL option. They lowered me back down to the introductory rate. For the next few years I did that exact same thing every 6-12 months, depending on how long the last rate extension was for, until I moved out of the area. Sometimes I even called when they were running specials, so at one point I got a DVR thrown in for free and one of those 12 month periods included HBO. Every single person that I ever spoke to on the phone was incredibly nice and professional.

Then I moved 1800 miles east and called Comcast to see about service. The sales rep was a total asshole with a condescending tone. Their introductory rate was much higher than what I'd been paying in San Francisco and the earliest I could get an install was more than two weeks away and there would be a fee. My building is already wired and the installer wouldn't be here for more than 10 minutes. I know where the cables come into the building's basement and could do it myself if they'd have let me. I went with the competition who had me setup in two days.

@ShadowSkill11 said:

Step 1: Get FIOS service

Step 2: Download uTorrent

Step 3: Google eztv and piratebay

Watch anything you want commercial free withen hours of it's first showing anywhere in the world. If you want local news I think basic local service is usually under $10 a month from most cable carriers.

Step 4: Bitch that your favorite show was canceled due to poor ratings.

Step 5: Don't you dare advocate pirating games though, because that's NOT okay.

Step 6: Feel like a complete idiot for paying $10 for local stations which are available for free over the air with a cheap antenna in even better quality than what a cable provider compresses the signal to.

@Kenobi: Like others that have mentioned here, you can easily cut out the TV portion of your cable bill. There are many alternatives to television... internet being one of them... Over-the-air digital tv (via antenna/converterbox or newer tv) is another.

Do you have a choice? I can't help you because I'm no where near that area, but I know that my family doesn't have an alternative for traditional cable. It's Comcast or satellite/something else. Where I live, I technically have a choice between Time Warner and one other provider, but in my particular apartment, I can only get TW. It's a real shitty deal. I'm seriously considering doing CLEAR, which is basically 3G internet, when this (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/03/graduated-response-deal-steamrollers-towards-july-1-launch) happens.

Netflix, Hulu Plus and the internet offerings of many tv stations (paid or free) make it pretty easy to drop cable. I'd do it as well if it weren't for HBO Go needing some sort of password tied to your cable account premium package subscription to work (and if someone knows another non-borrowing way to avoid that, you're a level 80 Wizard Duder).

The other side of this is that if you do it the non-piracy route, you might put out as much/more for what you want. Example: MLB.TV Premium is 124.99 for a year by itself, which is close to a month of comcast cable+internet without Hulu or Netflix involved. Add other sports or special interest programs in and price keeps going up.

There's very little on TV you can't find online. You may have to wait until after a show airs to find a torrent or whatever.