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Cutting the Cord of Cable TV
Today Mr. Rand and I have made the jump. Cut the cord. Dispensed with the services of the local monopoly. Boldly gone where more and more TV watchers are going. We have fired the evil and hated Comcast and decided to rely on a panoply of streaming services which, even collectively, will cost us far less than our ever-growing Comcast bills.
“When in the course of human events” – as they say – something about “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” etc., etc.
So here’s our thinking.
We’ve had Netflix since it was a service that mailed you DVDs, and Amazon Prime since Amazon invented Prime. Though we watch them more and more, and cable less and less, it never before felt quite possible to just do without. There’s live news. There’s sports. There’s a dozen or so channels carried on our cable system that we watch with some regularity. Netflix and Amazon don’t seem to replace all that. Or don’t replace it adequately. So what happened?
The final straw. The coup de grace. The killing shot, was our discovery of Sling TV as an option on our Roku box. A little research showed that it appears to have nearly everything we want from cable, at far less cost. As second homeowners, all the more so. One Sling subscription should theoretically – this is all new to us so that qualifier is important – work at both homes, work on computers and tablets, work on phones, etc. In short, one subscription, for a measly $45/mo. (for one of their most comprehensive packages), should work for both of us, almost anywhere.
No more shelling out $10/mo. per box for the rest of our lives to “rent” each of multiple cable boxes (which must cost about $50/ea. to manufacture). On the box concession alone Comcast has gouged us blind for the last 20 years. We have one old box that’s been sitting here for 13 years. (13 x 12 x $9.95 = $1,552.20. Do you think they made a profit?)
No more opening the cable bill in trepidation wondering whether this is the month they’ll decide to just randomly jack up the bill by 30 bucks. No more calling and pleading for a less extortionate package every three, six, or 12 months. And frankly, no more equipment to break, and need repair, by a guy who gives you a four-hour window to sit at home and wait and then he doesn’t show up until three hours after the window closed (if at all).
It’s a brave new world and we’re diving in. We’ll see how it goes, but it’s hard to imagine the frustrations will be enough to drive us back to where we’ve been. Anybody else cut the cord? What are your experiences?
Published in General
I’d probably pay the install cost for fiber if that was an option. But it seems the economics of installation don’t work that way.
It looks like it oughta make coffee.
I cut the Comcast TV back in 2011/2012 when things got financially tight for me. Now I watch most of my TV via Hulu streamed to my XBox One. When they started airing political ads earlier this month, I upgraded my Hulu to ad-free for about four bucks more.
I don’t miss the cord at all, if there is a particular show I want to watch, there are usually multiple avenues available at any given time to stream it to the device of my choice.
Did they periodically send someone around to collect the money?
I get all the visual entertainment I can handle now with Amazon Prime and MLBTV. I use Comcast for my internet service.
Since this is somewhat a technology services thread I have a small personal current events story:
I took my granddaughter to her gymnastics class at the local recreation center last night. When she finished and met me outside, she said she took off her Gizmo (Apple App phone device her mother uses to keep track of her) and when she looked for after it was gone. We checked lost and found, no luck, so when we got home we let her mother (who is away in South America) know. This morning, I got a text from my daughter from SA giving me the local residential address where the device was located(she used GPS to find it). So I visited the house, knocked, and a man came to the door. I related the bizarre facts that brought me to his house. Yes, he has a daughter who has a class at the same place and time as my granddaughter. He was home alone but would get back to me or my daughter. Just got a text from SA saying that the Gizmo has been returned to my granddaughter’s elementary school.
I expect Google will have the bomb one day.
Every time someone cancels their TV subscription, Rob’s house gets smaller.
Never had the TV cord.
We are limited in internet suppliers, so we pay through the nose for Comcast cable, which we use for Netflix/Amazon, etc.
Comcast cable, though expensive, does work. Thanks to @kidcoder‘s gentle ministrations, our download speed tops 170 mbps. Never have to worry about the width of the pipe any more.
I still watch quite a bit of TV. Just not through cable or satellite companies.
But an angel gets its wings.
I killed cable a few years ago, too – stuck with broadband for Netflix and Amazon. Comcast is the perfect example of a local monopoly – generally lousy service, lousy employees, and they don’t give a crap. Why? Because they were the only game in town.
Funny how when choice is brought back into the picture, quality and offerings go up, and price goes down.
Rob needs to get with the times and land a gig doing a Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus series. He can only keep making buggy whips for so long till there are no more buggies. Given some of the comedy series that they have tried on the streaming service they are in desperate need of his talent. He should do well.
Well Sir, after some research based on your post I discovered I can get all my soccer games through Sling TV. Holy cow! Cord cut!
He’s actually always been pretty sharp on the tech stuff, but you have excellent advice, FJG. The cameras on network TV shows are now so small that you’d hardly notice the difference on the set. One reason we tend to see Rob on legacy media is because he’s got one valuable old fashioned talent: he makes the best strategic use of known actors. He works with stars and near-stars, and New Media usually means new talent.
Whattya know, FJG: You and I agree on something.
Love it! Sling isn’t like the big 3 (Amazon, Netflix and Hulu). It’s a little more cable like — in that it brings you a lot of live stuff from networks you’re used to. I’ve got all my news channels (a $5/mo. upgrade from the multi-channel package) and a fair collection of channels that carry NFL games. If I can watch the Packers this regular season, I guarantee you we’re never going back.
By the way, I regret to say that I am not getting any promotional consideration from Sling TV.
