Amid tighter budgets, more people are trying to save money by cutting their cable cords. In response, cable companies are beginning to experiment with new Internet services. In what's shaping up as the home-entertainment equivalent of severing a landline phone service, more people are joining the ranks of "cord cutters" by forgoing cable subscriptions that can run $60 or more a month. Instead, they're turning to free over-the-air high-definition television channels and video-game consoles, such as Playstation 3 and XBox 360. They're also watching Internet-connected TV sets, paying a basic high-speed Internet fee of about $45, as well as set-top boxes from companies like Netflix Inc. Some are also using media browsers that they can download free and run on PCs, providing access to TV shows, movies and other content directly from the Web. The number of cable cutters remains too small to threaten the pay-television industry. Still, large cable companies such as Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. are noticing that people are spending more time online.
