Beware of Bundling

I might have to give my favorite new toy back to the bright house cable company. My room mate's employer pays the road runner portion of our cable bill. Until now, this has been 75% of the total amount, basicallly breaking down to $45 /$15. When I reflect back on what the cable salesman said with educated ears, I realise that he said my cable bill would only increase $5. What I didn't not understand at the time was that in order for this to happen the bill would be "bundled," in other words, the more services you have the less you pay for some services. The roadrunner portion of the bill is now less than half its previous amount and the cable portion of the bill has more than tripled. In all fairness to the cable salesman, who besides me would think of road runner and cable separately as I do? Furthermore, the $15 rate I was paying for basic cable (the first 20 or so channels) is no longer available. My new rate is $19.95, before all the additional fees and taxes.

Now I have a decision to make. My part of the new cable bill amount is $56 and that is a $30 increase over basic cable. That does include 6.95 for the dvr. You can have ALL the new channels if I could just keep my one touch "record" button. (My VCR does not work properly even after I remember each program I want to record.) I have thought through several ways I can cover this financially, but should I?

I did ask what will happen to basic cable in February of 2009. When all tv is digital, will basic cable be digital as well? No, the cable company actually changes those channels from digital to analog now and will continue to do so in February so no basic cable dvr, now or then.

I have decided to keep the cable for a couple of months. We'll see how it goes.