I got my cable bill yesterday. It was 95 bucks. I noticed this was high because I usually pay more like $75 for extended basic cable + broadband. For years, I only had the federally-mandated low cost basic cable which runs $12 or so, plus the exorbitant $45 for broadband. The cable company then began calling me up to offer me a couple months free if I would switch to extended basic, and I would promptly switch back to basic basic after the free period ran out. The next step would be that they would offer me a couple months free followed by a period of $10-20 off per month for a year. That period just ran out, which is why my bill jumped up to $95.

This morning I called up and gave them the double shot of asking to drop extended cable (-$36) and asking why their broadband was so expensive, considering DSL is $15/month. They apparently have a “broadband lite” option that’s only $27/month, but it’s not even as fast as the $15/month DSL. We finally settled on $69/month for the services I currently have, but I’m going to try to talk to the DSL people to see if I can figure out exactly what bitrate I might end up with; if I drop my cable down to basic, and switch to high-end DSL, I’d be paying something like $40/month, and the lower latency of DSL might even make VOIP look a little more palatable–so I’d be paying $55/month for broadband, TV, and phone; that sounds a little more reasonable.