Cutting the cord

[ededic]

The trick is training ourselves that we are no longer governed by a tv schedule. This is hard for folks like my dad who asked what is on the tube which meant... what’s on right now. One issue is... the Apps on Roku, AppleTV, etc. only function if you have a cable subscription that carries the same network or $5-15 p/mo individually. We can’t get any local channels here with an antenna so we are forced to local baseline cable package for $21 p/mo.

 

[ultrarunner]

The family home had 60+ channels years ago when I checked and this is with rabbit ears...

Grandma's cabin only had one and now none with the switch to digital.

In Olympia the topography doesn't allow for any unless dish but the trees caused their own issues...

In Austria everyone has basic free dish due to mountains... which is my first experience with dish.. it did open up a new window on the world with Sky News, CNN etc so far from home... the first thing on when I powered it up was some protest in Oakland CA... go figure!

I most definitely found more time for everything when living in Olympia without TV... but it made it hard to rent...

 

[Richard]

I'm on DTV since I live out in the boonies.

Couple years ago, rumor was out that the Internet folks are under some kind of "directive" (law??) to provide fast service to the entire state or something like that. (I've never looked into it)

Low & behold, machinery & "stuff" shows up in my area. Note that I live (last house) on a dead end road. So this stuff shows up.....six months later, something else shows up.....six months later (it was PAINFULLY slow...)

Fast forward, they were bringing fiber optic down my little dead end country road!!! WHA?????????

I'm excited now, watching every day as they use their boring machine to lay more conduit. Down the road.....

Oh, I forgot to mention that halfway down my road is a development of about 40 acres (no idea how many houses are platted for it)

Fiber comes down the road and does an abrupt right turn UP their road. I talk to one of the installers about the rest of the houses (4 more beyond this point AND note that there are only TWO houses in this "development" which started 10/12 years ago..... not many want to live this far out in the boonies)

Anyway, I asked what about the others..... he said they didn't know there were more houses out here, he thought the rest of the road that goes into the woods was simply a driveway.

Nope..... whom can I call to talk to about this??

You should call Tom. I call Tom... "not my lane", you need to talk to Harry. I call Harry...."not my lane", "you need Linda"....and on and on.

I was never able to find anyone to talk to about this and those I was able to reach were basically useless.....

Oh, this is AT&T that's bringing this in.

AT&T owns DTV as I understand and I really detest both of them however, I detest AT&T more.....

But would give in to all if they would just bring that darn fiber down our way.

For scale, they're taking it into a location that is 40 acres and has two houses standing.

We have three standing houses and 250 acres (which will likely be developed in the future since it's on the lake)

So close, yet so far.

 

[MossRoad]

So we are finally in a place where the internet speeds at the house are "good". With the upgrades we made we are getting 10+ Mb at all times. Often more like 20.

Then Sunday the dish network receiver took a dump. It is dead and will not turn on. Long story short they will send me a new receiver but will NOT reduce the costs. I am paying like $95/mo. WAY too much.

So we are looking at getting a streaming service. So far I have identified
Youtube TV
Hulu + Live TV
Sling

As being possible services to use.

We bought a Roku Stick to do the streaming. Signed up for Youtube TV trial period.

Just looking for others who have done this and why they ended up choosing a particular service.... even if it is not one of the ones listed above.

Thanks!

We dropped DirecTV after 17 years of service back around 2014. I had it set up on my garage, fed to a head-end system that I put together myself with a series of diplexers, splitters and combiners. That way any TV in the house could watch whatever was playing on the dish by just switching to channel 3. Likewise, the VCR/DVD player was on channel 4. This was well before wireless. Anyhow, when I dropped the dish, I plugged in an over-the-air antenna, removed the diplexers, and now that antenna feeds all the TVs in the house.

As you know, we live just a tad north west of you. We get 33 free channels over-the-air. We pay for Netflix and share that with our kids that live in other cities. One of them pays for Hulu, and she shares that with us. So between the over-the-air, Netfix, Hulu and TBN, there's always something to watch/do when I have time too goof off.

 

[ultrarunner]

I'm on DTV since I live out in the boonies.

Couple years ago, rumor was out that the Internet folks are under some kind of "directive" (law??) to provide fast service to the entire state or something like that. (I've never looked into it)

Low & behold, machinery & "stuff" shows up in my area. Note that I live (last house) on a dead end road. So this stuff shows up.....six months later, something else shows up.....six months later (it was PAINFULLY slow...)

Fast forward, they were bringing fiber optic down my little dead end country road!!! WHA?????????

I'm excited now, watching every day as they use their boring machine to lay more conduit. Down the road.....

Oh, I forgot to mention that halfway down my road is a development of about 40 acres (no idea how many houses are platted for it)

Fiber comes down the road and does an abrupt right turn UP their road. I talk to one of the installers about the rest of the houses (4 more beyond this point AND note that there are only TWO houses in this "development" which started 10/12 years ago..... not many want to live this far out in the boonies)

Anyway, I asked what about the others..... he said they didn't know there were more houses out here, he thought the rest of the road that goes into the woods was simply a driveway.

Nope..... whom can I call to talk to about this??

You should call Tom. I call Tom... "not my lane", you need to talk to Harry. I call Harry...."not my lane", "you need Linda"....and on and on.

I was never able to find anyone to talk to about this and those I was able to reach were basically useless.....

Oh, this is AT&T that's bringing this in.

AT&T owns DTV as I understand and I really detest both of them however, I detest AT&T more.....

But would give in to all if they would just bring that darn fiber down our way.

For scale, they're taking it into a location that is 40 acres and has two houses standing.

