Well, I finally pulled the trigger and have started in motion a plan to free myself from Comcast. I tried to make myself love cable TV, but I find that it bores me. Combine that with the fact that I don’t really watch TV to begin with, and it becomes a glaringly obvious piece of fat in my budget. While I was getting a sweet deal on TV and internet - $33/mo. for Digital Basic and $19.95/mo. for Internet, so around $58/mo. all taxes/fees included - I realized that these were promotional rates that wouldn’t last - and would shoot up come the end of 6 months.

I switched to AT&T (booo…hisss) Dry-Loop DSL service - $34.00 per month out the door for 3-4 mbps down, 512 kbps up - no taxes/fees and no contract required. Dry-loop DSL differs from normal DSL in that no home phone service is required - I only have a cell phone. The initial order process was pretty painless - the sales rep knew what she was doing, which was a refreshing change. We’ll see if everyone’s favorite telco can successfully have a technician hook a filter to my NID (aka the plastic box on the side of your house) next Thursday. The speed is slower than cable on paper, but I’m not as much of a bandwidth hound as I was in the halcyon days of my youth - plus the cost savings can’t be ignored.

Let’s run down the cost savings:

Comcast: approx. $58.00/mo., or $696/yr. - for Internet (which is all I really want) and TV (that I don’t watch and is overpriced - and is required to get non-usurious rates for Internet)

AT&T: $34.00/mo., or $408/yr. - for Internet only, which is all I want.

Savings: $24.00/mo, or $288/yr. - that’s money in the bank.

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