I spent half an hour on the phone with Spectrum yesterday, trying to find out how much I'd save by dropping TV from my Phone/Internet/TV package. I was paying $130 a few months ago. Now I'm paying $162. The woman said she could switch me to Spectrum, and I'd pay $160 plus fees. I'm paying $130 plus fees now, so that move would have me up near $200 a month. The $162 I'm paying is a "discounted rate" that will soon go up again. As for Spectrum - remember how T-W became Spectrum? - I'm still on the T-W plan. So, apparently, T-W still exists as a ghost company.

After half an hour, she said that if I dropped the TV portion, I would pay $89.98 (for a year) plus fees. Adding Hulu for $40 plus fees, would not save me very much, and after a year, that $89.98 would probably be over $100.

Consumer Reports is trying to do something about those "fees," but the prices for cable are still too high and too variable. It's like buying a plane ticket. I bet no two people pay the same for cable or the same for a plane ticket. To make matters worse, cable has no real competition. I don't need five hundred channels, but that's what I'm paying for, and I have no choice.