Update on Cord Cutting (Cable TV) - 2021 version

[pb4uski]

Yes, I experience that too. Even though we allegedly get 1 Gbps, I just ran speed test and got 263 mbps down and 38 mbps up... I could probably make the numbers better if I rebooted everything from the router onwards but that speed is fine for our needs so I don't sweat it and for $30/mo for internet I'm not going to complain if the speed is less than advertiesed.

 

[TripleLindy]

In a BTD moment, we went the opposite way. For the last few years we had antenna for locals with a Fire TV Recast OTA DVR in each place... so effectively free locals.

I found myself missing out on some programming available only on cable, especially college football, so we went back to YTTV for ~$90/mo. IMO the channel lneup rivals cable tv and we can use on subscription and easily change it when we make our seasonal moves and our tv and recorded content essentially follows us from house to house.

Yes, I can completely understand that. And who knows, I may add YTTV back during football season. I just found that we were rarely even watching it, other than maybe using the news as background noise, and the occasional sports broadcast. There are plenty of ways to stream news channels for free. It just seemed like an unnecessary expense for us, even though ~$90/month doesn’t move the needle.

 

[TripleLindy]

I recently renegotiated both.

That will be my next project. I know my rate is too high given the current pricing available.

 

[JoeWras]

Yes, I can completely understand that. And who knows, I may add YTTV back during football season. I just found that we were rarely even watching it, other than maybe using the news as background noise, and the occasional sports broadcast. There are plenty of ways to stream news channels for free. It just seemed like an unnecessary expense for us, even though ~$90/month doesn’t move the needle.

I subscribe to YTTV's cheaper "sports tier" for the Stanley Cup playoffs. 1 or 2 months per year depending on my my team is doing.

 

[pb4uski]

That will be my next project. I know my rate is too high given the current pricing available.

On Optimum, I looked up the new customer rate before I called them and it was $25/mo. The lowest that they would go was $30/mo. I could have gotten the $25/no by terminating and then signing on as a new customer but for $5/mo difference it didn't see with it. Sorry kids.

 

[AudiDudi]

On Optimum, I looked up the new customer rate before I called them and it was $25/mo. The lowest that they would go was $30/mo. I could have gotten the $25/no by terminating and then signing on as a new customer but for $5/mo difference it didn't see with it. Sorry kids.

Great rate!! We pay $65/mo in AZ for 500mb fiber and $55/mo for 15mb DSL in Montana.

 

[TripleLindy]

On Optimum, I looked up the new customer rate before I called them and it was $25/mo. The lowest that they would go was $30/mo. I could have gotten the $25/no by terminating and then signing on as a new customer but for $5/mo difference it didn't see with it. Sorry kids.

That cancel/resubscribe doesn’t work in most cases. You typically have to be off the service for a period of time. But yeah, $5 isn’t worth the effort.

I checked my plan and the promotional rate is about 1/3 of what I’m paying. The real kicker is that the non-promotional rate is 45% less than what I’m paying and requires no contract. That should make for an interesting discussion if I can ever get anyone on the phone.

 

[jim584672]

Fiber 300/300, over wifi...

 

[TripleLindy]

Fiber 300/300, over wifi...
View attachment 63765

I can usually get test results that are closer to my plan’s speeds if I’m in the same room with the router, but even just moving downstairs to the living room where I have visual line of sight to the router, the speeds drop by more than 50%. And that’s with a mesh network. But the only times I have any issues related to speed, a quick reset of the router clears it right up.

 

[ychuck46]

I can't even get 1 channel.

Pretty much the same with us. We are in a more rural setting about two hours from the nearest major city. With the more mountainous terrain the chances of us drawing in signals are slim and none. But even in our rural area we do have fiber internet and the Big 3 cell providers all have 5G to our house. Can't complain.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

Pretty much the same with us. We are in a more rural setting about two hours from the nearest major city. With the more mountainous terrain the chances of us drawing in signals are slim and none. But even in our rural area we do have fiber internet and the Big 3 cell providers all have 5G to our house. Can't complain.

We have fiber-optic Internet as well. I don't have any idea how many Gs the cell providers provide. But there's only one tower in our town, and it's only around 2500 feet from the house.

 

[Tadpole]

My old Hisense smart TV updated yesterday and put me through this rigamarole of adding Hisense channels. I Googled what in the world this was to make sure I couldn't inadvertently mess up my current settings and found out that Comcast was a partner with Hisense in this new endeavor. So, it claims to have 200 to 2000 free channels (can't figure out that but I think the 200 is closer to the number). It was hard to get an actual list of those channels but, from what little I saw before I lost interest in the question, many of the free offers are channels/programs for which I currently pay Comcast a small fortune. (Sorry for the scarce info but I just wasn't in the mood for extensive research.)

I don't trust anything Comcast is involved in unless it clearly shows it is a scheme to make Comcast richer. You can imagine what my instinct is telling me about this free but associated with Comcast Hisense TV update.

Anyone also seen this. If so, did you figure it out?

 

[pb4uski]

Not yet. We have a Hisense in Texas but are away for the summer. However, we only use the Hisense as a audio/video monitor for our Fire TV stick so I don't think that "upgrade" will impact us at all.

If it gets burdensome, then you could so similiarly.

