Looking to cut the cord. Charter can suck it. [View all]

[Atman]

I'm sorry this post isn't about men hating women and the women who hate them, but the only thing I can't stand more than those threads is paying my now $170 cable/internet bill. It seems to go up every month, and digging through this months bill we found they've increased the modem rental fee to $10 (I honestly thought we owned it!), a basic dtv box rental went up to $10, the HDTV box another $10, and the fees and taxes are almost as much as the damned service! Well, not really, but there are LOTS of taxes, regulatory fees, access fees, this fee, that fee. Insanity.

We've been looking around and I'm thinking we're going all the way (still need internet, of course...we'll have to suck it up); Digital antenna for OTA hdtv, combined with Hulu/Netflix, internet and an Apple TV, and SCREW CHARTER. For about the cost of one month's cable bill I can say good-bye to their usurious bullshit. I admit, I'll miss me some Jon Stewart and Shameless, and the programs we got hooked on on Showtime and HBO, but we don't watch anything else except Morning Blow over coffee. And don't really even "watch" it, just morning noise. It seems like most other content we can get online or just wait for it to be released elsewhere. Our area, though fairly rural, seems to be in decent range for all the networks and PBS, from a few different markets (MA, RI, CT). So after the initial cost, we'd cut about $100-140 a month by getting rid of Charter.

One of our LED tvs is a small (26&quot older model, so it's not wifi-ready, but the big-screen is a "smart tv," and has all the bells and whistles, we've just never used them. Anyone else have any experience with this they could share? It seems kind of drastic, but I can't justify paying Charter this much money anymore. When we try to pare back our service, they hit us with other "package" fees and crap to make up for it, and we wind up only saving $10 a month. I'm done!