The advertised cable price is not the bill
Cable pricing separates the headline rate from equipment rental (typically $10 to $20 per month per box), a broadcast TV fee, a regional sports fee, and — after the promotional period, usually 12 months — a jump to the standard rate. None of these appear in the advertisement itself.
Add them up before comparing anything. A $70 advertised rate routinely becomes $100 to $120 by month thirteen once the promotional period ends and the itemized fees are included, and that new total is what actually recurs for the remaining years of the comparison.
The arithmetic, five years out
Marinios on the 12-month plan is $69.99 for 14 months of access (12 paid, 2 bonus), which works out to $5.00 per month with no equipment and no rate increase over time. Over five years — 60 months — that's roughly $300, and the figure doesn't move because there's no promotional cliff to fall off.
Cable at a $70 advertised rate for the first 12 months, then roughly $110 per month after (fees included) for the remaining 48 months, totals close to $840 for year one plus about $5,280 for years two through five — around $6,120 to $6,300 depending on the exact fee structure. The gap between the two totals is not close.
What the extra money on cable actually buys
Cable buys a guaranteed local-affiliate lineup in every market it serves, a technician who will show up if something's wrong with the physical line, and a single accountable provider you can call. For households where local news and locally broadcast games matter, that guarantee is worth real money.
It does not buy a better picture on the same underlying source feed, and it does not buy device flexibility — an IPTV subscription typically runs on far more devices than a cable box does, since it goes through apps you already have rather than dedicated hardware.
The honest caveats to this comparison
IPTV depends entirely on your home internet connection. If your connection is already unreliable, switching to IPTV moves the point of failure rather than removing it — fixing the underlying connection matters more than which TV service sits on top of it.
Local broadcast affiliates are also the hardest and most market-dependent rights to license for any IPTV provider. Check the specific local channels you actually need against the lineup during a trial period, rather than assuming coverage and finding out after switching.
Run your own numbers
Every household's cable bill is different — some already pay less than $70 advertised after negotiating, some pay considerably more once every fee lands. The comparison only means something with your actual bill plugged in, not the industry-average figures above.
The arithmetic pattern holds regardless of the exact starting number: equipment rental, broadcast and sports fees, and the post-promotional increase are the three line items to add to any advertised cable rate before comparing it honestly against a flat monthly IPTV price.