Dropped Cable TV Today

[bUU]

Just a thought. If Internet usage is to be metered, it must be truly based on usage that goes in both directions, up and down. Current metering proposals I have seen have a floor (usually what people are currently paying) and then go up from there. When metering is talked about it is usually in regards to charging more if one is over the cap. I have never heard of a proposal to charge less is one does not use all the bytes up to the cap. If one takes a 3 week vacation in June and monthly Internet usage plunges by 75% the floor keeps the monthly charge the same. OTOH, one's electrical usage at that time may go down by60% that month (many devices still run when one is not home) and the bill also goes down quite a bit.

More precisely, you pay a set fee for electric service, and a variable amount for consumption. However, we have no way of knowing what a pricing model like that would look like, because we don't have enough information to know how much lighter users are subsidizing heavier users, today. One approach to estimating would be to split the difference. That would lead to me paying a $30 monthly Internet service fee, and a charge of $10 for every 50 GB block of data I use.

In the end we need real free market competition to see what the true value of these services are.

Yet we don't need that to know what electricity should cost.

The current Monopoly or Duopoly systems were designed for another day and time that is long gone. I am 'lucky' in that I have two choices for home Internet service. Most people I know have one choice for Internet service - The Cable Company.

There won't be dozens of ISPs stringing cable in your neighborhood. The best you can hope for is a splitting of the service horizontally, like electricity is split here in Georgia: The pipeline will be regulated, receiving a set percentage profit each year, and then you'll have to purchase service separately. I wouldn't be surprised that, when the time comes, the networks demur from getting involved in any direct marketing to consumers arrangement, so you'll still end up dealing with Comcast, Charter, AT&T and Verizon - you'll just be able to pick your poison in that regard, with the service provided by the one you choose and the pipeline provided by whichever serves your specific area.

 

[Chuckanut]

That would lead to me paying a $30 monthly Internet service fee, and a charge of $10 for every 50 GB block of data I use.

And if a person goes one GB over 50 GB, what would they pay under your plan for the additional bytes? If it's $10 for every 50 GB block, it sounds like they have to buy another block. We're back to a floor on the price. Use 51 GB a month pay $10 more. Use 5 GB total for the moth, pay the same as if you used 50GB. Not so good.

Yes, there would be a flat hookup charge of some sort.

 

[bUU]

Comcast charges $10 for every 50 GB over the bandwidth cap. 301 GB = $10 upcharge. It's not my plan; it's their current actual price.

You'll never get nibble-based pricing. Usage will be sold in blocks. 50 GB is the current increment. Since usage will only go up over time, I cannot imagine why the size of blocks would ever decrease.

 

[Dawg52]

$89 gets us phone, 30G down/5G up internet, wifi, plus 200 channels and a settop box. If we want HBO that's $10 more.

$89 including all fees? That's a good deal. Can't come close to that in my area.

Comcast charges $10 for every 50 GB over the bandwidth cap. 301 GB = $10 upcharge. It's not my plan; it's their current actual price.

.

That's my plan with Comcast. And I don't come close to going over the cap. As of this moment, I've used 87 GB. Don't think I have ever used 200. Comcast gives you 3 courtesy overages. I'm certainly not here all day, but use the internet quite a bit. Someone would have to do a lot of streaming and surfing to go over the cap.

 

[Chuckanut]

Comcast charges $10 for every 50 GB over the bandwidth cap. 301 GB = $10 upcharge. It's not my plan; it's their current actual price.

You'll never get nibble-based pricing.

Is that because of technical issues?

 

[ERD50]

Is that because of technical issues?

I wonder what technical issues would limit that? I pay my electric and natural gas bills by 'the nibble', at least down to the kWh or cubic foot, IIRC (I'm on private well & septic, so no water/sewer charges to compare). Gasoline is metered by the fraction of a gallon, etc. And I can set my router and devices to monitor traffic in 'nibbles'.

Though I really have little/no idea where their costs break down in terms of fixed connection and the variable due to amount of traffic. They obviously need more equipment to handle higher data volumes, but that might be a small incremental to having some basic level of service - or maybe not.

My utility companies charge a monthly connection fee, even if I use zero of the product (which makes sense, IMO - that pays the infrastructure costs). I think that's typical, and many people aren't really aware of it unless they read the bill a little closer.

