

How to get off Comcast and score free, legal, digital TV in Chicago or anywhere, really - brandnewlow
http://techloop.windycitizen.com/2009/04/23/how-to-ditch-comcast-part-i

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dgallagher
Comcast pissed me off for the last time a few weeks ago. They jacked their
cable/internet prices up on me to $120/mo for the second time in a year
without telling me. Their sales reps lied to me about rates/promo's, etc...

So I ditched them. In Boston, MA, Comcast charges $42.99/mo for cable internet
with a cable plan, or $57.99/mo for internet w/o a cable plan. Their cheapest
cable plan is approx $12/mo, so to get the best deal on internet, you need to
sign up for cable TV too (I think they do this to meet some stupid subscriber
quota numbers).

Well, Earthlink offers internet for $45.99/mo over Comcast's cable lines. It's
just as fast. You don't need cable TV to use it. I called them up and they
switched me over in about 10 minutes.

Add in Netflix at $11.99/mo (w/Blueray), which is about as much as Comcast's
basic cable, and I can stream movies over the net through my Xbox. Nice. Next
I scored an Apple TV and threw Boxee* onto it. I can stream just about every
program I want to watch over the net for free with extremely few commercials.

The quality isn't as nice as Comcast's HD feeds, of course. But it's good
enough. If I really want super-high quality, I get a blue-ray disc from
Netflix. I could care less if the Daily Show comes to me at 1080p.

*Boxee does work on Apple TV, but Hulu doesn't. Well, Hulu loads and plays sound, but the current version of "Apple TV Boxee" skips Hulu video frames horribly. But no big complaints - it is alpha after all. I'm sure they'll fix it at some point. All the other channels/video-feeds play fine though (with occasional glitches here and there).

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pasbesoin
Does Earthlink impose a usage cap? (Comcast's is currently 250 GB/month,
IIRC.)

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dgallagher
They say they do, but their contract said go online to see the limits. I went
online and didn't see any limits listed anywhere. My guess is that it's the
same 250GB/mo that Comcast uses, seeing as they use Comcast's cable lines to
deliver their service (their backend is different - DNS, email hosting,
etc...).

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falsestprophet
I found the best way to _hack_ television is to ignore it altogether.

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timcederman
Why do so many people think it's a really great accomplishment not to enjoy
TV?

Imagine if someone in a conversation said to you "the best way to hack the web
is to ignore it altogether".

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siegler
They don't mention that Comcast charges more for broadband if you don't have
cable service. You can opt for BASIC1 cable and pay less overall than if you
had no cable service at all.

Besides that, using OTA only works well if you a) have a good line of site to
the broadcasting tower (trees create multipath signals, which give you ghosts)
b) aren't too far away (25+ miles) c) don't mind storms interrupting your TV
shows and d) can find some way to snake coaxial cable into your house since e)
you'll want a good outdoor antenna (Channel Master makes great ones), not some
bunny ears.

The nice thing about having BASIC1 is that you can pull the HD channels off
your cable connection without paying any additional fees. Often, the bit rate
isn't as good as OTA but it's a more dependable signal.

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coglethorpe
Also check out comment #3 on this post:
[http://www.financialreflections.com/why-i-didnt-buy-an-
hdtv/...](http://www.financialreflections.com/why-i-didnt-buy-an-hdtv/92)

Guy hacked up a solution for about $160. Pretty impressive!

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jrockway
I agree. In this era of Hulu, Amazon Video, Netflix Instant, iTunes, and
Bittorrent, there is absolutely no reason to pay $100/month for television.

(There is also no reason to keep Comcast around for your Internet connection,
either. Just get DSL.)

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jdminhbg
Sports.

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pj
Sports is a great reason to ditch the television. It is astonishing that we
still waste 6 minutes of a 30 minute local news broadcast on the stuff...

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wmf
Now we just need a good, cheap OTA DVR. I've read that the DTVPal isn't that
reliable.

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madcaptenor
I'm confused. This is news that you can get TV over the air?

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windytech
I HATE HATE HATE Comcast.

