How to Save on Digital Services

After many of us railed on the guy who spent $170 a month on phone, TV, and internet services, I saw this piece from the NY Times suggesting some ideas on how to save on digital services. They start with the (obvious when pointed out, but not so obvious to many) suggestion to cancel or pare back services you never or seldom use. Then they suggest the following as addition savings tips:

• Faced with increased competition, [cable, satellite and telephone companies] will gladly tell you about better package prices if you ask, but they won’t be calling you up to tell you how you can save money. Pull out your bills and then call all your providers. Tell them you’re paying too much and you want to lower your bill. They can only say no.

• If they say no, threaten to switch. Your digital providers seem to care about you only when you’re about to break up. If you’re thinking about switching to another satellite, cable or phone provider, call your current one and let it know. And remember this: The regular customer service representative won’t be as empowered as someone in the cancellation department to cut you a better deal.

• Bundle your services. With traditional landline ownership dwindling as more customers use only cellphones, the major phone and cable companies are chockablock with packages intended to keep you from straying.

• Reconsider third-party carriers. Once, third-party long-distance companies offered cheaper long-distance calling than you could get from your local provider, but that might no longer be the case.

• Ask for corporate discounts. Many corporations have discounts with the major wireless phone carriers. Bring your corporate business card to a wireless carrier’s store or check your company’s intranet site for particulars.

• Monitor websites for deals. Several Web site discussion boards trade secrets on the latest deals and how to get them.

• If all else fails, downgrade. Do you really need hundreds of TV channels? Send faxes from your computer. Cancel your landline and use only your cellphone.

Here's my take on these:

• Over and over again I've had people comment here that they called up their cable/phone/internet provider, asked for a discount, and got one. And if it didn't work for some reason...

• ...they threatened to cancel/switch, and this usually got them a discount. "Suddenly" a "new" discount was available. :-)

• We saved about $10 a month by bundling our phone and internet (we don't have cable -- more on that later) -- and we got more services to boot (unlimited long-distance calling, caller ID, etc.). Not bad.

• I think third-party services are hit and miss in both cost and service. That said, it NEVER hurts to shop around.

• If I worked for a corporation, maybe this would work. Anyone done this (used a work connection to save on digital -- or any -- services)?

• Keeping your eyes open works too. We reviewed mail, websites, magazines, TV ads, etc. (we were on the look out for these) for a couple months before we made our recent digital move.

• We didn't downgrade (we didn't have much to begin with), but we have decided not to expand to cable TV. We don't watch that much TV as it is, and we certainly don't want to watch any more (which getting cable would "force" us to do.) We prefer to spend lots of non-TV time as a family, so why get MORE TV than we already have? I realize that others may enjoy cable, and that's certainly their choice and I have no problem with it, but for us cable TV isn't really needed or wanted.

Comments

[JeffinWesternWa]

I STILL wonder why most households, at least in urban areas just don't ditch cable all together! You can install an antenna and watch digital TV for FREE. Hook up your laptop and watch most network shows on your PC (or thru your tv as a monitor) ANYIMTE of day - no cable $$ needed! Here in the Portland, OR as an example: you can have OVER 25 DIGITAL, mostly HIGH DEFINITION channels, weather, sports, movies, networks, etc., AND several low power spanish and other analog channels off a single attic/outdoor antenna!! Combine THAT with ditching the home phone landline; use Skype, etc., and, find a lower cost alternative to internet. For many dial up is fine, CLEAR(wire) is cost effective and fast, Cricket has reasonable internet (DSL eqivalent and it's portable and great cell phone prices) as an example....There are MANY alternatives in MOST areas of the country that WILL save you OVER $1K+ a year, amazes me the zombies in the population just fall in line to Comcast, Time-Warner, At&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc., and GIVE MONEY away! If you HAVE to have cable a "limited reception package" which IS offered but, NEVER advertised by the cable co (they will tell you "basic or expanded basic" is the bottom tier) often costs LESS than $20 a month with all taxes and fees. Wake up America, most of the world LAUGHS at us as cable tv and our version of internet connection is almost pre-historic!(Been to Europe/Asia lately??) GEt teh antennna, ditch the landline, look for internet alternatives, it's too easy!

[justatron]

I work for the corporate accounting division for a company that does a lot of communications and electrical services work for Verizon and Sprint. I can get 17% off a monthly bill with Verizon and 10% off Sprint. Unfortunately, I was already in a contract with Alltel when I started working here, but since Verizon is in the process of acquiring Alltel, I will not qualify for the discount until August.

We can get a DirecTV discount too, but it is only off equipment and installation, not the monthly bill. For TV, we are switching to Dish Network since it is considerably cheaper than cable with more channels. We'll save $25/month making the switch.

[Angie]

@jeffiniwesternwa: You need to get over the fact that some people just like TV. No reason to get all crazy and worked up over it.

And the internet options you provided may work for someone who does absolutely nothing on the internet. And they aren't even that much cheaper then cable internet through the majors. Is 5 bucks a month really worth the frustration of watching a webpage load for minutes?

