How to save 40% on my cable bill

I doubt I’ll keep my Time Warner cable TV and broadband service, now that AT&T’s U-verse is coming to my neighborhood.

Grabbed this from the online press kit

I discovered all this on my early morning walk. I live out in the country, in a thinly-populated area, off of state roads in Belmont, N.C. I saw AT&T workers digging grave-size holes in the ground at almost every house to fit massive boxes, which hold stuff like batteries and cooling gear in rugged, weatherproof cases so I get my channels. I talked to one of the workers who said it’ll be here by January. Sounds like a belated Christmas present to me.

I pay about $136 each month to Time Warner for cable TV and broadband service. AT&T will be offering more than 200 channels and broadband for around $79 per month, the worker told me. I’ll save more than 40 percent each month. I could practically get two U-Verse subscriptions for what I pay now.

According to a wiki on U-Verse, “Unlike traditional offerings from U.S. cable companies, video is delivered over IP from the head end to the consumer’s set-top box.”

It sounds cool, but I googled it and found a blogger, Tom Keating, CTO, VP and founder of TMC Labs, who wondered if U-verse is not doomed:

AT&T’s U-verse network is actually a fiber/copper hybrid, which pulls fibers to 3,000 to 5,000 feet from the homes they serve, where it then connects to mini-DSLAMs called “52B” boxes and then it runs copper the last mile to the home. This hybrid approach is a bargain when compared to the $20 billion Verizon is spending to build-out fiber all the way to the home. This hybrid fiber/copper approach gives AT&T a 20Mbps+ link to customers, enough to offer high-speed Internet, VoIP, and the company’s IPTV service. The problem is getting towns to grant public right of ways for these massive 52B boxes, which hold DSLAMS, batteries, and cooling gear in rugged, weatherproof cases. Many towns objected or wanted AT&T to sign video franchise agreements. Lawsuits were filed, including cable companies that want to classify U-verse service as a “cable service” to force AT&T to abide by the same build-out rules, which has drastically affected U-verse deployment . In addition, the IPTV service uses proprietary set-top boxes from Microsoft, which had their own share of problems – mostly software related.

A neighbor

Of course, the alliance with Microsoft for proprietary software technology likely means crashes, slowness and bloated performance. I base this assessment on 23 years of using Microsoft products, including Vista, which is the worst operating system they’ve produced.

However, the political wrangling doesn’t concern me. It’s already been tested in Jacksonville and San Antonio and rolled it out to half a million people in LA, Wichita, northern Wisconsin and other places. My iPhone, provided through AT&T, is the only cellphone I’ve owned that I can use around the house. I’ve had Sprint and Verizon phones that work just about everywhere but where I live. Time Warner used to provide good service, but we’ve been through three set-top boxes from them in a year. Bloggers are debating the merits of Direct TV vs. U-Verse, but after getting up to three calls a day from Direct TV for months with a tape-recording of Jim offering me a special deal on Direct TV, I do not want to do business with them.

Hey, in this case, I can deal with the Great Satan of Software if the price is right.

UPDATE: See AT&T “lawn fridges” may explode, look ugly and reduce property values.

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Tags: at&t, broadband, cable TV, cellphones, Microsoft

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