Cord cutting causes confusion
(Originally published June 2023)
Mark and I first got basic cable TV when we moved from Weybridge to Middlebury in 1994. Suddenly, we had dozens of channels to choose from. We paid around $30 a month for the privilege of not watching most of them.
One day we got a letter from the cable company with exciting news: Our bill would be increasing to $40. “Congratulations!” the letter said.
Maybe I wasn’t understanding the math, but my initial reaction was that a huge jump in our bill was nothing to celebrate. The cable company assured me, however, that this was a gift. The higher bill was due to unavoidable increases in operating costs but came with a bunch of new, free channels.
“Free” didn’t seem like the right word, but I had grown up without cable, so maybe it made sense. And our lineup did expand to include, among other offerings, two French-language channels, two home shopping channels, and a church service channel. Thanks, cable company!
“Our cell phone provider, for instance, would give us internet, TV, and regular oil changes if we bought two extra phone lines and signed a 40-year contract.”
Years later, we upgraded our cable to a bundle—internet, TV, and landline. (Nothing says “we’re old” like still having a landline, but we’ve hung onto it because it’s tied to Mark’s business number.) Every year, the package gets more expensive.
I’d been hearing a lot about “cutting the cord” to save money. But every time I started looking into a new TV or internet service, I ran into the same problem: I couldn’t easily compare who offered what, and for how much.
Our cell phone provider, for instance, would give us internet, TV, and regular oil changes if we bought two extra phone lines and signed a 40-year contract.
Our cable company would give us a discount on our current TV package, plus antivirus protection and complimentary bed turndown service. But after the introductory period, the bill would double.
Or, for the lowest rate, we could switch to a different cell phone provider and get brand new phones but with spotty internet and verbally abusive customer service representatives.
To replace the bundle, we’d need at least one streaming service that offered live TV. But no single service offered all three or four of the channels we cared about. And to cover our bases with two services, we’d have to pay for duplicates of almost every channel we didn’t want.
Last, I’d have to solve the issue of how to cancel the landline but keep the phone number.
I had a feeling I could figure out what I needed if I just knew where to look and had a degree in data analysis. It was easier, however, to keep paying extra each month to not have to think about it all. So I let things ride.
But a recent offer to switch to a new internet service caught my attention. The price was so tempting, I decided to try, one last time, to piece together an alternative to the cable bundle.
After consulting with our cell phone provider and combing the web for streaming service recommendations and cord-cutting advice, I made some decisions. All that was left was to talk to the cable company about “porting” our old landline phone number to our cell phone provider.
I ended up on the cable website, in an interminable live chat with a rep who may or may not have been a real person (we disagreed on that point).
After we chatted back and forth for hours—or days, possibly—the rep ignored everything I had asked about and instead sent me a new contract to sign.
I didn’t need a new contract, but I read it (I am infallibly polite, even with suspected bots). The new agreement downgraded our phone, internet, and TV service to internet and TV only—and raised our bill by $15 a month.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get the hang of cable company math.
In the end, after expending far more time and energy than I cared to, I cut the cord. As far as I can tell, I have landed on a more affordable, more tailored combination of internet and streaming services while preserving our old phone number. But I haven’t gotten a final cancellation confirmation from the cable company yet, and I’m worried.
They were going to charge us an extra $15 a month to not provide phone service. I can’t imagine what they’re going to charge us to provide no services at all.