 

[GenXguy]

My old Hisense smart TV updated yesterday and put me through this rigamarole of adding Hisense channels. I Googled what in the world this was to make sure I couldn't inadvertently mess up my current settings and found out that Comcast was a partner with Hisense in this new endeavor. So, it claims to have 200 to 2000 free channels (can't figure out that but I think the 200 is closer to the number). It was hard to get an actual list of those channels but, from what little I saw before I lost interest in the question, many of the free offers are channels/programs for which I currently pay Comcast a small fortune. (Sorry for the scarce info but I just wasn't in the mood for extensive research.)

I don't trust anything Comcast is involved in unless it clearly shows it is a scheme to make Comcast richer. You can imagine what my instinct is telling me about this free but associated with Comcast Hisense TV update.

Anyone also seen this. If so, did you figure it out?

It looks like the content is largely what is available with the Xumo app, but they are integrating it more in the TV to split ad revenue.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

I have an OTA DVR, so I am good for the big 3 plus a bunch of sub-stations. Want more cable sports. Last fall/March Madness, I signed up for ESPN Unlimited. It was great. $30 per month. Now I find out for an extra $10 per month, I can get Fox One which includes a bunch of Fox Sports channels. And Fox News and Fox Business and maybe some other items. Anybody have Fox One? What do you think? Any other fans of ESPN Unlimited?

 

[Dawg52]

I have an OTA DVR, so I am good for the big 3 plus a bunch of sub-stations. Want more cable sports. Last fall/March Madness, I signed up for ESPN Unlimited. It was great. $30 per month. Now I find out for an extra $10 per month, I can get Fox One which includes a bunch of Fox Sports channels. And Fox News and Fox Business and maybe some other items. Anybody have Fox One? What do you think? Any other fans of ESPN Unlimited?

I have ESPN Unlimited which I like. I wasn’t aware of Fox One. Looks pretty good although I’m fine as is for now.

 

[TripleLindy]

Gotta say that the cancellation of YTTV has been liberating. I wish I had known about Tablo TV earlier. I did add YT Premium, but on a 60 day trial. I’m sure I’ll stick with it. The ads on YT have gotten worse than broadcast TV. I read where that’s an intentional action on Google’s part - something they call intentional friction so that you get so fed up that you opt for the subscription.

I also added CNN, which was a mistake. I saw an offer for a little over $40 for the year (~$3/month) and thought I’d be getting their broadcast content. But it’s not much more than CNN Headline News, which is free on both the Tablo and Roku lineups. And the CNN Roku app is absolutely awful, to the point of not even being functional. So that was $40 down the drain.

I’m not much of an ESPN fan these days, but considered adding it for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I was thrilled when I discovered that my local ABC affiliate was broadcasting the Finals. Go Tablo!

 

[pb4uski]

... I’m not much of an ESPN fan these days, but considered adding it for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I was thrilled when I discovered that my local ABC affiliate was broadcasting the Finals. Go Tablo!

Last night's game 3 was epic!

 

[Z3Dreamer]

TripleLindy - I am a big fan of Tablo, also. Have had a Tablo for more than 10 years.

 

[TripleLindy]

Last night's game 3 was epic!

Gotta admit, when Vegas went up by 4 (after putting 6 in the net!), I turned it off. Imagine my surprise when I saw that it went to OT! I caught the highlights on YT.

 

[pb4uski]

I know exactly what you mean as I almost changed the channel more than once. I was a little disappointed by the game winning goal. I suspect that the goalie and defenseman are both kicking themselves today over that softie.

 

[TripleLindy]

I finally made the call to Frontier to get my $100 internet rate lowered, which is well above the non-promotional rate of $45. I’ve been putting it off because I knew it would be a hassle. They have multiple customer service numbers, so I used the number for billing. After about 15 minutes, I was offered a $55 rate if I used autopay, which I won’t do because it’s a direct debit from the bank. I asked for the non-autopay rate and was told that was the only offer she could make, but she transferred me to the customer loyalty department. After something like 20 minutes, most of which was spent waiting for the system to load, I was offered a rate of $29 - well below what I expected. The rate is locked for 3 years, but I’m not in a contract, so I could cancel any time. I’ve been with the service ever since they ran fiber in our neighborhood more than 20 years ago, so I’m not planning to change.

I never threatened to cancel, I just stated that my rate was higher than their published FCC label rate and wanted to know what could be done about it. $70/month reduction was worth half an hour of my time.

So with the YTTV cancellation and the internet fee reduction, we cut our expenses by almost $2k/year!

Now tomorrow, I have my property tax protest hearing…

 

[hmrambling]

I have an OTA antenna and DVR. One local station is particularly finicky so I have two antennas in the attic. I don't have any subscriptions but DW takes out YTTV in trials and in waves. Somehow DW racked up $90 mo which she recently canceled mostly because we could DVR most shows we watch. DW has Spotify and our internet is $50 per mo. It's been a long time since I negotiated with Cox. Sometimes I'll use the trim service because it isn't worth the hassle.

 

[MichaelB]

Decision time. My Peacock (ad-free) one year subscription expires in 2 weeks. We don't use it for much, but World Cup is starting and I prefer Telemundo over Fox to watch. Maybe I’ll renew for one month. Or, watch a couple of matches on Fox to see if it has improved any.

 

[JoeWras]

Decision time. My Peacock (ad-free) one year subscription expires in 2 weeks. We don't use it for much, but World Cup is starting and I prefer Telemundo over Fox to watch. Maybe I’ll renew for one month. Or, watch a couple of matches on Fox to see if it has improved any.

Yep. I just let it go. The Olympics were great, but they are over. I watched the various TV series DW and I want to watch. Time to give it a rest for a year or two. (Not a soccer fan.)