aditya’s posterous

What?

Today, an AT&T tech will come to my place for installing AT&T U-Verse's internet connection. In fact, AT&T U-Verse internet, plus cable, plus home phone, which I will cancel in a week, just retaining the internet service. [They have this system where the installation would be free, with a $300 gift card thrown in, when I get all three services at a time. Getting only internet would have set me back $200 just for the installation. Getting all three and cancelling two is the work around.]

Okay... but why?

I have been on Time Warner Cable all my time here in Austin and, while it's been alright, I just got the feeling that my TV habits don't seem to justify a monthly bill well over a $100. Make no mistake, I watch a lot of TV. My weekly lineup includes: Heroes (which I have stopped now), House, 24, Lost, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, The Mentalist, Community, FlashForward, Smallville (I don't know why I'm still watching it), and Dexter and Curb Your Enthusiasm when they return in fall. (I'm sure I've forgotten a fair few from the list of current shows I watch, but I think you get the point.)

Add to the above, my biggest reason for sticking to cable: live sport programming. I watch football (soccer), college football (American football for my India-based readers), NFL (again, American football), some tennis and NBA, and bits of whatever sport is on TV, even baseball. The problem with sport on HD is it can make even something obscure (or imaginary as a cockroach deathmatch) appear breathtaking.

All this should then make cutting the cable cord appear a bit mental.

The thing is though, I get half a million channels on TV that I don't watch at all. I don't care much for the Food network. Most of the TV shows I've mentioned are on NBC, CBS, FOX or ABC; all free to air networks. Hooking up my antenna to my television gave me over the air HD versions of the channels too. True, The Daily Show and Colbert Report airs on Comedy Central, but I've always DVRed them. Although increasingly I've found myself watching those two shows on Hulu more often. That leaves me with shows on premium networks, such as Dexter on Showtime and Curb on HBO. But then, I've never had premium channels. And I've watched high quality versions of them. *Ahem*

This leaves me with sports programming. The reason I switched to AT&T, and not just cut out cable from Time Warner, is because TWC remains stubborn with regards to getting ESPN360.com. ESPN360 is a service from ESPN to internet subscribers on certain ISPs that allow you to view a whole bunch of their live events online. Free. It means I can watch all matches of this year's World Cup. And their increased foray into the English Premier League and the Spanish La Liga means I can watch tons of football (soccer), if I am on AT&T.

As for the remaining stuff, I have Sopcast.

How much does this save you?

About $60 a month which I could reinvest on a setup that gets me a lot more online content directly to my TV.

How do you plan to do that?

I am scouring the market for different kinds of setups that would give me the most online content on my TV. My Xbox 360 right now streams Netflix upto 720p HD. I've seen the first five seasons of Lost on it, and it was fantastic (the show, as well as the experience). I can also hook up my passport drive to the USB port in my 360 and watch DVD rips pretty easily. Tomorrow, I plan to give Rivet a spin; it's a software than can wirelessly stream media from the Mac to the Xbox/PS3. But I am still interested in other options. The Boxee box looks interesting, and I'll have a look at it when it launches. The Roku box is another option since it's opened a channel store and is adding more new channels (It currently has Netflix, Pandora, MLB.tv, Amazon on demand, among others) A host of Blu-ray players these days are coming Netflix/Amazon/Vudu-enabled.

The internet-on-TV industry is still in a state of flux, as device manufacturers are scrambling at options on how best to load their products with internet-enabled goodies while also invoking the ire of television-network executives who wouldn't want people to watch Hulu on anything other than your web browser.

What if I say this whole grand plan of yours sucks, and you will return, tail between your legs, to cable?

It's an experiment. If it works, then great. I don't hemorrhage money on stuff I can live without. If not, I can always add cable to my existing service. And I'd be convinced then that the money I'll be paying is really worth it. The good thing is there's no contract.

PS: If anyone of you have neat setups that have worked for you, do share in the comments. Anecdotal/personal experiences of course. I've done my share of reading on sites like Lifehacker already.