I was just reading an article about A La Carte cable and it said many companies in Canada already offer this. For those of you to the North, is this true? If so, what are your cable bills like? Is it about $1-2 per channel? I would like to have this option in the states, but it is a no go so far.

wow that does seem like a good idea. I tell you what. the first things to go would be the cartoons, then the womens channels although *sometimes* they have movies on there and next would be all the cspan,cnn crap oh boy what next. Only ones i need are spike,comedy central,discovery,history,national geographic,speed,mtv (sometimes), tbs,tnt,a&e, and the rest of the big networks for the good stuff they sometimes show.

All I really need are the big networks and the sports channels.

Here's a brief summary from my provider:

(1 channel).................................... $2.49**

(5 channels).................................. $6.99**

(10 channels)................................... $9.99**

(15 channels)................................... $12.99**

(20 channels)................................... $14.99**

(30 channels)................................... $19.99**

(All Channels).................................. $29.99**


* All A LA CARTE services require the Digital Basic package (Monthly price is $2.99. Includes 40 Digital Music Stations, the Interactive Program Guide, Access to Video On Demand). The Digital Basic is already included in all Digital Bundles.

** Taxes not included. Installation fees may apply. Digital Cable Receiver is not included..

You can either buy a Digital cable receiver or rent one on a monthly basis. Bare bones one for $6.99 a month up to a High Def receiver with a 120GB hard drive for $19.99 a month.

Forgot to add, my cable bill and high speed internet are with the same company and the monthly bill is about $85 Canadian. If I move up to HD it will go to approx $115.

Nice! What cable company do you have? That's a fantastic price! To get all channels from my cable co under digital, I'd probably be looking at 3 figures a month, easy.

I have a Bell Expressvu (digital satellite) and they offer a slightly different deal than FordPerfect's provider. The gist of it is you start with a basic package that has pretty much all the main networks in Canada and the US. That is $25/mo. You can then add "packages" of channels, each with 6-10 similar interest channels in them. Each of them are $5/mo (5th one is free). Movie channels (8) are $20/mo more and HD programming with 14 channels is $10/mo (though you need a $300+ receiver). There is also a good selection of foreign language programming too.

I think the 10-20 digital music channels and 30 or so Canadian radio stations are included no matter what package you have. If you were to "juice up" the package and order all the channels & HD programming, it would set you back about $100/mo.

All in all, it's pretty affordable. The website is here:
Bell Expressvu