Dropped Cable TV Today

[bUU]

This effectively gets Verizon out from the obligations it took on to deliver world-class FTTP service beyond its traditional RBOC footprint in the northeast. Frontier's service commitments are notably lower than Verizon's, so effectively Frontier can offer those services more cheaply without risking the kind of PR backlash that Verizon would have.

 

[Mulligan]

Frontier is trying to cobble together all of the more rural areas that other companies do not find so intriguing and make a go of it. And FTR is loaded to the gills with debt. They have had to help finance this binging with a 11% yielding convertible preferred, and even it is trading under par with an even higher trading yield. And the common of FTR yields 8%. Not exactly a company one would substitute circa 1970s Ma Bell for in the ol Widows and Orphans investing fund.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[target2019]

Frontier picked up the hard to service accounts at first. These were mostly rural. Now they pick up AT&T and Verizon customer base as wireless becomes the future. We are not rural, but our area is being turned over to Frontier. The copper infrastructure is a mess, and Verizon did not bring FIOS. so the customer base is offloaded.

 

[mpeirce]

Frontier...

Not exactly a company one would substitute circa 1970s Ma Bell for in the ol Widows and Orphans investing fund.

More like the old GTE.

Where I live it was originally GTE, then it was Verizon for a while, now Frontier.

 

[Ticker]

Sling is offering a "free" roku 2 with 3 months prepaid subscription. got mine in the mail this week. picture is better than our previous satellite service, and there's no further obligation if we decide to cancel.
we have dsl speeds, so we occasionally get some hesitation, but can live with it until we get better internet service.
DTV actually doubled their price on me, outrageous since I have had the same equipment for years.

our at&t tech said that the feds are looking to classify high speed internet as a right, the same as telephone service, regardless of your location (we live in a rural area, not many drops). this is going to force at&t to install small antennas in everyone's house to get on their mobile network. It's cheaper for them to wire us up to their 4g network than to run more copper/fiber lines to each house in the area. he expects this to happen sometime this year.

 

[ziggy29]

DTV actually doubled their price on me, outrageous since I have had the same equipment for years.

Actually not surprising. Infuriating, but not surprising. It's the same reason why they give all these great offers to "new" subscribers that loyal customers who have paid their bills on timer for 10 years can't normally get. They want you to call in and they will give you new equipment many times, and sometimes a discount on programming for a while.... with a new 2-year contract. When I had satellite TV, the value of the freedom of not having the contract was worth more than anything I might save by asking for discounts with a new 2-year commitment.

 

[Chuckanut]

Verizon sold out to Frontier in my area many years ago, just after laying a lot of fiber all over the area. We are not in a rural area but a major suburb of a major city.

Overall, I find Frontier FIOS to be highly reliable. I have had three problems in three years and two got fixed quickly with a call to their support number. The thirds was a major issue since they decided that a tech needed to visit my home and the earliest time was in a week. (this was after a major power failure hit the area.) However, three days later my FIOS started working again with no tech visit, so obviously they fixed something that had broken somewhere in their network.

 

[pb4uski]

I was at a flea market place on Saturday and there was a booth for Home - OneBoxTV which looked interesting but I am suspicious. Anyone familiar with or using this?

 

[Dawg52]

I was at a flea market place on Saturday and there was a booth for Home - OneBoxTV which looked interesting but I am suspicious. Anyone familiar with or using this?

You can add illegal stuff into Roku(through private channels), so this box may very well do what it says. But I have to believe it contains illegal content.

 

[steelyman]

I think I may have replicated what ERD50 mentioned a few posts ago - about using a splitter in conjuction with a DVR box. Not sure I understood his terms, though (Letterman used to call himself a "dumb guy from Indiana"; that's not me - I'm from Illinois. )

Anyway, I repurposed a splitter I got to help someone separate TWC modem rental charges for modem but keep TWC phone. She is braver and going with Ooma-Ooma, so I reclaimed the splitter and helped set that up. I brought the splitter home and used it to split the signal coming from an amplified antenna: one side going directly to the coax input on the TV and the other side going to the converter/DVR (in my case, an iView), from there on to older style RCA jacks (not HDMI) on the TV. The picture is perfect whether going direct from antenna or through the iView.

