Cutting the cord - Dropping Cable/Satellite

[Papa Zook]

I fired direct tv 6 years ago and they send me please come back letters every week for the last 5 1/2 years. I figure there postage comes up to a months worth of there service. The letters go directly into the fire pit.LOL Ya live out in the country you put up with slow internet. 4mbs is all i can get untill they actually want to hook everyone up to fiber. 14 years ago me and my 5 neighbors put down $1800 each to put up a satellite to get more than dialup out here in the sticks. no internet bill for life, as long as they were in business. Its defiantly paid for itself, but slow, slow,slow it is. I got me an amazon jailbroke stick that works only if my neighbors aren't home.LOL netflix does work but limited. farmers 11 works for news.

Suddenlink tried to bait me into not dropping cable, but I wasn't interested. They should have given us the discount the last three years we've been with them instead of going up on us.

Quote from Variety.com:

Cord-Cutting Explodes: 22 Million U.S. Adults Will Have Canceled Cable, Satellite TV by End of 2017

"Winter is here for cable and satellite TV operators.

American consumers are cancelling traditional pay-TV service at a much faster rate than previously expected, according to research firm eMarketer.

In 2017, a total of 22.2 million U.S. adults will have cut the cord on cable, satellite or telco TV service to date — up 33% from 16.7 million in 2016 — the researcher now predicts. That’s significantly higher than eMarketer’s prior estimate of 15.4 million cord-cutters as of the end of this year. Meanwhile, the number of “cord-nevers” (consumers who have never subscribed to pay TV) will rise 5.8% this year, to 34.4 million."

“Younger audiences continue to switch to either exclusively watching [over-the-top] video or watching them in combination with free-TV options,” said Chris Bendtsen, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer. “Last year, even the Olympics and [the U.S.] presidential election could not prevent younger audiences from abandoning pay TV.”

 

[MDO]

I love the way these cable/satellite companies treat new customers better than current longtime customers.

Almost 3 years ago, I got rid of the satellite/cable companies. I got a Roku box & love it.

I have built a HDTV antenna & put it in the attic & it gets me 25 channels free over the air in digital.

The only thing I pay for is Netflix for $8 a month & the internet service from AT&T for $40 a month.

The only thing I miss is a DVR, but I can normally find any show I miss on the internet.

 

[Sidecarbill]

Ever have problems with your Roku. I've had it for quite some time now. The only thing I watch is youtube videos. Can't get through a video without losing it because roku reboots. Goes back to the home page and you start all over. :Shrug:

 

[MDO]

Ever have problems with your Roku. I've had it for quite some time now. The only thing I watch is youtube videos. Can't get through a video without losing it because roku reboots. Goes back to the home page and you start all over. :Shrug:

Sorry for the slow response time, I've been out of town.

Mine is pretty old & every once in a while I need to restart it. It should not reboot that often. Make sure it's checking for updates every day or so & it's actually updating. It will check on it's own , usually in the middle of the night. In the settings menu, it will show you the last time it checked & the last time it actually updated. I have been considering a new 1, but since I got a new wireless router, it's been better.

 

[Sidecarbill]

Mdo thanks for the response. I went in and checked, it is up to date far as I can tell. This roku box is old. They constantly send me their deals for a newer device. I think about updating to something newer but I don't know. If your old ford was a piece of crap why would you by a new one? Now if they could be honest and say your old roku will never be capable of live sreaming it was'nt designed for that I may reconsider.

 

[bikerbillone]

Got so fed up with provider price gouging and liberal 'fake news', I cut the chord, my only source now is internet and Fire Stick, that's quite enough. I'm done and I sleep just fine. I apparently posted this before, so if it's redundant, just disregard and move on with your day.

 

[Ozarkryder]

We went the other way. I am retiring the last of May, and most of our time will be spent on the road in our toy hauler. We got Dish with a Hopper and a wireless Joey, will probably get another Joey for the 3rd TV in the rig, or maybe just leave the smart TV in the bedroom over-the-air and wi-fi. Internet in RV parks is notoriously slow, and the Dish is much less than we would pay for enough internet through a phone provider to stream shows and movies we want to watch. The shows both Gloria and I watch are almost exclusively non-network, and if we quit the satellite the reception would be iffy at best unless we only watched when nobody else in the park was on the internet, i.e. in the overnight hours.

The last time we were at a park I tried YouTube - 1080 and 720 buffered too much to watch, and a 4 minute music video took almost 30 minutes to download. 360, once in a while 480, was the best I could get in the middle of the afternoon, it went to 240 after suppertime, I suppose everyone and their mother was trying to run internet then.

 

[MDO]

Mdo thanks for the response. I went in and checked, it is up to date far as I can tell. This roku box is old. They constantly send me their deals for a newer device. I think about updating to something newer but I don't know. If your old ford was a piece of crap why would you by a new one? Now if they could be honest and say your old roku will never be capable of live sreaming it was'nt designed for that I may reconsider.

Don't get me wrong, my old 1 works very well. I was actually shocked that the new all-in-one router/wireless modem from AT&T made it work a lot better.

If all else fails, try this Roku troubleshooting video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meLQ7wOb-Os

How old is yours & what model is it? You could also try contacting them (Roku), give them the model #. Mine is a model #2500, probably about 5 years old.

 

[bikerbillone]

I sincerely hope you have a better experience with Dish than I did. It was so bad, when I called I could not understand the offshore guy, and he could not understand me, would not give me an English speaking person....I canceled a week after the install and it cost me dearly, but it was a night mare and worth the penalty to be done with them and that's saying a lot.

