Cutting The Cord or how to free yourself from the cable TV providers

"In the beginning", like a lot of things, cable was a wonderful way to receive TV. No antenna, no rotor and some nice clear reception with your regular, local channels and upgraded packages that would bring you your favorite sports or movies.
As things have mutated, cable (at least around here) has become an expensive alternative to watching TV. I have been hearing the "Cutting The Cord" chant for some time now and, while a recent trip to the very nice people that staff the local Xfinity/Comcast office on another matter, I inquired on the loss of all the Stars channels with no reduction in billing. The response was "A lot of customers are not happy about it, we think something is going to be worked out".
Anyway, I'm thinking that it's time to look into something less (in general) irritating and possibly more cost effective. CNET has a good link on the basics of this wave of skipping the cable company- https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-cut-the-cable-tv-cord-in-2020/
I'm pretty sure that if you want to receive the OTA (over the air) local channels of which there is some 46 available in my area, you will need an antenna. The antennas can be as basic as a grid looking deal that suction cups to the window or a mini-dome that can be mounted outside.
So, where are you at on this TV deal?
Have you already made the jump to eliminating the cable TV subscription?
Have you found that the cable companies are "holding you hostage" over the TV subscription because they are your internet provider?

If you hate TV. If you don't watch TV. If you threw your TV away 20 years ago....... Feel free to skip right on over to the next thread, thanks.



OM

I bought an antenna a couple years back. I can get maybe a dozen stations, but all of them play nothing but 60's reruns. I am still paying for cable. I still consider dumping cable and keep Netflix and Amazon prime for our TV entertainment.

Cut the satellite link years ago. I mounted a high quality antennae up in the attic and get about 25 local channels, tho only about 8-10 are used much. That group covers ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS. Threw in a couple streaming services and we are good to go. My only possible future use for the cable company would be for internet service, which would be faster than my existing DSL line.

Best,
DeVern

Been thinking about an alternative to DirecTV on and off for a while. The best option for me is an Amazon FireStick 4K combined with YouTube TV. I already have an outdoor antenna so its just a matter of connecting it for local programming.

But I have to do a bit more research regarding multiple TV's. That might be the fly in the ointment.

Joe

Funny. I noted the whole Starz deletion as well, not that I watched a ton of stuff on there, but one day it was an additional subscription, and my cable bill hadn't changed a bit.

We recently just redid our cable contract, mostly because we wanted to consolidate our primary household with my son's household. He rents from us, but we pay the cable bill. Consolidation just made it simpler.

Went into the store, they upgraded both of our internet services, consolidated our account, and gave me a bunch more free subscription channels as a "promotion". I hate promotions, because that means when the promotion period is over, they just start charging you the extra money. This time, the promotion period is 24 months. I can deal with that, and will revisit the account in 24 months. For the record, this is saving us 50 bucks per month.

Be careful with streaming services, as their charges are also slowly rising. They see an opportunity, and are taking advantage of it.

I'm not kidding myself, I think cable tv is a ripoff. But, we do watch TV, which includes a fair amount of sports, so we grit our teeth and pay the premium. There are many channels these days available on regular antenna TV, so not a bad option. I can actually do fine with rabbit ears, which I have on the TV in my "exercise" room.

We had a very positive experience when dealing with the xFinity/Comcast staff at their store, in person. However, at the opposite end of the spectrum, is dealing with issues via phone or their "app". That's the world we live in these days, I guess. Send customer service offshore, where we in the U.S. can't understand them, and I'm guessing they are struggling to understand us.

We quit cable TV 30 years ago when our kids were very young. We did not want to support all the crap they aired that we didn't watch. We started with a replacement Christian satellite TV provider. That only lasted about 5 years before they went out of business. By that time I had put up an outdoor antenna to get the 35 channels available here. With the dawn of internet streaming we went back to a paid model with Netflix and Amazon Prime but are once again supporting a bunch of crap but the kids are no longer in the house. I have refused to waste our time watching TV ads of any type for over 15 years by streaming only add free content and recording local channel content we are interested in and stripping the ads before viewing. Did you know a one hour broadcast only has 42 minutes of real programming? Talk about wasted time! I have a tv tuner card in my media pc attached to my TV/surround sound receiver that receives the antenna programming. I have apps installed on the pc that will automatically record any TV series we are interested in while we watch something else or sleep. Then in the morning it will strip all the ads automatically and we are ready to watch it that night.

During college football season I have to add SlingTV for a few months to get Florida Gator football games when they aren't on local providers like ESPN or SEC Network.

We have Direct TV without any premium channels and it's not cheap.
Signed up for Netflix a couple years ago and watch that most of the time.
If we had a grade school kid to show us how to setup a internet TV I would check into that

We can't get any reception with a antenna tower.
I gave up on the news a couple weeks into the riots and protests so loosing the local new would not be a big deal to me.
Debbie is a big news hound and that used to be 90% of what she watched. She got tired of how the new is reported now and rarely watches any news now.

It's too bad the satellite and cable companies don't let you just pick 7 or 8 channels.

We had Hughes Net satellite TV in Kansas. We also had satellite Internet because 5 miles out of town we couldn't even get slow DSL. When we moved to Texas 15 years ago we didn't do anything about TV. We did get decent Internet though because the phone company has fiber optic cable in the highway here, 53 miles out of town.

If I had a helium balloon at 10,000 feet with a signal booster antenna attached I might be able to get a "local channel" from Midland (200 miles) or El Paso (250 miles) away.

So we get news (an hour late) from the Internet and all the other stuff you can get via the Internet on our "smart" (or so they say) TV.