It also goes from one tuner to two - the built-in one on the TV and the tuner in the iView. So I can watch one program while recording another. I don't seem to want to do that often, but it's nice to know I can.

 

[supernova72]

Hello,


I basically watch 5-6 channels now (CNBC, ESPN, Velocity, CNN, "Root Sports")


Read several of these posts and did an internal search. Question I have is about being able to watch a local MLB game (in my case the Seattle Mariners). I have Comcast and it's broadcast by Root Sports channel 627. It appears the MLB.com pkg for $20 ish will not include local MLB games so I'd be missing 81 a year?


Thanks in advance!

 

[teej1985]

Hello,


I basically watch 5-6 channels now (CNBC, ESPN, Velocity, CNN, "Root Sports")


Read several of these posts and did an internal search. Question I have is about being able to watch a local MLB game (in my case the Seattle Mariners). I have Comcast and it's broadcast by Root Sports channel 627. It appears the MLB.com pkg for $20 ish will not include local MLB games so I'd be missing 81 a year?


Thanks in advance!

you're not going to be able to watch your local RSNs if you cut the cord. You'd miss all of the Mariner games except for what is on ESPN. The only exception would be if PlayStation Vue is available in your market AND if it happens to carry Root.

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/network/vue/

In LA, PlayStation Vue does carry Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket, so I'd be able to see the Angels, Ducks, Kings and Clippers, and most of the national sports networks, but not the Dodgers or Lakers.

 

[supernova72]

you're not going to be able to watch your local RSNs if you cut the cord. You'd miss all of the Mariner games except for what is on ESPN. The only exception would be if PlayStation Vue is available in your market AND if it happens to carry Root.

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/network/vue/

In LA, PlayStation Vue does carry Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket, so I'd be able to see the Angels, Ducks, Kings and Clippers, and most of the national sports networks, but not the Dodgers or Lakers.

Thanks for the recommendation and I had no idea that was offered up. It is in my area (98116). Looks like I could still watch the Seahawks but did not find Root Sports Northwest (formerly Fox Sports NW). I will look again however in case my eyes missed it

 

[Dawg52]

I signed up for Playstation Vue today. I cut the cord a couple of years ago and have really missed The Golf Channel. Had Sling TV for a while but they didn't have it. Bit the bullet and got a Fire Tv Box so I could subscribe to Vue. Plus there are lot's of other channels I will get that I like and of course some I won't watch. I got the 70 channel package for $35. Will continue receiving my local channels via antenna. Pretty happy with the Fire Box too, several nice features including voice commands. I'm coming from a Roku 2 box so this is new for me.

 

[GTFan]

The problem with going with a streaming service like Vue here is that you'll end up paying the same or more that you did with a Comcast HSI + cable sub. The reason why is that Comcast has a 300GB data cap here with a $10 per 50GB overage fee. You can easily hit that by going all-streaming + antenna. Or you can pay them $35 extra per month for the privilege of having the same unlimited data that you had before they got greedy and the FCC looked the other way. So your $65/mo. HSI bill goes to $100 + the cost of whatever streaming services you want to pay for.

The problem here is that no one has solved the HSI access issue, it's really not about the cost of TV itself. Competition and OTA takes care of TV but not HSI, in other words. Yeah this might not affect everyone, but it does affect a lot of folks. At least we have Google Fiber coming but they're only cherry-picking a few areas in the ATL right now, mine is not one of them.

 

[Dawg52]

The problem with going with a streaming service like Vue here is that you'll end up paying the same or more that you did with a Comcast HSI + cable sub. The reason why is that Comcast has a 300GB data cap here with a $10 per 50GB overage fee. You can easily hit that by going all-streaming + antenna. Or you can pay them $35 extra per month for the privilege of having the same unlimited data that you had before they got greedy and the FCC looked the other way. So your $65/mo. HSI bill goes to $100 + the cost of whatever streaming services you want to pay for.

The problem here is that no one has solved the HSI access issue, it's really not about the cost of TV itself. Competition and OTA takes care of TV but not HSI, in other words. Yeah this might not affect everyone, but it does affect a lot of folks.

