Cutting the cord? It's time...
- Thread starter Judge Smails
- Start date
Do it, Judge. We just cut the cord in January and our only regret is that we did not do it sooner.
Long story - We had a bundled package - home phone, cable, internet. All of the converter boxes for 5 TV's, cable modem/router and a web security package. My monthly charges jumped to $320 a month after the first of the year. Unacceptable.
I bought:
- 4 fire sticks, 1 Roku (supported an ap I wanted that nothing else seemed to support) Personally find the Firesticks to be MUCH better.
- a high end modem and high end router that supported best possible download speeds
- Magic Jack phone service
- A basic antenna
- PSVue - Core package - I appear to get all PSU games.
- Changed cable service to web only 500MBS download speed
I am saving $200 per month. Savings paid for the new equipment in 3 months.
The only negatives so far is that I do not get New York networks, only Philly; and, the antenna is not very helpful, mainly due to my location at the bottom of a hill. I need to upgrade that somehow.
I say this every time we have one of these threads.
Smart TVs are not the best option, or even close to it, when it comes to streaming TV. Software and apps are rarely if ever updated. Streaming devices such as Apple TV, Roku, and Fire Stick are all faster, updated more regularly, and provide a better overall experience once you get the hang of them.
Smart TVs are not the best option, or even close to it, when it comes to streaming TV. Software and apps are rarely if ever updated. Streaming devices such as Apple TV, Roku, and Fire Stick are all faster, updated more regularly, and provide a better overall experience once you get the hang of them.
Do I need that much download speed? Can you get away with 100?
I think I may just use the one main smart TV and use ipad's upstairs with the youtube tv app.
How many devices will you have? And what kind of router?
100mbps is what I have with 5-6 devices and a tri-band router. Things work flawlessly.
Agree with SLU. You're probably good. I have the following, not ALWAYS on
5 TV's (you can do that with PSVue)
3 smart phones
Home security system
3 laptops
Visitors, etc
Heck, I think the neighbors even hacked into my network
I've got 20-some devices (of course, not all are constantly using bandwidth outside the local network) on 75mbps, that's plenty.
$13 is the modem / router gateway thing. I bought a modem and router -- much nicer stuff -- for about $300 total. In two years I was pocketing money.
I need to contact Xfinity again. I should be able to cut about $30 from my bill.
The combo things are pure garbage, particularly when it comes to being a router.
Fast, yes. But some ISP limit the amount of downloaded data, and if you are streaming a lot, whatever limit at 100Mbps might not be enough.
Show me an isp that provides high speed but also still imposes data caps and I’ll show you an isp that’ll be out of business shortly.
I found, at least with my service, the cost to go to 500 was minimal. Like 15 bucks a month. Except for my Roku stick, which I believe is crap, I have zero buffering.
That same modem costs $55 on Amazon. To buy and have forever. Can’t believe people still rent.
So if you buy one all you need to do is tell Comcast you’d like to return the modem/router and have he rental fee removed?
Yep. But don’t buy a modem router combo because they’re garbage. Get a modem, and buy a good router. The modem will run $75 or less, and a good enough router is more expensive ($125-200).
I get unlimited because I bundle with DirecTV, otherwise ATT has data caps (pay extra if you exceed 1TB of data) on all but their fastest service.
When I made the change I went on their website (I was TWC but you're Comcast, see link below) to see which modems have their pre-approval. That way, if you buy a modem and it doesn't work, they can't say "You didn't buy the right one." And then I bought one they had approved. And then I disconnected the TWC modem and set up mine. Then after I was sure it all worked I took their modem back to them and said "Here's your modem back, stop charging me rent now, please."
The day I took the last of the stuff I was renting from TWC back to them felt like freedom. I no longer have any of their equipment nor do I rely on them for anything other than to provide Internet.
https://mydeviceinfo.xfinity.com/
I haven't used Amazon Fire or apple tv, but I really like Roku. I have a couple boxes and recently bought a Sharp LED with ROKU TV built in. Roku is great, vs a smart TV b/c it lets you download apps of your choice and there is probably 500(no joke). It's also great to have a single small remote to operate the TV, whether it be for traditional TV or streaming. When I turn the roku TV on, It's just a bunch of tiles. One for my antenna, one for my blu ray player, then netflix, hulu, amazon, BTN, Fox Sports, ESPN, HBO, etc. One easy interface and no switching between inputs or remotes.
As I’m reading this I just navigated to YouTube on my Fire Stick and it works fine.
