service and they will not bill you.
You keep all the equipment and then when you want to activate it again you just call them up and service resumes. The trick us that you can not upgrade your equipment. Once you do that you are locked into the service for two year.
I pay 7 months for service during college football and basketball and then just suspend my service for the summer months. The only sports I watch during that time is MLB and I just use mlb.tv