[MonkeyMonk]

Eventually the cable companies will catch on though. I was able to lower my cable/internet bill about $30 a month for 3 years running by threatening to switch to Satellite, DSL, FiOS, etc. I tried it again this past January and even the retention was unmoved by my pleas for cheaper service. I still think Comcast is *way* too expensive for the product they provide. Eventually i'll make the switch to a competitor and by then they'll have lost me as a customer.

[Personal Finance]

I have all my services with one company and I get 15% discount on each service so between 3 cell phones, Cable, Internet and home phone i save about $110/mth or so my total bill for all services including taxes comes out to about $350 mainly because I have a data plan for my iPhone

[rwh]

My employer and my wife's employer have agreements with all the major wireless companies. We pay Sprint $57/month for 3 phones and their basic 550 minute plan. Without the discount it would be around $75 with all the fees and taxes.

We would like to ditch the land line and may do so in the future but we still use DSL from Qwest for IP, and while we have a dedicated DHL line, when we priced it out with the different IPs we don't save any money by giving up the land line, keeping the DHL (or switching to wireless or cable) and relying only on the cell phones.

Watching TV on the PC may work for singles and apartment dwellers, but it doesn't seem too practical for a family of 4 that has 3 TV sets and one PC, particularly when the PC is in the same room as one of the TVs. We have Dish Network HD, 2nd tier service for about $72/month with taxes and fees. That's a lot of money, particularly when I spend most of my evenings reading. But others in the family watch too. And I've been down the road with antennas. I was never satisfied with the picture quality and wind storms often caused damage.

[TheMightyQuinn]

@jeffiniwesternwa: Yep! If you're in or near a big city you may just be happy with antenna. We canceled our cable, bought a converter box ($20 with coupon), I built a little antenna (<$5), and now we get 34 clear channels over the air. BTW it's way better than analog over the air--much clearer.

[chynalemay]

OTA Free tv is NOT compressed, so the 720/1080 pics are awsome! And, those w/ a pc, connect them to the tv, there's your way to watch tv via the internet (free) on the big screen....till cable cos allow one to "pay by the channel", vice buying "tiers" of mostly garbage, they will lose customers to digital tv. IF you haven't tried DTV OTA, it's nothing (!!) like the old analog, your pic w/ proper antenna oreintation makes cable look like snow! Most folks could use a LOT mor exercise, reading and less tv anyway!And if you aren't a big file sharer/downloader of large files, there are satisfactory internet options that can ssave money, I just use a computer antenna and "ride along" an unsecure router that my neighbor(s) have, FREE internet at about DSL speed!

[delta1]

somebody above posted $350 for all this! that's more than my mortgage!! I use a cell for about $10 a month, have low cost internet that is "ok", not great but, ok and free dtv w/ a new digital set and an indoor antenna! Gonna hook up the pc to it as suggested , couldn't ever imagine EEVER paying $100 or more for all 3...

[wsbsteven]

We dumped our cable tv and 10mbps internet for OTA DTV and cheap DSL. We use netflix for our dvd rental and for the web stream access they provide. We saved ~$100/month doing this. The problem that will come in the future is the internet providers are capping data usage as they are figuring out people are doing this and not paying for their tv service.

I use ATT DSL and the tests they have been running in Reno would limit my usage to 40GB a month. My usage for the last 30 days was 80GB and I didn't even use it as much. I pull in 22 hours a week in podcast content and some of that is HD video. If they make this change nationwide, I'm in trouble.

Replacing your landline with a cell phone is nice but you run into problems with 911 service. Cell phones use E911 which doesn't work as good as normal 911 as they don't know where you are. That is a problem if you dial 911 then pass out and can't talk to them. I had to dial 911 recently and I used my cell phone to do it, I didn't get a local 911 center and I had to tell them my location twice (once for the regional 911 and once for the local 911 transfer) and my phone has a GPS that 911 is supposed to be able to access. Something to consider for your safety.

Also OTA DTV is compressed but not as much as cable & satellite. You do get a better picture with it as was mentioned unless they divide their 18mbps of bandwidth to 6 subchannels.

[Maria]

Our credit union gives discounts for Sprint cell service. They provided us with brochures and cards with a code # to call and either start service with them or get the discount on existing service. It is 10%. My spouse works a large pharma and all carriers offer some level of discount. Verizon was 17% and recently bumped it up to 19%. In our area we have new carriers the are so low ($30 unlimited phone and text) that the bigger carriers have to give further discounts to stay competitive.

[Corporate Barbarian]

I've saved money from corporate discounts on my cell phone bill, as well as appliances and computers. I'll take free money from wherever I can get it.

[Param]

About a year back, there was a major electrical explosion in our building which caused the cable lines to burn out. This led to losing cable TV & digital internet access. The company did not care to repair it for quite some time. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we have switched from watching moronic cable channels to specific movies/shows over DVD. For internet, we went to the backup - telephone line dial-up (cheap but reliable) & realised the performance isn't too bad either. Besides saving money that was going down the drain, we are now able to monitor exactly what our son should watch and glad that he's not exposed (& we neither) to any commercials.
Amazing what opportunities crisis can offer!!!

[David Nofsinger]

If you have multiple TV sets, you don't need to have cable for each one. My wife and I have a TV on cable, and two others with antennas, saving $10 a month on each additional TV set. It kind-of allows us to get the best of all worlds.