-ERD50

 

[bUU]

Is that because of technical issues?

Since it is programmed that way, I suppose you could say it is.

I wonder what technical issues would limit that? I pay my electric and natural gas bills by 'the nibble', at least down to the kWh or cubic foot

But not smaller than that. Again, there needs to be a minimal unit. Can they charge by GB? I bet there is a way to make that happen, but won't people complain about them not charging by MB? And if they charge by MB won't people complain that they're not charging by KB? And if they charge by KB won't people complain that they're not charging by byte? And if they charge by byte won't people complain that they're charging by byte rather than some more understandable unit like GB? Like I said, the line is drawn now at 50GB. The precedent is set. Short of regulating the business, there is no reason to sell blocks of data in smaller units, until customers make it more profitable to sell blocks of data in smaller units (similar to how a cell phone company used to make a big deal about charging by the 6 second interval rather than the minute - there's no evidence that that actually did them any good, though), or the nation decides to have government regulate the pricing, in which case why not regulate a marginal amount of profit and be done with the games?

Though I really have little/no idea where their costs break down in terms of fixed connection and the variable due to amount of traffic.

Costs don't drive value pricing. Costs come into play in an environment where there is support for government regulated pricing, as the basis by which cost-plus-percentage is used to impose pricing on service providers.

 

[Chuckanut]

'Like I said, the line is drawn now at 50GB.

Actually, in my area one can just as certainly say the line is drawn now at unlimited usage.


FWIW, my cell phone company can track my usage down to the Kilobyte.

 

[bUU]

Actually, in my area one can just as certainly say the line is drawn now at unlimited usage.

Except the question is in what denominations do they sell additional data. "Unlimited" isn't a denomination.

 

[steelyman]

Comcast charges $10 for every 50 GB over the bandwidth cap. 301 GB = $10 upcharge. It's not my plan; it's their current actual price.

You'll never get nibble-based pricing. Usage will be sold in blocks. 50 GB is the current increment. Since usage will only go up over time, I cannot imagine why the size of blocks would ever decrease.

I've gotten a little bogged down in this discussion and would like to understand this post. Did you mean to say "bandwidth"? My confusion might be that I think of that as a rate, rather than consumption/usage.

 

[bUU]

I've gotten a little bogged down in this discussion and would like to understand this post. Did you mean to say "bandwidth"? My confusion might be that I think of that as a rate, rather than consumption/usage.

A bandwidth cap, also known as a band cap or a data cap, limits the transfer of a specified amount of data over a period of time.

https://www.google.com/search?q=bandwidth+cap

The term is arguably not precise ("data cap" would be) but it is the way the cap is labeled and referred to within the industry.

 

[steelyman]

​

https://www.google.com/search?q=bandwidth+cap

The term is arguably not precise ("data cap" would be) but it is the way the cap is labeled and referred to within the industry.

Got it. I agree, "data cap" would be better.

 

[big-papa]

For those interested, TIVO over the air units are again selling on Amazon for $300 including lifetime guide service. (the lifetime of the unit, not the buyer). Normally, the guide service (not required but very, very nice to have) for Tivo is $15 a month. This is strictly an OTA unit and cannot be used with cable or satellite TV. I have it and it makes recording and watching TV so much easier and convenient. This unit also works with Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and more.

The OTA unit is $50, the lifetime service is $250. 250/15 = about 17 months to break even compared to the monthly fee.

Having the lifetime guide is a great convenience and if one chooses to sell the Tivo unit, the guide goes with it, so people will value the unit more.

http://www.amazon.com/TiVo-Streamin...?ie=UTF8&qid=1452887475&sr=8-10&keywords=tivo

Dang - price is back up to $400 with only 5 left in stock.

 

[Chuckanut]

Dang - price is back up to $400 with only 5 left in stock.

They ran out last year and got in more, so keep an eye out if you are interested.

Also, check the Tivo site itself for refurbished machines that come with the Lifetime service. It happens from time to time.

One other bit of bad news: Verizon is apparently reconsidering its decision to drop ESPN from being required. Apparently it is a contract issue. So everybody gets to pay for it whether they want it or not. Just another reason to cut the cable for good, IMHO.