That's probably true. For families or couples who have multiple streaming going at the same time, going over a 300gb cap will be easy. For a single guy like myself, I haven't come close to exceeding it. The last couple of years I have had Sling and Netflix and never reached 200GB in a month. Doubt I will watch much more with VUE. So its not for everyone but TV streaming is a cost effective solution for many.

 

[bUU]

The problem with going with a streaming service like Vue here is that you'll end up paying the same or more that you did with a Comcast HSI + cable sub. The reason why is that Comcast has a 300GB data cap here with a $10 per 50GB overage fee. You can easily hit that by going all-streaming + antenna. ... At least we have Google Fiber coming but they're only cherry-picking a few areas in the ATL right now, mine is not one of them.

Fiber 1000 costs $70/month, so that's pretty much Comcast's top-level Blast service plus the $10 overage fee twice-over. Given that the new entrant into the marketplace, who is trying hard to gain market share, costs so much, apparently competition isn't affecting pricing.

 

[audreyh1]

The Starz App came out for Apple TV (the latest version) earlier this month for $8.99 a month through iTunes (same as Amazon). I think we'll finally start to catch up with some Starz shows that have been a few on my list for a long time.

BTW - I've been keeping an eye out for 15 to 20% off iTunes gift cards which seem to be offered Thanksgiving though Xmas and sometimes in January. Staples had 20% off up to $300 worth per customer and free shipping this past Jan.

 

[Dawg52]

Good news for Comcast users. Data caps to be raised for all plans starting June 1st.

A Terabyte Internet Experience

 

[Chuckanut]

FWIW, Tivo has a new Roamio Over the Air, recorder that has a larger 1 TB drive and for the price ($400) includes lifetime guide service (the machine's life not yours).

The OTA Tivo makes watching free OTA television a lot nicer and easier. I especially enjoy the the ability to skip commercials on some shows. And the buffer that lets me pause a show to take a phone call, etc. Of course, it works with Netflix and Amazon, also.

 

[JOHNNIE36]

I was in Walmart yesterday and saw a TV that caught my eye. It is a TCL (brand), Roku 55 inch smart TV for $548. It features 4KHD, Netflix, Vudu, HBO, hulu, ESPN and Amazon streaming. Just this morning I remembered that I had taken a photo of this display at Walmart and I'm starting to wonder if this is just another TV set or if it could be the start of "cable cutting"? Don't have time now to investigate. Anyone ever ear of this?

 

[bUU]

If the progress of this thread has yielded any firm indications, it is that cable cutting is a temporary consideration. The industry, as one would expect, is very clearly adapting to the new technology in such a way that the superlative advantages that folks hoped that cable cutting would someday offer are illusory, and all that cable cutting is doing is just moving the shells around in the shell game.

 

[mpeirce]

One thing I've noticed: the streaming channels often force ads when you are watching a show.

We decided to watch the Night Manager and had missed the first two episodes on AMC.

So we watched them on the AMC app on the Apple TV. And while it was nice to easily catch up on it, they include a far amount of (none skippable) ads. Well, not a lot of ads, but rather a couple of ads that they run over and over again. It drove us crazy.

We have a low tolerance for ads after more than a decade of using TiVo.

 

[Dawg52]

If the progress of this thread has yielded any firm indications, it is that cable cutting is a temporary consideration. The industry, as one would expect, is very clearly adapting to the new technology in such a way that the superlative advantages that folks hoped that cable cutting would someday offer are illusory, and all that cable cutting is doing is just moving the shells around in the shell game.

Call what you wish. All I know is the 'shell' game is saving me a lot of money.

 

[Chuckanut]

I have successfully cut the cord and have experience a huge savings. I get my OTA TV via an antenna and I have a Recorder that I use to record and playback shows when I can watch them. My total cost for this including the DVR has been about $450 max. Needless to say, I have saved this back in about 1/2 a year. No new ongoing costs since I would be keeping Netflix with or without cable, and paying for my internet connection in any case. I am saving at least $65 a month.

One advantage I have is that I live within range of broadcasting antennas. If I did not, then I would be greatly hampered by the lack of cable TV and Internet Service competition in my area.