Whenever I am someplace like a hotel that has 192 channels on the TV I have trouble finding anything which I find decent to watch anyway and the commercials are horrendous. Every now and then I find out of something I am sorry to miss or sorry to have missed. But not at all very often.

I'm in the same TV market area (Boston) as Gary. We dropped our $180/mo cable four years ago, and kept only the $60/mo Internet/phone option. DL speed for the Internet is 255mbps. Phone is ignored. Close to $1500 savings each year.

I got a Roku early on. That provides a wide variety of streaming options and at $79 (today's price) for a Roku Ultra, it can't be beat. Mainly it's used for HBO Max, Netflix and Prime Video. Each of those has a price, of course, and we paid that extra price when we had cable. YouTube and occasionally MET Opera are there when we need them.

Living less than 2 miles from the Boston broadcast antenna farm (off 128/95 in Needham), we can watch local digital TV channels via a little antenna (12"X12") which hangs near the TV.

I recently was requested to get a TV up and running at one of the buildings I maintain. The suspected problem was the cable was down In the room. After some Red-Neck diagnosis work it boiled down to the box itself. This was a big TV (TCL ? brand) that I wasn’t familiar with. The TV was loaded with all the (now) common streaming services such as Netflix, Roku and the like.
All these services were coming through the cable system but the actual cable was the basic of basic services. Note- this is a special setup for a municipality. Once I replaced the cable box, waited for it to load, the basic cable was back up.
I makes me wonder if consumers follow a similar cable arrangement, will charges start to be calculated on bandwidth usage?
It also makes me wonder about these streaming services embedded in the TV’s. As I had to go through unfamiliar setup/settings I discovered that the TV’s had registration similar to a new computer....which I guess they are
As I am using a couple of ways “in”, it may be time to explore one of this type of TV.
OM

Omega Man said:

I makes me wonder if consumers follow a similar cable arrangement, will charges start to be calculated on bandwidth usage?
.
OM

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Our internet charge is based on how much we use.
Our allowed usage is 400 GB and costs $70
At the end of the month that will change to 1000 GB and our bill will change to $75.

Small city we live in is in some kind of monopoly zone or something and only one cable company is, or will ever be that I understand, allowed to operate. It was Adelphia then T-W which turned into Spectrum, which I prefer to call "Speculum." We finally got tired enough of the constantly rising cable and internet prices that we investigated cord cutting about three years ago. We made a failed attempt at using the FireStick from Amazon. At that time using that for much more than movies and a few other things was a bit like trying to move from Windows and a mouse back to DOS. We live just far enough away from the regional major markets that getting broadcast TV would have required a tower, booster, antenna, and rotor system. We went w/ DirecTV and have been only moderately happy. We've witnessed various channels being inexplicably dropped and twice now AT&T has gotten into a pissing contest w/ local TV networks that have lasted, sometimes, for months. Time to switch again! We've heard very good reports about YouTube TV so I'm thinking that's going to be the next move. With all this cable cutting going you'd think that the cable companies would have wised up by now but it appears that they aren't fast learners.

ridesolo said:

We've heard very good reports about YouTube TV .

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The 4k FireStick + YouTube TV seems to be the way to go.
But be aware, you'll need a FireStick for each TV. In my case 4.
But only one YouTube subscription.

Joe

61996 said:

The 4k FireStick + YouTube TV seems to be the way to go.
But be aware, you'll need a FireStick for each TV. In my case 4.
But only one YouTube subscription.

Joe

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Tru dat. We have a Fire Stick and a new smart TV so we'll just need another fire stick for the third TV, maybe another if I decide I can't live w/o the TV in the shop. I updated my internet router from one that output to ten units to one that does twenty. (Sheesh! Three or four TVs, two laptops, two smart phones, two Echos, a thermostat, a printer, and a couple other pieces of junk... all thinking they need their own internet access. Then the grandkids come in w/ iPads and phones, modern times.)

YouTube TV is a good alternative and you can have 5 separate users on one account if you want to share the cost. It will also provide you with local news if you desire.

With a smart TV, you no longer need a service like Roku and can just connect the TV directly to your internet connection.

Our Dish provider is fighting with local stations again and longer than we have ever seen. Of course it’s he said- she said as to who the problem child is.
I installed a hdtv antenna alongside the dish to get locals this week, picture clear and a lot of new to us channels. I can push a button in bedroom to swing it towards San Antonio, Austin, or Waco I believe and watch away. Each direction provides a lot of channels
We currently have cut the sat internet as well as we are looking at options. We have data limitations, so streaming wipes that out quickly. H was fiddling with phone data, all sorts of gadgets to stream yesterday but I walked away when I heard the sailor in the room tuning up.

Our Verizon signal on our hill is two bars average as it is and she has been having hotspot issues trying to work from home.

If you do cut the cord and go broadcast for at least part of your viewing, a useful web site is TitanTV. You can create a free account then populate it with the broadcast channels you receive, and it builds a useful daily programming schedule.

Best,
DeVern

ridesolo said:

. I updated my internet router from one that output to ten units to one that does twenty. (Sheesh! Three or four TVs, two laptops, two smart phones, two Echos, a thermostat, a printer, and a couple other pieces of junk... all thinking they need their own internet access. Then the grandkids come in w/ iPads and phones, modern times.)

Click to expand...

Oh great! Something else for me to research!
I'm in the same boat!

Joe

henzilla said:

. H was fiddling with phone data, all sorts of gadgets to stream yesterday but I walked away when I heard the sailor in the room tuning up....

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That's what's kept me from making the cut, so I'll just have to pay the freight to keep my life simple.