A few weeks ago, shortly after Hulu Plus came to the Xbox, I called AT&T and had them disconnect the TV portion of my U-verse account with them. I’ve been a U-verse subscriber for a long time, but was paying nearly $90/month for the service, with the U200 package, two DVRs, and one HD receiver.
My video solution now includes my Xbox, which offers Hulu Plus and Netflix access. I went from paying $90/month to paying $24/month ($15.99 for Netflix 2-disc account and $8 for Hulu Plus). So, I’ve got an extra $90 in my pocket each month, but what did I lose?
The biggest thing that I’ve lost is the ability to watch shows as they air, or shortly thereafter. We only have a few TV shows that we watch (Modern Family, Cougar Town, Family Guy, etc), and had somewhat gotten comfortable with when they came on, so that we would watch them within an hour of the original air date. Hulu Plus gets these shows within 24 hours, so we’ve had to adjust a bit.
The only other loss we’ve really suffered is sports, which neither Christina nor myself are into. We also get left out of some conversations with friends about TV moments that might have happened the evening before, but a quick search on YouTube usually gets us up to speed.
The biggest caveat that we have yet to encounter is AT&T’s new data caps. Our data plan will eventually have a 250GB/month limit placed on it, with fees imposed for going over. As it stands, AT&T is apparently still building the tool to measure this (when I tried to look it up, I landed at a page showing this message:
Of course, streaming all of my video through Netflix and Hulu Plus will push that 250GB limit, so this is a wildcard in my solution.
Have you cut the cord? If so, how’s it working out for you? If not, what’s holding you back?
Ricky Cadden 
I’d be shocked if you guys hit the 250gb cap. We cut the cord back in October, using 2 Apple TV’s for Netflix and renting directly from Apple themselves on occasion – and even with 4 of us in the house (two adults two kids), the closest we’ve come to our 250gb cap on Comcast is 192gb. We pay 15.00 a month for Netflix, and we buy one 20.00 itunes card a month too (for renting movies). Even with occasionally downloading a full season of Weeds or something from iTunes, we’ve never hit that 250gb limit.
The only thing I miss is watching Football – but now I have a built-in excuse to go to a buddy’s house on Sundays, so no complaints really!
I would love to try this. I would REALLY miss sports though. Not sure I could go all in. I would at least like to get down to basic cable.