Saving Money: Pondering Cable/Internet/Phone Services

Like many people we signed up for an inexpensive promotion for tv/phone/internet. With that promotion expired it was time to look at what was currently available. Fortunately we live in MA, Newton to be precise so we are fortunate to have a variety of providers

• Comcast (http://www.comcast.com/tripleplay/)
  
• RCN (http://www.rcn.com/specialoffers/display.php
• Verizon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_FiOS#Telephone

We may be atypical users in that our TV's are definitely low tech. Our biggest TV is a 19" Sony we have had for 20+ years. We have a total of 3 TVs that we need to hook up (4 if you count the PC based tuner (http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_usb2.html).
none are HD (obviously).

Our primary objectives are

• Price
• Reliability
  
• Reasonable internet speed
• Unlimited calling

For a while the RCN was quite cheap, one of those startup packages but over time it crept up in price and we are now around $140 (before taxes). Looks like you could get it now for $75 for a year which would be quite a bargain and would win hands down (but it is a new customer offer).

Pricing

• Comcast $99 (sufficient analog channels to not need additional boxes)
• RCN ~$110 (requires a call to a special department as an existing customer)
  
• Verizon $99 + $4.99*2

Internet

• Verizon 5mbps/2mbps
• RCN 10mbps/768kbps
• Comcast 4mbps/384kbps

TV

• Verizon ~240 channels
• RCN ~140 channels
• Comcast ~70

Phone

• Comcast 12 features some pretty neat
• RCN 4 features all basic
• Verizon (still can't figure it out)
  

If we figure out the phone I think I might go with Verizon. Reliability of FIOS appears to be slightly higher than cable. I know we have had strange outages (thought none impacted the critical phone). Also I can't help but like new technology and the two years of fixed pricing helps close the deal for FIOS.

As to service there seem to be honors and horrors with each service. I have not seen anything that would make me believe that one should be preferred over the other.

Update: Since my main concern was cost I was a little reluctant to get locked into FIOS and required cable boxes. RCN finally came through with the same deal they were offering new users and we have

• Cable (120ish channels most available on any TV!)
• Internet (10/2 claimed) (8/2 measured dslreports)
• Phone (unlimited US)

When RCN came out they were really kind, and even replaced some low quality splitters I had (-15db) with good splitters (-3db). Excellent!