Hallelujah! You Can FINALLY Get HBO Without a Cable Package
Does it look like I’m a millionaire or does it look like I totally drive to my parent’s house to watch Game of Thrones and True Detective? (The answer is the latter, but a girl can dream). While I can’t make any of us millionaires, I can say that there is finally a way to get HBO without stealing it, so get excited you guys!
Up until this point, HBO has been very exclusive; you can pretty much only be part of the HBO yacht club if you pay the extra fee when you sign up for a cable package. Once you do this, you are granted the perk of HBO Go, where you can watch True Blood and Game of Thrones as you check Twitter while the opening credits drag on. The only problem with this is that it’s expensive, and you usually end up with a bunch of channels you could care less about.
According to the Wall Street Journal, more and more people are cutting the cord. As in, they’re bidding their cable providers farewell, and most likely replacing with instant streaming services only, or tossing the TV altogether and replacing their dearly beloveds with laptops and tablets. “19% of American TV households live without cable,” says the WSJ, which is 6% more than in 2010, reports Business Insider/my calculator. As TVs become smaller and smaller, the need for them follows suit.
Some cable companies can sense this drought in package subscriptions, and have come up with a happy solution: you can have your Internet, and you can watch your HBO, too! Basically what’s happening, is cable companies are cutting the crap. They know we don’t watch half the channels we’re given (I mean, are you really watching the Home Shopping Network?), so they’re going to offer us what we actually want. What a novel idea, guys!
So how’s it going to work? Well, you just contact your cable company and ask for a new deal. Here are the companies that are offering such deals:
1. Comcast has “Internet Plus” which includes a $25 prepaid Visa card, Internet, HBO, and Streampix for $39.99/month (you can upgrade and get faster Internet for only five dollars more).
2. Time Warner is offering “Starter TV with HBO” for a mere $29.99/month, which includes very basic cable and Internet.
3. Verizon FiOS has the “50/25 Mbps + Local News and Sports + HBO (or Showtime) for $50/month, which seems like a pretty awesome deal if you’re a sports fan.
4. AT&T U-Verse gives you the option of “HBO Internet Plus” for $39/month, which includes “U-Verse” TV, which I’m thinking is basic-ish television channels.
All of these are pretty good deals. You get Internet. You get HBO. And you get a handful of popular channels. Only downsides? For one, your cable company might not offer a deal like this yet (if it doesn’t, it probably will, soon). Another thing, is that once this really catches on, I’m suspecting prices will go up. Or who knows, maybe they won’t and we can stay in HBOland forever and ever and ever.
