Like many Americans, I dumped my landline phone a long time ago.  I went to Vonage’s VoIP service in 2006, cut my phone bill in half and never really considered the issue since.  

Of course, I found other ways to spend my money.  

• iPhone and its monthly voice/data charge?  <check>
• FIOS super high speed Internet access?  <check>  
• FIOS’s 8,000 channel TV service?  <check>
• Netflix? <check>

And since I’m silly, I kept going:

• AppleTV to watch digitized DVDs? <check>
• Nintendo Wii with added Netflix streaming service? <check>
• Roku box with Netflix and Amazon streaming services? <check>

Oh yes, I can watch TV, movies and video podcasts all in HD right on my TV.  In 10 different ways….execpt the one free way: Broadcast Digital TV (DTV).  You know what?  I never tried that.

So, being the nerd that I am, I made my own DTV antenna for $4.00, plugged it into the back of my totally awesome Sony Bravia 42” 1080P TV and found out that…holy crap….DTV looks fantastic!  I mean really fantastic.  Like, why the hell am I paying money for cable, when it looks this good fantastic.

So then I started to evaluate my choices.  Why am I paying for cable?

• Access to movies….yes
• Access to cable news….not so much
• Access to live sporting events…typically on the networks
• Access to on demand video…yes
• Discovery channel….big yes

There are some yeses there.  Moves, on-demand, Discovery channel.  But I can do the first two via AppleTV and Netflix streaming.  So what I am paying to basically get access to the Discovery Channel?  $93/month!!!!!  I’m sorry, while I like the Discovery Channel, it is not worth $93/month.

So I dumped cable.  Yes I have three kids, yes they love their Dora and Thomas and Super Why….and yes, they can watch all those shows on Netflix streaming.  

We made the big switch over a month ago and we haven’t looked back.  So what do I recommend?  Get a $50 amplified DTV antenna, sign up for the $8/month Netflix account and dump your cable bill.  

Will you make the plunge?