Cable TV Next

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silverfox103

Feeling the Heat
Oct 4, 2011
489
Littleton, NH
I have been a pellet user for four years, we are nice and toasty. Took a while, to get everything smoothed out; but this year the oil man hasn't come nor will he be coming.

Now for the next thing thing that is in the crosshairs: Cable TV. The bill has just got out of hand, I think it is $165 with phone and internet, $73 is for TV. I'm sure you all know the story. I am sick of shopping channels, food channels, CSPAN, MTV and all the other crap that they dish out and we pay. Probably like most of us, I watch maybe 6 channels, my wife and youngest daughter have their few channels also. Wife is sick of it also. Ever say this "200 stationsn and nothing on".

I went to the cable company and talked to them. Right off the bat, I can save $50 by going to basic, which is just 20 stations. They also have 4 flavors of internet speed, I am the second down. I will probably leave that alone. We also have 2 lan lines and 2 cell phones. That will be changing, one is a business phone, but probably only for another year.

Anyways, I keep hearing about alternatives to cable. If anyone knows of any, please share. We are in the mountains, so if you don't have cable, you have 1 station. The only thing I will really miss is NESN which carries the Red Sox, but I have satellite radio, so I can listen.

thanks

Tom C.
 
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We use a ROKU and aN antennas direct DTV antenna. The ROKU give us the ability to stream Netflix and Hulu and the picture on the antenna is a lot better than our satellite dish. We were sick of searching for something to watch on cable and did not want to purchase a DVr. The only thing that I miss is not being able to watch sports center. I think ROKU has an option for the MLB package.
 
You could use a laptop or desktop near the big screen with a hookup to the tv and watch online shows. Most networks have an online presence and there's also Hulu and others as well. Many options for getting off cable/dish/sat tv, as long as you still have a decent web connection.
 
We are there with cable too but haven't decided a course of action yet.

Depending on your cell phone usage, you may be able to save by getting away from a big carrier. My wife and I have saved a ton since switching to tracfone a few years back. Only thing with tracfone I don't like is the customer service. Once the dip@#^s get the phone working past the initial setup, we haven't had a problem keeping it working. Getting the old number transferred, and the voice mail working appropriately, and such can be a pain though.

pen
 
Cancel ... do it now!!!

We've actually never had cable. Now for the real shocker ... I don't have a cell phone ... we have one that is used for trips, etc.

We do get a lot of moves from the library and subscribe to Netflix. There are also a remarkable number of excellents shows to watch for free on sites like youtube.
 
timfromohio said:
Cancel ... do it now!!!

We've actually never had cable. Now for the real shocker ... I don't have a cell phone ... we have one that is used for trips, etc.

We do get a lot of moves from the library and subscribe to Netflix. There are also a remarkable number of excellents shows to watch for free on sites like youtube.

Canceling was the hardest part. If you are an Amazon user, for $80/year you can get an Amazon Prime membership which includes streaming video and free 2 day shipping.
 
JDC said:
Canceling was the hardest part.

You are correct my friend, I haven't done it yet, but I think I have the courage to do it now.

Lot of good answers and alternatives, I am sure it will be a process.

thanks

Tom C.
 
No cable tv here. Used to have it but pulled the plug a few years back. Most of it was useless drek. We have a great library system for videos and there is a ton of stuff online, so we have a small computer as a second feed into the TV, which is also internet connected and can stream a bunch more useless drek. lol
 
Gotta' agree with BeGreen on this, even though I find myself watching some of it, still.
Our son told us about Hulu about 3 years ago, we tried it, and that was the end of DirectTV for us. We've since found many other online sources of "drek", as BG calls it. :coolsmile:
However, you won't find Hearth on TV, so it's all good.:lol:
The big screen sits idle on a power strip (turned off) until we decide to watch a movie or share a show. Otherwise, we both have laptops and watch things at our own pace. Or, we read a book.
I just wish she'd stop trying to talk to me when I have the headphones on. She tells me I'm deaf. Sheesh. ;-P
Summertime, not much activity in the house, since I'm outside most of the day and evening (as I'm sure a lot of us are).
Tom, here's the process. Cancel cable, go online. Bada bing, bada boom. Use the saved money to buy some more firewood. Win, win. It's all gooder.
 