 

[big-papa]

They ran out last year and got in more, so keep an eye out if you are interested.

Also, check the Tivo site itself for refurbished machines that come with the Lifetime service. It happens from time to time.

One other bit of bad news: Verizon is apparently reconsidering its decision to drop ESPN from being required. Apparently it is a contract issue. So everybody gets to pay for it whether they want it or not. Just another reason to cut the cable for good, IMHO.

Yep good point on keeping an eye out. I still haven't decided yet whether to get a DVR. We have Roku now and access all of the content we care about. We also have PlayOn which gets around some of the shortcomings of some of the native apps on Roku (HuluPlus is available on Roku, but not Hulu. Only the paid version of CBS all access is available, not the free version). And it has a DVR feature, though not for OTA. So other than not having to wait between a day and a week to watch a regular network show,
I'm not sure what I'd record.....

 

[mpeirce]

I've been contemplating using more streaming (and probably terminating the cable TV service).

The problem I'm having is that the streaming channels (not Netflix or Amazon) enforce commercial watching. I just can't stomach this after using TiVo for so many years.

I was catching up with The Expanse on SyFy and I can watch the first few episodes on the SyFi app (Airplay to the Apple TV). But the ads are killing us. One more episode to go before we can switch over to the TiVo and start watching the show there.

 

[bUU]

They ran out last year and got in more, so keep an eye out if you are interested.

On a related note, if you are interested in something on Amazon.com and want to be alerted when the price goes down to a price you're willing to pay, check out the Camel Camel Camel website. For this product:

http://camelcamelcamel.com/TiVo-Streaming-Product-Lifetime-Service/product/B0148ZRFVO

 

[sengsational]

The folks that have a check mark on this thread might be able to tell me something about an idea I had.

I have a low-end TV that has HDMI, YPbPr, and USB inputs. I just got a "NAS" network hard drive that supports "DLNA", which I'd never heard of.

But now I wonder if there's a device that's got an Ethernet jack to get data from the NAS, and an output jack (HDMI or whatever), and a remote control. I've seen other things that I think would work (game consoles and Blu-Ray players), but I didn't want the complexity of those, if I could help it.

Is there a one trick pony that will pull via DLNA out of the NAS and display on my 'dumb' TV?

 

[big-papa]

A Roku box can do DLNA.



Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[target2019]

Search for DLNA NAS. It looks like most recent devices support DLNA.

 

[Done]

A Roku box can do DLNA.

Yes, a Roku 3 would be a nice fast player that will play DLNA and give many other streaming options. The Roku Media Player channel (included) discovers DLNA servers on the network and allows you to play video, audio, and pictures. Roku supports H.264 video as MKV and MP4 files but not AVI.

 

[mpeirce]

Just FYI, there are a number of apps on the new Apple TV that can access DNLA servers. VLC for example.

 

[sengsational]

A Roku box can do DLNA.

Yes, a Roku 3 would be a nice fast player that will play DLNA and give many other streaming options. The Roku Media Player channel (included) discovers DLNA servers on the network and allows you to play video, audio, and pictures. Roku supports H.264 video as MKV and MP4 files but not AVI.

Thanks, I'll check out the Roku. After more research, I saw that Neo TV Max 300SL will do it too. I was kind of hoping for a no-name Hong-Kong device, since those kinds of things are so inexpensive, and probably wouldn't try to bait you into buying stuff when I already have a NAS full of stuff.

Search for DLNA NAS. It looks like most recent devices support DLNA.

I actually tried that, but I already have a DLNA NAS...I'm looking for a simple way to play content from it.

Just FYI, there are a number of apps on the new Apple TV that can access DNLA servers. VLC for example.

I kind of figured I could drive the screen from a PC or a phone, but I wanted this to not require to boot up something, worry about getting a call, and stuff like that.

 

[timo2]

I recently found this facebook group called 'cord cutting tech support'. I just joined, so I can not vouch for anything about it. But it seems like it will be helpful.

 

[target2019]

I actually tried that, but I already have a DLNA NAS...I'm looking for a simple way to play content from it.

I understand now. There are no apps in the TV. So you're dependent on the device for smarts. What about a mini computer with Linux? Or arduino?

Roku looks best, though.