Our last Dish Network bill was $62 for one month. Multiply that by twelve and that's $744 per year.
What, not reason enough yet?
Here's how we kicked the Dish to the curb:
-We already had a high speed internet connection.
-We purchased an inexpensive 32" HDTV (1080p) that was also web-enabled. ($370) Since our wireless router and the TV share the same room I simply plugged the TV into the router with a network cable. The TV uses a special menu and apps for things like Netflix, Hulu, youtube, Amazon Instant Video etc and accessing them is a breeze.
-For our bedroom we moved the old analog TV upstairs and purchased the Roku XDS box ($99) that gave our old TV the same functionality that was built into our new HDTV. (The Roku connects wirelessly to our wifi router for internet connectivity.)
-Just to test the reception I purchased a $10 set of rabbit ears for the HDTV and we get two networks, NBC and CBS, in full and glorious uncompressed 1080p HD. (Suck on that Dish Network and your compressed HD signal) If we get two networks with just rabbit ears the next step is to purchase and install an outdoor antenna. To continue flipping the bird in Dish Network's general direction, I'll be using the same mounting post and coaxial cable Dish Network installed. The outdoor aerial should cost in the $35-$50 range.
For Programming:
-Hulu+ is $7.99 a month and acts as the DVR we we're paying the dish people almost as much for on top of our regular programming fees. Plus it has a LARGE selection of entire show seasons, a whole section of Criterion movies and they're now dabbling in exclusive show content by importing and showing exclusively TV shows from Britain and Canada.
-Netflix Watch Instantly. They have a great selection of TV shows, documentaries, British TV, martial arts, foreign, art house movies, kids TV shows, etc. In other words, stuff my family and I love to watch already. Again, $7.99 a month.
-For those networks that refuse to do Hulu and the few that we can't access through our TV interfaces we acquired a $14 cable that connects from the video card in my computer to one of the HDMI ports on the HDTV. The computer sees it as a second monitor and we can view anything available either on the web or downloaded from the web on our HDTV now too.
-For new and recent movie releases, pay services like VUDU, and Amazon Instant Video allow us to stream full HD (1080p) versions of the movies directly to our TV, usually in the $5-8 range.
Total up front costs:
$533
Monthly Reoccurring Costs:
$15.98 x 12 = $191.76
Total costs our first year: $533+$191.76=$724.76
Still cheaper than a whole year of Dish Network by a few bucks.
Considering that the $533 were all one time costs our next year savings are going to be $552.24.
Suck on that Dish.