Regarding the phone lines look into Magic Jack. I bought when when i had moved to Oregon a couple years ago. I was able to select a local to home number friends and family could call me on. This saved me from eating up all my cell phone minutes. Call quality was good, but there was a noticeable drop off if i and my roommate were doing heavy downloading or streaming video.

My brother also has one, he lives with his father in Missouri.

I let my subscription expire when i got home, but you cannot beat the price $40 for the purchase of the unit and service for the first year after that 19.95 a year. At the time you could not port a number but they were working on it.

Standard disclaimer i have no hidden interest in them, was just a happy customer.
 
Ooma is a pretty cool phone setup
 
I canceled our cable two plus years ago and we've been living with antenna tv ever since. Looking back I can't believe I waited to so long. $100 a month for HD Directv was the biggest waste of money ever. The HD is actually sharper on our antenna. I don't think I'll ever pay for TV again.
 
Sometimes I channel surf, and end up thinking "150 channels of crap!" GF likes the basketball games, so we continue to pay, since they're not broadcast around here. We're about $65/month. I called the satellite company and said they were too expensive. They ended up taking $10/month off the bill. Guess they're smart enough to know that some income is better than no income.
 
$165.00 a month for cable tv, internet & phone? Be glad yo can get cable. Out here I can only get satellite internet & satellite TV, and Verizon land line(2 of em).

Monthly bill here:
$ 89.95 satellite internet.
$229.00 For 2 phone land lines (Freedom- unlimited everything in the US only) & includes about $78.00 per month for Direct TV Satellite TV (through Verizon).
$318.95 PER MONTH. No Cable or DSL available back here.
I'll trade ya any day.
 
Bummer. No 4G out of Wilkes-Barre yet?
 
Really I wish I had that problem. Rural internet is a killer. Satellite internet/TV here. The speeds are pathetic and there are download/upload limits.. Really don't think I'll get rural broadband in my life time. There is no profit in it for the mega corps. And the blackouts from no contracts ( MSG and Time Warner) (Dish and MSG).
 
BeGreen said:
Bummer. No 4G out of Wilkes-Barre yet?

Yeah...we have 4G in Wilkes Barre BG.....but prolly not in hogzland....he's more in the stix..... :lol:
 
You guys with the big bills need to call your providerd every coupe years and at least try to renegotiate your terms. The deals we all sign up for are typically 2 years in term and at the end the bill goes way up for no additional content...but most of the time you can call them up and change your plan "down" to a new plan that often offers more content than you're used to for less money. Case in point, my Verizon land line was $54/mo with metered LD service and unlimited local calling. No caller ID, no call waiting...no nothing but dial tone and touch tone service. At the same time we had 768k Verizon DSL for $30 a month, so a combined total of $84 plus taxes and fees...call it $90 a month.

Called Verizon to add called ID (because my wife insisted). After talking to the rep for a minute I opted to change over to the Verizon Freedom plan. unlimited local and long distance, caller ID, voicemail (which I shut off), call waiting, and a bunch of other features that I'm not even sure what they are...plus I stepped up to 3.0Mb DSL at the same time. Drum roll...$50 a month total. So I added a lot of new services, quadrupled my internet speed and cut my bill by close to 50%.

And my DISH with 2 room DVR is only $29 a month.
 
Hogwildz said:
$165.00 a month for cable tv, internet & phone? Be glad yo can get cable. Out here I can only get satellite internet & satellite TV, and Verizon land line(2 of em).