250GB/month cap? Cry me a river.
My satellite Internet monthly cap is 15GB. That’s not enough for streaming, or anything much beyond email, web browsing, and the occasional YouTube video (which isn’t all that great because it’s also quite slow, most of the time).
There’s no cheaper alternative out here yet, and I don’t want to be the person in charge of rigging up Community WiFi. Having crawled out of the IT support swamp when I retired, I’m just not anxious to crawl back in.
So, like the folks in Casablanca, we wait . . . And wait . . . And wait . . .
And pay through the nose for both satellite Internet and satellite TV.
I think the first President who mentioned high-speed rural Internet access as a priority was G W Bush. So far, both private enterprise, and government interference have proved equally incompetent in actually implementing anything useful.
And I’m not expecting a major announcement anytime soon.
Maybe that septic tank thing is the answer, after all.
Considering that Netflix HD can stream at anywhere from 3GB to 7Gb per hour you can blow through 250 fairly quickly.
“She was wearing slingback heels, and when she threw back her hair and crossed her legs, in the dim light of a decadent bar she was a 2 am goddess.
“I tossed back another Singapore Sling. It was still tough lighting a Camel in the dark, what with my broken arm hanging from a–”
This has been a paid infomercial.
Yet another GMV allusion to something I’ve never heard of. :)
Living in the boonies, I never had a cord to cut (other than a twisted-pair from AT&T). Satellite internet is too expensive for TV, so I rely on Netflix and OTA TV. Although we’re 50 miles (as the crow files) from the nearest transmission towers, selection of the right antennas and their placement has resulted in satisfactory access to the signals. With the addition of a home-brew DVR, that’s a good solution without waiting for the technician.
I just switched from Dish to DirecTV as they were offering a deal giving me one of their major packages for $60 mo for the next 24 months, plus since I use AT&T for mobile I get another $10 off per month if I go to consolidated billing. This is less than half of what I was paying with Dish plus they gave me a $200 Visa for switching.
I must say that Dish’s technology is much better than DirecTV’s, however. Dish had some really nice features that DirecTV does not. At the end of the 24 months I will either switch back to Dish or cut the cord, depending on whether I can get sports or not.
Satellite and cable packages will get cheaper and cheaper as they respond to the market. They won’t go down without a fight.
I have live on a dirt road that fits your description. Our “broadband” is DSL, just sufficient to provide enough juice to run my computers and my Roku. They have promised a fiber optic cable to the junction at the end of the road, but that promise has been in the wind for two years, and nothing has happened yet. That pretty much limits download speeds to 5 MB/sec., not exactly ripping. I am paying the same amount for service as someone a few blocks away whose speeds are in excess of 25 MB/sec. It is frustrating, but I remember dial-up, so I don’t complain too bitterly.
I had satellite dish service for several years, but finally dumped it. Customer service sucked and the price kept increasing. Now-a-days, my Roku provides all the entertainment I need through Netflix and Amazon Prime. Comcast isn’t going to lay a quarter mile of cable for 8 houses.
A Public Service Message from Pottersville Cable…
I suspect that’s right. For a long time their game was keeping a monopoly or a quasi-monopoly on the content by paying up for it, along with contracts that restricted the content producers from using other distribution channels. That is breaking down. But the coaxial cable is still the best currently installed entry point for data into most people’s homes. It’s the fastest, and highest capacity, that all but a few lucky ones have. That is an advantage they could use. If only they’d start thinking of their subscribers as customers, rather than prey.
A GP? Yours? Wonderful dogs! What’s his/her name? I have two.
Sounds like a good solution for you. We’re in a river valley, surrounded by the hills of West Virginia and Western PA, and our over the air capability is poor.
Remember the good old days of “cable ready TV”? Digital locked them out. These companies got addicted to fat profits from extortion renting the equipment. This was supposed to have been an open market for the past 15 years, but incredibly no one seemed interested in forcing them to obey the law. “Cable Card” was supposed to be universally available. A simple terminal box for cable costs $72 on Amazon and rents for $72 each and every year, but most systems make it almost impossible to use outside boxes.
The programming fees are partly their fault and partly a trap they set for themselves. So many of these services are bundled because they’re owned by the same companies, so getting tough with Disney-owned ESPN means you don’t get ABC or the Disney channels. ESPN is enormously expensive and it must be part of every subscriber’s basic tier whether you want it or not. Programming fees ratchet up and never ratchet down.
Good ON ya, guys! We haven’t had cable for years, but we just bit the bullet and did without some of the channels and scrounged around for enough stuff of interest to satisfy the appetite. Started with Netflix; added A. Prime. When our cell phone bill recently dropped precipitously, added Hulu Plus.
It’s enough. Sometimes we have to wait ’til some show’s latest season appears on one of the services. We often watch from a network’s web site and Chromecast to the TV.
We just joined the 21st century and replaced all our TV’s with Samsung Smart TV’s. We’re enjoying Amazon Prime and Acorn. However I am hesitant to cut the cable cord. My husband is addicted to the cable guide and spends half his time scrolling through the guide, then flicking around during the commercials of whatever we’re watching. And he gets really annoyed if there is any buffering while we’re watching something. We have Cox and bundle internet, phone and cable and the cost is exorbitant. If it were up to me I would get rid of cable and just subscribe to services which give us what we want.
Do you know the difference between Chromecast and Roku (in terms of functionality)? We need to get new connection devices for several TVs now, and I was going to just go with Roku because we already have some and know how they work. But I wonder if Chromecast would be even better?