 

[bluewinger2000]

when I was down in Florida this last Jan. I met a person that was selling a product called ghost TV which hooks up to your TV and uses the internet to stream tv your internet speeds need to be around 15 mgb s if i remember right ,mine is at 28 so i am lucky . it streams more channels then i will ever watch from Live sports all over the world . News stations also from all over the world the latest movies seriously you name it and its probably on there . i can take it any where there is wireless internet and use it . the name of this device is called Ghost TV i paid one fee of $165.00 and i pay no more altho he offers a service plane for 20 a month which i oped out. I am vary pleased . I have no affiliation with this company except i am a happy camper. Also for those that do not like watching fake news get this and you can watch some more fake news from Russia / France/ and China, all in english .

 

[Sidecarbill]

Hang on to it Fuzzy its the only thing that will keep you sane. When we moved my mother in first thing I did was have cable lnstalled. My mothers gone now, but she was bitch to live with. I now know why she didn't get along with my father! But I realized there isn't much to life for a house bound 90 year old, so it was good for both of us.

 

[paws]

I would like to see a system already set up at someone’s home to see if it would be for me.. I don’t need to be messing with a bunch of remotes - the one I have with my cable tv system is mind-boggling enough.

All I want the tv to do is: power on/off, channel up/down, volume up/down.

I don’t watch movies, cartoons, sit-coms (unless it’s MASH reruns). I really like the history, science, HGTV, Discovery and any documentary series - that is, real documentaries - not made for tv garbage that’s been enhanced with incidents that were put in just to make the show more appealing to a certain mind-set and are historically undocumented. Yes, I am a realist.

 

[Marc H]

I want to do this bad.Problem is out here where they pipe in light there is no cable or internet other than satellite.I have not found a provider that doesn't have a useage cap of 10 - 20 gigs on the net so right now i'm stuck as I see it.

 

[Ol' Man Jeb]

I would like to see a system already set up at someone’s home to see if it would be for me.. I don’t need to be messing with a bunch of remotes - the one I have with my cable tv system is mind-boggling enough.

All I want the tv to do is: power on/off, channel up/down, volume up/down.

I don’t watch movies, cartoons, sit-coms (unless it’s MASH reruns). I really like the history, science, HGTV, Discovery and any documentary series - that is, real documentaries - not made for tv garbage that’s been enhanced with incidents that were put in just to make the show more appealing to a certain mind-set and are historically undocumented. Yes, I am a realist.

Have you given Netflix, Amazon Prime any consideration?

 

[paws]

Have you given Netflix, Amazon Prime any consideration?

No..I have read a number of articles about different ways to cut cable but I don’t understand it all. I guess bottom line is I’ll probably just have to stay with cable until the other systems become so prolific as to push cable out of business. Besides, I don’t know who I would call to come fix something if it got out of whack. At least the cable people will come over for a $25 service call (on top of their monthly king’s ransom). Oh well....I’ll stay tuned to watch for developments.

 

[vwbug72501]

I want to do this bad.Problem is out here where they pipe in light there is no cable or internet other than satellite.I have not found a provider that doesn't have a useage cap of 10 - 20 gigs on the net so right now i'm stuck as I see it.

Marc,

Do you live towards Spring City? If so there is a fiber optic (high speed Internet) presence there. The trick is getting it to your location. 20 years ago when I moved to Batesville, we only had slow dial up. I worked with a group of local businessmen to set up a wireless Internet solution for our area. We had the same terrain issues that you are probably dealing with but found some creative solutions to solve those problems. As you know folks that live the rural lifestyle are a very ingenious and creative lot. What happened here was the growing market generated by our local efforts got the attention of the Internet carriers. We now have no less than 5 different fiber optic carriers in Batesville today. I'll bet that the High school and Middle school in Evensville have some sort of fiber/high speed Internet connectivity. I wish PMs worked so I could contact you about this. I'm retired now but would be interested in helping you if there is any interest. NOT looking to sell any product or services. Just passing along information. Since I have worked with Internet security I'm not crazy about putting too much personal info out on the web.

 

[Marc H]

Marc,

Do you live towards Spring City? If so there is a fiber optic (high speed Internet) presence there. The trick is getting it to your location. 20 years ago when I moved to Batesville, we only had slow dial up. I worked with a group of local businessmen to set up a wireless Internet solution for our area. We had the same terrain issues that you are probably dealing with but found some creative solutions to solve those problems. As you know folks that live the rural lifestyle are a very ingenious and creative lot. What happened here was the growing market generated by our local efforts got the attention of the Internet carriers. We now have no less than 5 different fiber optic carriers in Batesville today. I'll bet that the High school and Middle school in Evensville have some sort of fiber/high speed Internet connectivity. I wish PMs worked so I could contact you about this. I'm retired now but would be interested in helping you if there is any interest. NOT looking to sell any product or services. Just passing along information. Since I have worked with Internet security I'm not crazy about putting too much personal info out on the web.

Your close Tom.I'm between Spring City and Dayton.The fiber optic cable is at the high school and runs east from there to SR 302.Spring City has it also but just outside the lines at the moment.Volunteer Electric has started offering high speed in some areas they serve but none in Rhea county yet.They had a thing awhile back to let them know you were interested and I filled that out so hopefully its coming.My problem is not being in a heavily populated area we don't interest the companies much.It took all kinds of appeals to get it ran into a subdivision with over 100 homes and the line ran by the end of the entrance.It will get it here got city water 2 yrs ago I think from Lenoir City.We seem to be getting some manufacturing plants in the area so i'm sure that will help.I understand the personal info concerns.