We have three standing houses and 250 acres (which will likely be developed in the future since it's on the lake)

So close, yet so far.

I took years of persistence to get it in because not having cable/net/tv eliminated 95% of potential renters...

The crew that did the install was first class... lots of underground boring from some distance with several "Nodes" along the way... amazing job for sure and they sent pictures too... said they sure like the rural setting as opposed to the urban work they do 99% of the time...

I had kept pressure on State, Local, Federal and wrote to the chairman, called and spoke the executive secretary etc...

What made the difference is I was involved in the a very minor role with a local 450 unit planned development... I spoke to the principal of the project and he provided the name of the engineer heading the cable phase...

I said it is ironic I can't get the time of day for my own home but your sales team can't wait to get into this PUD...

The result is I pay $300 a month for 5 years for business cable with is web hosting, phone, voice mail, etc... no TV which my tenants pay separate...

It does work amazingly well... which makes the property rentable to Doctors, Engineers, etc...

 

[TractorGuy]

The phone/DSL company says I live in the "dead zone". Unless there is development ($), they won't spend the money to upgrade internet service. The politicians threw money at the internet providers with the promise that better service will reach rural homes. The better service only reached the edge of a big corn field that is owned by a developer (doner?).

That service was never going to be for middle class citizens anyway. It was going to be reserved for financially impoverished communities. I'm not sure if they ever actually put any of the infrastructure in but it was supposed to run 2-1/2 miles from me and pass us right by to another county. We were NOT going to be eligible to connect to it.

I am right at the end of the DSL line. I could keep paying the same price you could get 50 Mbps for 1.5 Mbps. I finally gave the AT&T thingy a try and low and behold I get 10-15 down at half the price of DSL. Sure glad I tried that deal when it was available.

 

[ultrarunner]

Low Income tenants in units I manage have lots of incentives such as cheap high speed internet, free cell phone, discounted utilities and if they take classes it often comes with a lab top computer...

It has been a few years but a family of 4 living in Oakland CA would have to earn the equivalent of just under 70k to equal the benefits offered to low income families with the largest being Section 8 housing which is often indistinguishable from any other single family home on the street...

 

[DKCDKC]

My address is on a major highway with cable and DSL available. My home is one mile off the road and near nothing else. Cable is out. Tried DSL for five years but speeds were below 1 mbps much of the time and would fall to unusable frequently. Problem is the phone line in is co-located with the power line and runs through the required junction boxes a half dozen times or so. From what the techs said, all the connections slowed the slgnals and eventually just cut out until they came out and serviced them all. I looked as satellite but heard some many bad things and would have to pay so much for what we wanted in volume that I took another option. I bought a Mofi modem and receive cell phone internet from a Verizon tower 3 or 4 miles away. Signal is strong and I get 30 to 50 mbps sometimes when others aren't using the tower much. But, during busy cell times - like evenings - the speeds are 1 to 2 mbps. I use a Verizon prepay unlimited - the only real unlimited they have... Although they sometimes slow you if you go over 28 gigs or so. Costs me $60 a month. I hate the fluctuating speeds, but otherwise it works quite well. I would like to cut the Direct TV service I have now, but just can't depend on the Internet signal yet. Hopefully the 5 K stuff will come in and take some of the pressure off my tower so my speeds will average higher. I've contacted all the Internet services that offer unlimited in rural areas, but their tech people note that they would use the same tower and I would still face slowdowns. I'm open to fixed wireless - but it ain't going to be here for a while.

 

[fried1765]

We have Spectrum for internet. Had DirectTV but have switched to Spectrum streaming since it carries local channels. I just added Disney+ and use it more than anything else. We pay ~$110 monthly total. SW Ohio area.

Spectrum service is $200 per month for me in Florida, and not even with all options!
I HATE the cost!

 

[Molalla1]

I'm on DTV since I live out in the boonies.

Couple years ago, rumor was out that the Internet folks are under some kind of "directive" (law??) to provide fast service to the entire state or something like that. (I've never looked into it)

Low & behold, machinery & "stuff" shows up in my area. Note that I live (last house) on a dead end road. So this stuff shows up.....six months later, something else shows up.....six months later (it was PAINFULLY slow...)

Fast forward, they were bringing fiber optic down my little dead end country road!!! WHA?????????

I'm excited now, watching every day as they use their boring machine to lay more conduit. Down the road.....

Oh, I forgot to mention that halfway down my road is a development of about 40 acres (no idea how many houses are platted for it)

Fiber comes down the road and does an abrupt right turn UP their road. I talk to one of the installers about the rest of the houses (4 more beyond this point AND note that there are only TWO houses in this "development" which started 10/12 years ago..... not many want to live this far out in the boonies)

Anyway, I asked what about the others..... he said they didn't know there were more houses out here, he thought the rest of the road that goes into the woods was simply a driveway.

Nope..... whom can I call to talk to about this??

You should call Tom. I call Tom... "not my lane", you need to talk to Harry. I call Harry...."not my lane", "you need Linda"....and on and on.

I was never able to find anyone to talk to about this and those I was able to reach were basically useless.....

Oh, this is AT&T that's bringing this in.

AT&T owns DTV as I understand and I really detest both of them however, I detest AT&T more.....

But would give in to all if they would just bring that darn fiber down our way.

For scale, they're taking it into a location that is 40 acres and has two houses standing.

We have three standing houses and 250 acres (which will likely be developed in the future since it's on the lake)

So close, yet so far.

Yes . . . They came down my lane maybe 3 years ago with fiber . . . told me that if I want to retain my land line (cell phones do not work so well out here) . . . I had to switch from the old copper, and now I have the high speed everything . . .

edit . . . maybe 5 years ago with the fiber . . .