Do you still pay for cable/satellite TV or home phone?

[R5Don4]

I'm in my late 30's and have "had cable tv" all my life.  I have a friend in his early twenties that says he doesn't have conventional cable tv service and no one of his generation does that anymore.  Of course he has cable internet but he doesn't have a regular phone either... what he does have are tons of downloaded media on a bunch of external hard drives that would have powered a mid sized company ten years ago.  Is this common where you live?

[Jesse James]

Some people here are ditching it...  I wouldn't call it "common" though.  I know for me, ditching a landline's a virtual impossibility.  Maybe it's the topography of Pittsburgh, not really sure, but I get bad signal at my girlfriend's house, as well as my own house.  Neither is reliable, even through Verizon.

I don't honestly know anyone personally who has ditched their cable completely...  Some have I guess, but nobody I'm friends with of any age.  From what I've read, it's possible, but takes some work and you can't get HBO, etc.  And I watch a lot of HBO's series.

[Phrubruh]

I don't have a cable company. I use Verizon's FIOS that gives me the land line, TV and internet. I wish I could turn off the land line but they won't allow that.

[Dressel Rebel]

I don't have a cable company. I use Verizon's FIOS that gives me the land line, TV and internet. I wish I could turn off the land line but they won't allow that.

Nope, but you can turn off the ringer like I do.  Close enough!!

[McMetal]

We ditched the land line finally when we moved last month. It felt weird at first, especially having 2 small kids, but we really haven't missed it that much.

I'll never, ever ditch cable TV. Maybe it is a generational thing, but I can't stand watching TV or movies on a goddang computer.

First of all, I don't have a 50 inch computer monitor in HD surround sound. I don't see the thrill of giving myself a migraine trying to squint at my favorite shows while I strain to hear the sound through my crappy soundcard.

And I've yet to download any show that steamed smoothly, even on my top of the line work laptop on our T1 connection. You invariably get those annoying buffering delays or whatever. Even On-Demand works better than that.

[Diddly]

I'm college aged and nobody I know has a landline other than at their parents' houses. Everyone uses cell phones. Pretty much everyone I know has cable/satellite but I have heard of some people only using Hulu to watch TV. Personally I use cable as background noise while I surf the net and kinda hate watching shows on the computer screen.

[Neal]

I have DirecTV for television and a cell phone.  No landline.  I use Road Runner for my internet connection.

[Chris]

I have cable TV and internet, and two cell phones. A land line would be nice sometimes for better call quality on a conference call or when you want to hold up a traditional phone to your head... If I wasn't lazy I would bring my office phone home and use it - it's a Cisco VoIP phone where I'd plug it into my home network and it would connect back to work and it would have my extension on it, and I could use it for outgoing/incoming calls.

[Morgbug]

We still have a land line though once my daughter has a cell phone there'll be little need.  Other than the alarm company gives us a discount because they run through the phone lines. 

Not sure what to do about a cable provider though.  Internet's through that with few reliable other options so it probably stays. 

[efranks]

I know a couple people that no longer have land line telephone, they only use cell, but they still have cable tv/internet.

I have a land line telephone only because I use DSL instead of cable internet, it's a lot cheaper option here. 

With Hulu and streaming Netflix, and ethernet capable HDTV units, I could easily see someone opting out of land line telephone and even getting away from cable, as far as you can, anyway, and still have cable Internet service.  Cell phone and stream everything online, why not?

   E...

[Matt_Fury]

We use DirecTv, Cable internet and a landline mainly for the alarm system to the house.

[Crackbrick]

I had Directv but ditched it and now just pick up local channels with a tiny antenna hooked up to the HDTV.  I didn't watch enough shows to justify the $$.  Everything I want to see comes in either over the internet or makes its way to DVd eventually.

I do have a land line and no cell.
I found having a cell was not for me.  Found myself doing everything on it but actually useing it to take calls, so its gone.  I may get a prepaid one just for emergencies and not give out the #.

hate cells.

cb

[Symposium]

I have a land line but only due to ADSL being the only option where I live. I could get satellite for TV but there isn't anything worth watching that justifies the money. Everything filters down to the free to air channels eventually or I download/stream them at my leisure. As for a mobile I bought a cheap pay as you go for £5 and only use it for text messaging. I'm 32 so I'm not sure where I fit in with this trend but it looks like I'm down with the kids on this one.

[Jesse James]

I should clarify my post too, as I know a number of people who have ditched landline...  Myself, I prefer having a home phone # to give out and one not to give out, so I do that with my landline/cell...  It's another reason I won't completely ditch to cellular.  That and like I said, even with a blackberry storm on Verizon, I get horrible signal at various points and right at my own home...  I'm not going to do with the dropping calls and whatnot as my regular phone.

I'm with McMetal on watching TV on the puter too...  My computers aren't great ones, and I have a 60" HD TV I'd rather gets superior quality through Comcast ultimately.  They've been great for net, phone, and tv now for a while here.

[JediJman]

I don't know of anyone who exclusively watches TV/movies on their computer.  We are doing it more often because we forget to record something and most of the shows we watch are popular enough to be available online for free within a few days. I am on board with not spending a ton for duplicate services though.

A few years back, I was paying $160/mo. for Comcast triple play (digital phone, cable box, HS internet).  We still have the land line and the internet, but I cut the channels back to extreme basic, which is basically network shows, Bravo, and a couple of cable access shows.  Now we pay just $90/mo., which feels pretty cheap compared to $110 for two cell phones.