You don't have to cancel first... We had Comcast and FIOS for about two weeks until I was satisfied, then it was adios Comcast. Had some problems w/them - had a less than optimal signal, so a guy put a filter on the line to clean it up. A few months later, bad signal, another guy took the filter off. The best was right after they bought our previous cable company. I had internet through them, but not TV. I came home from lunch on a work at home day to find I had no internet. Tried a bunch of different things, no luck. Called Comcast, they tried a bunch of diagnostics, no luck, set up a service call for (surprisingly) the next day. Went outside, and there was a filter on my line. I took it apart, and it was empty - not a filter, just a connector to interrupt the service. I connected it back up, internet was flying. Called Comcast back, asked the woman if there was an issue w/my account. She assured me there wasn't, so I told her what I found, what I did, and that everything was working. She assured me the account was good, and I could leave it connected like that until the service guy came out. He showed up the next morning and I met him outside and said, "I think I know what's going on." He shook his head and laughed, and said, "You have no idea how many of these things I'm taking off everyday." Turns out one of the first things Comcast was doing was sending crews out to every house, checking to see if they had a cable TV account, and if they had a signal and no cable TV account, they cut off the feed. Never mind that I had an internet account.