Abandoning the Pay TV Bundle
Verizon Takes The First Step - Plus Tips for Saving with Verizon and Other Providers
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
In one of my earliest posts, I discussed ways to Cut Your Cable Bill. TV and internet is a large monthly expense, so anything you can do to save can make a big difference to your budget.
One of the ways I suggested is to cut pay TV or switch to a “skinny” bundle (a TV bundle with fewer channels). Verizon is the first major cable/telco provider to strongly encourage customers to take this step. Last week, the company announced they are eliminating bundles and contracts for home internet, TV, and phone, instead offering fairly simple options of one of three internet speeds, one of three TV packages, and optional phone service.[1]
For most people, the best Verizon deal by far is base level 100 Mbps internet service for $39.99/month,[2] with no pay TV or phone service attached. According to this superb WSJ study (subscription required, but you can trust me on the conclusion!), almost no one actually uses/needs more than 50-100 Mbps, even when streaming multiple HD videos at once.
If you must have TV, Verizon’s base level “Your Fios TV” offers an ok deal at $50/month (plus equipment rental), provided you only watch a handful of cable channels.[3] Alternatively, cut the cord entirely and just use streaming services. With Amazon Prime, a Disney+ trial (that we probably will not renew), and Netflix, we have far more TV than we can ever watch for about $20/month.
Although this post is about Verizon, many of these tips such as reducing internet speed to only what you need, cutting pay TV service, and buying your own router/modem (see note 1 below) are great ways to save with any provider.[4] And of course, try to negotiate your bill down using the advice I provided in my prior post.
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it with a friend! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.
[1] The somewhat sneaky thing here is that by unbundling and (most likely) reducing or eliminating promotions, average prices are likely to rise for customers electing premium options. And profitability for Verizon is likely to rise substantially as well, particularly since the base-level TV option they push allows them to remove many of the highest “carriage fee” channels from their offerings, particularly ESPN and the regional sporting networks. Have you ever seen an “RSN fee” on your cable bill? That’s your provider’s attempt to pass along the extremely high price these local sports networks charge (and also to highlight how expensive these networks are).
[2] Note that this also requires a $15/month router rental. If you are fairly tech-savvy, you can purchase your own router for ~$200 or less (substantially less if you buy used), saving the monthly fee and effectively paying back the cost of the router in about a year. I haven’t used these instructions myself, but this guide for Verizon seems promising. For most cable/telco providers, you can generally purchase a router/modem for less than the cost of a year of rental and return your rented box, just search for “use my own modem for [insert your internet provider here]”.
[3] A somewhat dated Nielsen study showed the average household only watches about 17 channels, and most viewing is likely spent on fewer than five.
[4] And skip the phone service as well. But this is just a footnote since who has a landline anymore? If you must have a landline, use a free or low-cost VoIP (voice over IP) solution like Ooma, whose basic plan generally costs less than $5/month.