How do these non-cable options work in terms of the speed of switching channels? I love switching channels with sports, especially on a Saturday when there are 6+ games on at a time. With cable, I can switch stations in about two seconds, so it is really easy for me to flip through 6 channels or flip back and forth between plays while I am watching two or three games late in the 4th qtr. Can I do this with the non-cable options or is it more cumbersome?
It takes slightly longer than cable but it’s faster than my DirecTV system was.
We have YoutubeTV. We get NBC Sports Philadelphia. We've been able to see all the college football we could before. They just added some channels (but the price went up $10/month). Still a good option. We also have DirecTV Now, but we're considering dropping it. We get a discount on that one as we have AT&T cell service.
It depends on your set up. I am a channel flipper. Hate watching commercials. It's not convenient to flip back and forth.
I use PSVue, which has a station guide. I assume most others have a similar option. I can set my favorite stations that will be listed at the beginning of the guide. If you're flipping between favorites listed at the beginning of the guide, it's a few clicks. If not, you may have to scroll through multiple stations to go back and forth.
IMO, Vue is the worst at channel flipping and takes the longest. Regardless of if I used PS4 or another device, it was slower than anything else. That said, it's an overall good service.
YTTV and FuboTV were very quick with channel surfing. Hulu Live TV was so-so.
I honestly couldn't believe they're pulling that so I looked it up to confirm. After doing so I realize that it's AT&T - the company that ruined DirecTV and turned their pricing/customer service to shit. I truly feel sorry for you that you have to deal with that and likely don't have any other/better options.
You don't even need 100 unless you have 4 people trying to stream 4k video at the same time. 50 or 60 megabit internet -- as long as it's a solid 50 -- is plenty for 1 or 2 TV households.
FWIW a terabyte is a lot. An hour of HD video is 2-3 gigabytes, so do you watch 300-500 hours of video in a month?
For 95%-98% of people data caps are not a problem. Even if you hit the data cap, a lot of times they don't enforce it unless it's exceeded by a wide margin and over a series of months.
What the data caps are really about is people buying 1 internet connection and sharing the wifi among 10 households.
Yes, the internet providers use this number-of-devices language to try to get people to buy more bandwidth than they need. Most of the devices, such as phones, don't use much bandwidth most of the time.
Basically all you have to really worry about is streaming video. The streaming services need around 8 megabit per second for HD, a lot less for streaming low-res to a phone or tablet.
So if you only watch TV in one place, even a 20 megabit connection, as long as it's a solid connection, should be enough.
But if you have a big family and they're watching 5 or 6 TV screens simultaneously, then you could probably benefit from 100 megabit internet.
Other "devices" like Alexa, smart devices, computers on the web -- they don't use enough bandwidth that they have a signficant impact.
You can also set your router to prioritize video using QOS, so that if you do have limited bandwidth, its dedicated to your TV and then allocates bandwidth to other things.
Right, it's like when I include water in the rent I charge, but have a cap of 2700 gallons per month included. I have never charged when my tenants go over. It's to prevent them from having an all summer long slip-n-slide going. Or a neighborhood car wash. Or just not worrying about the water running constantly. It's to stop the abuse, not the ordinary use.
Blue Ridge Cable in most of Lancaster County. They are the only game in town. And I suspect that other ISP will follow suit as they start losing cable subs to cord cutting.
I successfully cut my bill by about $28, so I'm happy with the time spent. Had hoped to get a discount on the DVR, but that didn't work out. Anyone here have a clue how to purchase my own DVR that works with Xfinity? What's the cost. How much of the $12.68 per month would I be able to save? I believe I'd still have to pay for a card for the DVR I'd purchase.
That was my problem. 100 Mbps worked fine, but with only 1 TB of data per month, 5 kids, and 46 devices connected to our wifi, we kept exceeding the max data every month and adding $10 for every 50 GB. We upgraded to 500 Mbps (and it's consistently around 480-510 Mbps) and 1.5 TB a month for about $15 more a month. Haven't come close to exceeding the max data since.
I honestly couldn't believe they're pulling that so I looked it up to confirm. After doing so I realize that it's AT&T - the company that ruined DirecTV and turned their pricing/customer service to shit. I truly feel sorry for you that you have to deal with that and likely don't have any other/better options.
Don't feel sorry for me, I'm satisfied with paying $20/mo for 100 mbps service and certainly have other options if I need/want to change providers. I don't have any issues with DTV customer service as I haven't had any issues to deal with. I don't have a dog in this hunt, if ATT/DTV goes out of business as you boldly (stupidly?) predict or if they piss me off, I will move on to another provider.... no big deal. In the meantime, chill out before you stroke out.
