Help, My Cable Bill Is Outrageous!

Hi E.,

When everything goes HD(I meant to say digital--I had HD on the brain:), then if you have a set top converter for cable, you should be fine. You would only need an HD converter box if you used an antenna to watch tv(I didn't even know you *could* watch tv w/out cable!).

Cable boxes are only for "premium" channels and anything above basic. HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz, etc are premium, and if you want the music channels, or to watch movies/shows On Demand, then you'd have to have a box for those also. Alot of other channels are considerd above basic also, but I don't remember which ones.

Try going to Comcast's website(if you use them) and see if they have a basic channel line-up.

Believe me, I feel your pain. I was thinking I'd like to cut our cable bill waaaaaayyyyy down too, but we need our box for the DVR and I admit, the music channels are an indulgence of mine I don't think I would want to do w/out.

Good luck, and let us know what you find out.

K. W

P.S. here is a link to learn about the digital switch: http://www.dtv.gov/index.html

Hello, Well from what I have heard, by mid 2009 tv antenas will no longer work. Everything is going to digital tv. We have comcast, and you can have just basic cable no extra channels, or anything extra and keep it pretty low. Our bill runs us about 115 every month but that is also because we have phone and internet with them. So the little black box, yes you will need for basic cable because your antena will no longer work come 2009 (they say) Hope I have helped in some way.

My bill was getting high, well, if i went to basic it would cost me more because i have a bundle and so i kept the bundle and got rid of my HBO package, the sports package, so now i pay 115-100, i get a 10.00 credit each month. if i went basic i would be paying 145, and that was almost what i was paying when i had the packages. There are so many deals out here well the look like deals but once you start adding thing the bill goes up. Who do you have??

We have basic cable (channels 2-29, plus 78) from Comcast and our bill is just $16 a month. We don't have a black box, and as far as I know, won't need one when things switch over next year. I think the only TVs being affected will be the really old ones with the rabbit ear antennas. It took a little getting used to when we switched from "real" cable, but now I don't miss the extra channels and have started spending more time doing other things than watching TV, so it's had more benefits than just on the pocketbook.