Starting today, I'm living a life without cable television; the only thing I'm going to switch on my TV for from now on, is a DVD or Laserdisc. I'll explain.
When I moved from my crampt room to a full-blown house, I already decided I didn't want to have anything to do with Essent and @Home if I could help it. I get my electricity and natural gas from GreenChoice (through Essent-cabling and pipes, unfortunately, but I can't help that), the plumbing and tap water comes from Vitens and I hooked up to the cable-TV connection while it was available. I don't watch as much TV as I did seven years ago, and figured I wouldn't miss it if I were to be cut off.
Eight months went past; I enjoyed an episode of ER and Top Gear now and then and that was it. The number of hours I actually spent in a week watching TV programmes was something like 8 hours or so. Then came the letter.
"Dear inhabitants of this house,
We at @Home, have no record of a subscription of you to our services, but your house is still connected to our network.
Because of this, we have to cut you off, but we're sure you wouldn't want that. Therefore we advise you to contact us and take a subscription with us. The previous months are obviously for free. (author's note; obviously; I didn't ask nor sign up for your services in the first place, so you have no claim whatsoever)
Sincerely, the @Home team." |
Well, in most households, such a letter would cause quite a stir. Oh noes! Our cable connection will be cut and we'll miss out on quality shows, like
Everybody Loves Raymond,
The Cosby Show reruns,
Fear Factor season 27,
Suddenly Susan, and a guy who's hardly as funny as he likes to think:
Robert Jensen.
Weeeelll, not in this household.
I decided I didn't want to pay over €15 a month, just to see
ER and the occasional movie, so I threw the letter away, and went on with my life. I decided then and there that I would see how I went without cable, and if I ever felt the need for broadcast television again, I would fork out a couple of hundred for a satellite dish. After all; a dish and a decent tuner/decoder will set me back about €200, and about €40 a year for a subscription on some extra Dutch channels. Compared to the €180 a year @Home would charge me, that's a bargain.
It took them two months, but when I got home today, I found a card in my mailbox, stating that they had disconnected me from their network, meaning I could no longer watch TV, listen to cable radio or using the internet through cable, in case I had that.
But I don't, so I won't miss it. :)
So here I go, working on my backlog of DVD's I still have to watch and cruising the internet through my DSL-connection.
As for ER; DVD-boxes can be quite cheap if you know where to
look...
Cheers, K.