Monthly bill here:
$ 89.95 satellite internet.
$229.00 For 2 phone land lines (Freedom- unlimited everything in the US only) & includes about $78.00 per month for Direct TV Satellite TV (through Verizon).
$318.95 PER MONTH. No Cable or DSL available back here.
I'll trade ya any day.


Hooley Dooley ! Collaterly we are all able to finance Liberias deficit.

If you have Internet you may want to consider a Skype phone. Calls are either on subscriptions ~$3/mo or per minute (2c/min).

That would do away with the land line.

Other than that. Roku


Ray
 
mayhem said:
You guys with the big bills need to call your providerd every coupe years and at least try to renegotiate your terms. The deals we all sign up for are typically 2 years in term and at the end the bill goes way up for no additional content...but most of the time you can call them up and change your plan "down" to a new plan that often offers more content than you're used to for less money. Case in point, my Verizon land line was $54/mo with metered LD service and unlimited local calling. No caller ID, no call waiting...no nothing but dial tone and touch tone service. At the same time we had 768k Verizon DSL for $30 a month, so a combined total of $84 plus taxes and fees...call it $90 a month.

Called Verizon to add called ID (because my wife insisted). After talking to the rep for a minute I opted to change over to the Verizon Freedom plan. unlimited local and long distance, caller ID, voicemail (which I shut off), call waiting, and a bunch of other features that I'm not even sure what they are...plus I stepped up to 3.0Mb DSL at the same time. Drum roll...$50 a month total. So I added a lot of new services, quadrupled my internet speed and cut my bill by close to 50%.

And my DISH with 2 room DVR is only $29 a month.

I tried doing that with a Time Warner all in one bundle that was costing me $163/month and they were taking NEW customers only at $99/month at the time. I tried getting the same deal and they told me NO WAY ! I told them to slow my internet and drop some channel and it saved my $40/month. Actually see no difference in net speed.
I'm considering separating the landline and going remote call forwarding which is around $20 and then setting up the iPhone for internet on the laptop, and maybe Direct TV . I think you get $10 off/month for AAA membership.
Has anyone tethered there iPhone to a laptop??
 
[quote author="fortunateLEE" date="1327959719]Has anyone tethered there iPhone to a laptop??[/quote]

Yes. Before you do that check your usual data usage. You cannot get unlimited data AND tethering, so tethering can get expensive real fast because it's real easy to go over the data limit.

We have 2 iphones for US phone svc., plus Skype on both for calls from the family in Europe. This means we're chained to Comcast for internet, but we killed off the Verizon home phone 2 years ago. Hasn't changed a thing.

The cable TV will be next to go... I am rarely home and the Mrs. watches mostly European stuff she downloads & borrows from the library.
 
BG: Out where I am, is the end of the world when it comes to wireless. The neighbors kid had it and said it was no better or maybe worse then satellite. Plus the bandwidth cap is much less than satellite.
I work from home and use the internet a great deal when sending reports etc. I cannot do what I need to do with the lower bandwidth caps that wireless providers allow.

Mayhem: There is negotiations with the satellite internet providers. They know they have us over a barrel, and the only other game in town id Dial up, NO WAY, or wireless, no improvement.
At the end of my road is cable, but they will not run the line back here for one or two customers. I have petitioned Verizon for DSL and had a few neighbors also petition Verizon. I sent them all in in a package. Have not hear back from them yet. Not real hopeful. I do have the Freedom plan which is $49.99 + $7.95 inside wire maintenance plan(used that 2x already) + tax, x2 lines. Need 2 for business, office/home line & fax line. The only thing I can really trim out or down is the Direct TV. I don't watch tons of tv, but do like my football and the FX channel shows.
This is why I am envious of cable users(which I used to have and love before I moved). I would simply get basic cable and their internet. For phone I would simply get Magic Jack or even Vonage. WOuld be about 1/3 of my bill I pay now. I would love to pay $165.00 per month for all 3, that is cheap!
 
I feel for you man. That is the situation I was in a decade ago. When cable internet happened it was like manna from heaven.