After our ATT bill for CATV & internet skyrocketed yet again, I began seriously following the “Cutting the Cord” group on Facebook. Folks there suggested I use this site to find out which internet TV best met our needs.
The winner was YouTubeTV (YTTV) as it covered nearly all the channels we wanted, has unlimited cloud DVR capability, can be watched on just about any device that can connect to the internet, etc. We tried it for a week and were very happy so it was adios to ATT’s Uverse service. They (of course) then really jacked up our internet rate, so off I went to shop.
Spectrum offered 500mps service (vs. a limit of 100mps with ATT) and at a lower price point. So we axed ATT entirely and have cut our total TV and internet costs almost exactly in HALF. Oh yeah – and we also don’t have to rent equipment. [I just hooked the Spectrum modem up to our hubs and router and we didn’t have to change anything.]
We cut the cord almost a century ago… Well, it seems that long ago.
One of the happiest days of my life was bringing in an armload of various cable boxes, remotes and cable modem into the Comcast office when we cut the cord. They asked if we were moving, and I told them, Yep - sure am. I’m moving to streaming!!! Adios amigo!!!
We’ve tried Sling, YouTube TV, and others and have settled (for now) on YTTV as well.
I just checked - that was 2016. I recall posting on Facebook that we had converted and I have sent the instructions and links of how I did it to many folks since then. I also think that I have posted them on the old FooI site as well. All in hopes to help others cut the cord!
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→ not sure how many thousands of dollars we’ve saved since then…
My daughter, who lives on the other side of town, dropped cable too. I don’t know what she has now.
I pay a freaking fortune for cable and internet. Internet promises me 500 mbps, but delivers 600. The phone company keeps sending me flyers for their fiber optic service, new to the area.
Cable gets me almost everything there is, including all sorts of movie channels. I hate commercials. I hid most channels with commercials from view. Jeopardy is the only such program I always watch, and I record that and fast forward through the advertising. I have a bunch of things set to record, some of which I never get around to watching. I’d hate to think what my cable bill divided by my modest TV viewing hours comes to as a rate.
No question, I’m wasting money. Why? Because I have everything I want, and it is all so easy to use. I just can’t get up any enthusiasm for the hassle of starting over with new sources. And I can afford it. There is a thread about splurging a bit over on another board that applies to that.
But my hat’s off to all you adventurous folks doing it better!
That is our problem. We are a one horse town basically. Other than Starlink, it’s Comcast or nothing else. Century Link has no interest in laying the cable for our little area. I’ve looked at the cost of Comcast internet alone plus Youtube TV and it’s more expensive. Guess I will have to wait until Starlink drops to a more reasonable rate.
That is the issue here, with Comcast/Xfinity: you can pay $140 a month for a triple play including tv, landline phone & internet, or you can pay $90 a month for internet only +YTTV at $70 is actually more.
And YTTV has stopped carrying local sports (NESN), so… the heck with them too.
We too were comcast hostages, until a neighbor suggested T-Moble. We called and didn’t like the heavy amount of documentation they wanted, (Equifax has already put my info on the dark web so not looking for another to do so,) but we used the info to get Comcast to meet their price. It’s possibly another option for you. High-Speed 5G Home Internet Service Plans | T-Mobile 5G Home Internet
My only option is Cox. ATT has 18 MB DSL lines here. I get targeted Facebook ads for ATT fiber, but there’s no ATT fiber here. Can’t get Verizon or T Mobile home internet either. Cox doesn’t have any deals on it’s TV - you can pay $56/mo for OTA channels + TBS, the CSPAN’s and some music channels or $100/mo for TV. “Double play” and “Triple Play” are a thing of the past.
Our only option is CenturyLink DSL. But it proves adequate. We cut the cable a few years ago, and I don’t regret it a bit. We subscribe to what we want, we have the Google TV device (similar to a Roku, which we had previously). Works great. Save lots of money. We had subs for Netflix and HBO (Max now), and you can watch a lot of content with ads for free (the ad-free subs cost money, but we don’t watch them enough to pay for it). All we have to do is pay for the internet connection, and the subs we want. Probably a third the price of a premium cable subscription that includes HBO and Netflix.
If you don’t need live sports, then an over-the-air dvr device works great. The new Tablo TV device picked up 72 channels at Mom’s in Indianapolis this week…I culled most of them (the last thing she needs is lots of Home Shopping Networks) but it’s quite slick to set up and also includes streaming of Scripps channels and a DVR with expandable storage. You can watch it with an app on a ROKU and the other devices.
I have an older generation Tablo and am grandfathered in to their deprecated commercial skip feature which is great or I might switch to the new generation.