Looking at dropping cable

Time Warner has been jacking my bill $5-$10 every few months for the last 3 years. I call them and bitch. they lower it down lower than it was before. Lowest cable/internet I've paid in prolly 8 years. I'm sick of the shenanigans and about to jump to Direct TV and an ATT hot spot for internet. Both are $19.99/month/each with a AAA membership and ATT business account which I have had forever. The Direct needs a 2 year commitment and it increases to $29.99 the second year and normal price $59.99 after the contract is up. I'm alright with that since I know it's going up and by the time it's up competition may make it cheaper. Time Warners increases whenever they feel like it are legalized racketeering.

 

I have never paid for TV. I get the 4 networks over the air and have a Fire stick for the TV.

 

As a kid we had an antenna on the roof like everyone else. In RI the main 3 were 6, 10 and 12. 12's signal would not always be great. 6 was by far the strongest. When cable came along I was so happy. MTV with actual music videos.

An OTA could be big waste of money for me. Not sure if the signals are better today or not. There is a site that checks your signal, and our location comes with no HD. We'd have to move to higher ground to get a better signal.



Jason from RI

 

boettg33 They aren't much money to invest in. I started with the flat Mohu leaf in the bedroom when I didn't want to run cable through the house. It worked OK, but when Comcast scrambled all the channels, even the free ones, coming into the house, I needed a better solution as I relied on that feed and just split before the modem.

So I took a shot in the dark, but really antennas are cheap as are amplifiers and coax - probably $150 for 2 amps, 1 antenna, and then 100'+ of coax and connectors. One day my 4 year old and I snaked cable between floors and to the locations we wanted with the main feed up in the attic. Powered it up and all I have done since is add another amplifier between a secondary splitter.

Over the air stations are excellent. I happen to live about mid way between Boston and Providence, so we get plenty of stations, often duplicates, and all HD.

www.tvfool.com

You can experiment with a cheapy antenna. I started with a couple decent channels, and about 30 total that came in sometimes. Not sure how many I have now, most we don't watch, but very rarely can we not watch TV during storms. Also, antenna IN the attic! No grounding concerns and no eye sore.

 

I cut the cord literally once with my tiller. It was only an inch underground. Dropped a tree on the dish once too. Got in a big fight with DTV and they dropped the bill in half to keep us. Still has to be a better cheaper option I can talk wifey into.

 

Here is the report:

 

Ughhhh yeah that's tough.

 

You could get a powerful antenna with a rotor to get all the channels or possibly have 2 antennas with a splitter.
I'm in a river valley with hills all around and can get channels from over 60 miles away if I point the antenna in that direction.
Often, channels from 2 different markets are duplicated anyway.
Go to Hi-Def forum and they'll tell you exactly what you need.

 

I tend to watch the sub channels from OTA more than anything. MeTV, ThisTV, Cozi TV, GetTV, etc. Rarely watch the networks except for some sports. Can sometimes find decent stuff on the PBS sub channels too.

 

Yes, google today's proposed FCC rule change.

 

No, but I think their business will change to more of an ISP model. And they'll still have us by the balls, as opposed to making us pay for packages full of channels we never watch, they'll start charging us by the Gig (or terabyte) of data that we use.

 

I wish you could say these are the channels I want and pay a rate for those channels. I don't use 3/4 of the ones we have.

 

Yeah, I'd be fine with ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, History Channel, FX, and maybe HBO. It was pretty nice for about a year before the Supreme Court shut down Aereo. HD quality broadcast TV through the internet with the ability to record and store 2 shows for around $10/month was awesome while it lasted. Hopefully something similar shows back up soon with the FCC's proposed changes.

 

The history channel is getting hard to watch-- to much drama, not enough documentary. If I could pick my own channels it would be local channels, comedy central, tbs, h2 and... Disney for the kids, i guess.

 

The old lady would want amc for 13 episode of the walking dead each year. I dont mind watching them later, like we are doing now.

 

I don't think they will any time soon. If people ditch the cable company TV service and use the cable companies only for Internet, then expect the price for Internet service to go through the roof.

I have Dish Network and have the el cheapo plan, which is $45 a month. Out of the 120 channels in the package, I watch maybe three or four channels.

I'd be interested in a Hulu/Netflix type of service that lets you download a show onto a PC and have 24 hours to watch it. I'd get to work early or hang around after hours for a bit, download the shows I want to watch, then watch them at night. I don't think that exists though.

(Disclaimer - I live in the Bermuda triangle of technology that no cable nor DSL provider wishes to serve, and I'm on the fringe of a wireless ISP. Streaming media isn't a viable option for me).

 

Many of the major ISPs have been toying with switching to a consumption based model similar to the wireless market. Once cutting the cord becomes viable, you'll see them make the shift. If they don't, they will go bankrupt.

The al la carte style of cable is another possibility. However; I think many of us would find it to be very expensive. When you get 120, 180, etc.. channels, there are a ton of fluff channels that you pay little or no money to have per month. Most of your monthly bill falls into a handful of stations: ESPN, NFL, Lifetime, Disney, Discovery, History, etc... Most of the stations that many of us want is where the bulk of your monthly bill exists today.

For our family of 5, I need the following stations to survive:

1. Disney channels - AppleTV
2. Discovery channels - AppleTV
3. DIY network - Hulu
4. Food Network - Hulu
5. Fox Soccer - no current option
6. MLS - AppleTV
7. ABC Family - Hulu
8. Hallmark - No current option
9. History channels - Hulu
10. HGTV - Hulu
11. PBS - AppleTV
12. Nat GEO - Hulu
13. Nick channels - Hulu
14. TBS - no current options.
15. SYFY - Hulu
16. ABC - Hulu
17. NBC - Hulu
18. CBS - Hulu has old content, and a few of the new shows. No TBBT
19. FOX - Hulu
20. NESN - no current options

Jason from RI

 

What is the motivation for wanting to get rid of cable?

We got rid of our's about 4 years ago. It bugs me a little when people say they're going to get rid of cable but then start talking about hulu and netflix and all this online stuff. The main reason we got rid of cable is because 99.9% of the programs on TV today are either mind numblingly stupid, outright propaganda, or both. We felt that watching TV was actually making us inferior human beings and that we'd be better off without it. We do not want our children growing up to be lobotimized little zombies who know all kinds of meaningless, pointless facts about a handful TV shows while having no knowledge of the practical, meaningful things in life. We've become a superficial entertainment society, thanks in large part to television. Since cancelling the cable we get more done around the house and spend more quality time with each other as a family.

I'll climb down off the soapbox and say that it was also nice saving 60 bucks a month too.