Cutting the Cord (Cable)

zceuxbhjutf

Panel 3 Member
Yes, I made my own antenna super cheap and easy...
http://www.diytvantennas.com/index.php

And all my friends gave me a hard time LOL. When my cable went out right before the best* Daytona 500 ever two weeks ago it was nice to have.

* except for who won
** and not counting the one that proved Juan Pablo Montoya should never be given the keys to so much as a golf cart...
 

Cytraveler

Level 2 Member
My problem is sports. Not for me, but for my husband. He doesn't care about ESPN much, just wants to watch the hometown teams (we live in Pittsburgh). Football you can generally get on network, but not baseball or hockey. And on MLB channel, it specifically disallows seeing the team in your home, forcing you to buy cable (or do a hack, which I'm not willing to do) to watch your home team. Sling doesn't help. As far as I can see, only way to see home teams is to get Root sports, and the only way to get that is to get cable.

I toy with the idea of switching between Verizon Fios (what we have) and Comcast, but lethargy and the fact that my email is through Verizon (trying to slowly change over to gmail) has stopped me. Plus horror stories about Comcast.

Bleh.
 

Mancolt

Level 2 Member
I toy with the idea of switching between Verizon Fios (what we have) and Comcast, but lethargy and the fact that my email is through Verizon (trying to slowly change over to gmail) has stopped me. Plus horror stories about Comcast.

Bleh.
I had my first email address tied to my parent's comcast account. I talked them into moving to Verizon for a new customer deal (not realizing my email was tied to their account), and then lost that email address. Recovering some accounts has been a challenge, but is usually possible. In the end, the money they saved as a result of not paying the normal prices was well worth the headache to me.

I read online about how much people hate Comcast. I never had any issues for the many years I've been with them (probably 3 or 4 different 2 year stretches). It's a bit of a hassle, but you can usually save 33% or more off of your normal bill by taking a new customer deal. For that amount of savings, I'm okay with calling/emailing/whatever to switch between Comcast and Fios every 2 years.
 

seespotjump

Level 2 Member
My problem is sports. Not for me, but for my husband. He doesn't care about ESPN much, just wants to watch the hometown teams (we live in Pittsburgh). Football you can generally get on network, but not baseball or hockey. And on MLB channel, it specifically disallows seeing the team in your home, forcing you to buy cable (or do a hack, which I'm not willing to do) to watch your home team. Sling doesn't help. As far as I can see, only way to see home teams is to get Root sports, and the only way to get that is to get cable.

I toy with the idea of switching between Verizon Fios (what we have) and Comcast, but lethargy and the fact that my email is through Verizon (trying to slowly change over to gmail) has stopped me. Plus horror stories about Comcast.

Bleh.
I completely understand. Sports is the main hiccup for me as well. Finding professional sports games isn't too hard, but if you want to watch college games it's tough without cable.
 

Josh000

Level 2 Member
And on MLB channel, it specifically disallows seeing the team in your home, forcing you to buy cable (or do a hack, which I'm not willing to do) to watch your home team. Sling doesn't help. As far as I can see, only way to see home teams is to get Root sports, and the only way to get that is to get cable.
Pairing an mlb.tv subscription with a dns proxy (e.g. smartproxydns) allows watching blacked out games. (Not sure if thats what you meant by hack - it really isnt). Tmobile has also been offering mlb.tv for free to subscribers the last few years.
 

ldfernald

Level 2 Member
Pairing an mlb.tv subscription with a dns proxy (e.g. smartproxydns) allows watching blacked out games. (Not sure if thats what you meant by hack - it really isnt). Tmobile has also been offering mlb.tv for free to subscribers the last few years.
When I had nba subscription my local team(BOS) wasn't blacked out. I have no idea if this is still the case, but on Roku my connection was in NY area. If I tried my PC or phone it was blacked out, but on Roku it wasn't.
 

gr8t.2b.free

Level 2 Member
We cut the cord about 6 months ago. We had dish for a long time, and we were hesitant to give that up because of football. Well, we finally got fed up with football, with all of the political statement players were choosing to bring into the game last year. I liked Dish with the hopper that allowed me to skip over commercials when viewing most DVRed shows.

We are drifting toward a minimalist lifestyle, so we want to limit our family's exposure to commercials. (My kids and I am susceptible to commercials making us want STUFF that we really don't need or desire otherwise). We do have an OTA antenna for local channels (news and weather) and PBS for the little one. Otherwise, we seldom watch traditional TV with commercials.

We are very content with Netflix, Amazon Prime, amazon fire stick and Chromecast. I don't anticipate ever going back to cable at this point.
 

Mancolt

Level 2 Member
My trouble is locating an ISP that doesn't bundle cable with their service. I think it was $90 for just internet, or $100-$110 for Internet and Cable. At that point, the difference is minimal (to me). I would really love to pay $60 for internet though, and ditch cable entirely. But the only high speed internet options I'm aware of in my area are Verizon and Comcast, and both bundle their packages. In fact, they wanted me to get a home phone line as well. I think it may have cost less in some instances to do their "triple play" with phone line than just getting cable + internet.

Are there other high speed internet provider options that I'm not thinking about/not aware of?
 

gr8t.2b.free

Level 2 Member
I hear ya, Mancolt. We live way out in the country, so we also are limited in what ISP we have to choose from. We use Century-Link for internet and a landline. I want to keep a landline while we still have young children at home for 911 since our cell phone coverage can be sketchy at home. Oh and plus we use it for our home security system.
 

Saphira2021

Level 2 Member
My trouble is locating an ISP that doesn't bundle cable with their service. I think it was $90 for just internet, or $100-$110 for Internet and Cable. At that point, the difference is minimal (to me). I would really love to pay $60 for internet though, and ditch cable entirely. But the only high speed internet options I'm aware of in my area are Verizon and Comcast, and both bundle their packages. In fact, they wanted me to get a home phone line as well. I think it may have cost less in some instances to do their "triple play" with phone line than just getting cable + internet.

Are there other high speed internet provider options that I'm not thinking about/not aware of?
I know for a fact that we are paying less with triple play. We tried to get rid of the phone line, but it was more expensive that way. It's Verizon!
 

El Ingeniero

Level 2 Member
Every year I call up the CenturyLink retention department and ask for promotional pricing. Takes my Internet-only bill from $78 to less than $32. I also own my own DSL
modem which saves me another $10 per month.

Similarly, I was able to score a couple of new iPhones cheap (plus a sizable batch of points), and not leasing cell phones saved me almost $60 a month.
 

Mancolt

Level 2 Member
Every year I call up the CenturyLink retention department and ask for promotional pricing. Takes my Internet-only bill from $78 to less than $32. I also own my own DSL
modem which saves me another $10 per month.

Similarly, I was able to score a couple of new iPhones cheap (plus a sizable batch of points), and not leasing cell phones saved me almost $60 a month.
Wow, that's a hell of a retention deal. I've never gotten anything close to that. I'm happy when they give me $10 - $20 off per month.
 
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