Tech Tactics for Hard Times

Wireless phone service, in turn, offers easy cost savings if your plan includes excess minutes, video or audio streaming, or navigation services that you rarely use. In most cases, you can change plans without penalty. If you're out of a contract and rarely use your phone, do the math and see if prepaid service would be a better deal.

Then look at TV -- probably your single most expensive telecom service. Do you need all the channels you are buying? When's the last time you considered a different provider? The first-year discounts that cable, satellite and fiber-optic carriers offer to new subscribers can cut costs more than half. I've also heard from many readers who got a break on their cable bill just by calling to complain about it.

Internet access, by contrast, doesn't offer much pricing flexibility. You typically buy a broadband connection as an indivisible whole, without any options that you can later decline. You should, of course, consider what other broadband options reach your home; for example, DSL typically costs less than cable-modem service.

But broadband Internet, unlike TV and land-line phone connections, can also duplicate those services if you're willing to put it to work. And now's the time to try out that potential.

Consider long-distance calling: Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) costs far less than land-line long distance and doesn't carry the time-of-day limits of cellphone long distance. EBay's Skype ( http://skype.com), for instance, allows free computer-to-computer audio and video chatting, plus computer-to-phone calls for pennies a minute, whether you're calling to Connecticut or to China. Cheap corded and cordless VoIP phones can plug into your home network and free you from talking through a computer's microphone.

You can also turn your broadband connection into your TV service. The networks offer free streaming video of most shows at their own sites and such third-party portals as Hulu ( http://hulu.com), and you can buy shows at Amazon's upgraded video-on-demand service and Apple's iTunes Store.

You may find that these options permit you to chop down your TV service to a cheaper bundle -- or, if your tastes line up, drop it entirely in favor of free, over-the-air digital broadcasts. The Web can become the a la carte programming bundle that TV service providers refuse to sell you, greatly reducing your monthly costs. And in the process, you can help teach the cable and satellite folks that we'd like that choice.

That has to be worth something in its own right.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrobp@washpost.com. Read more athttp://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward.