Alternatives to Cable TV - cutting the cord

[BruceK]

This subject came up in the F1 thread, so I decided to create a separate place to discuss it.   Of course nobody needs TV, but most of us watch it, and most of us hate our cable TV provider. Or at least we are not happy with the cost of it and the inevitable bureaucracy of it.

I live in a rural area and there is just one cable provider.  And the only way to get Internet and cable TV is with a 3-part service bundle that also includes phone. Yes, landline.  Like it's 1990 or something.  We don't even have a home phone (and haven't had one for years and years), but if we had an old desk phone I'm sure we could plug it into the wall jack and get a dialtone.  Needless to say, this situation of paying for something that's not needed, or desired, has bugged me tremendously in the two years I've lived here.  And of course the price of the bundle has climbed since my "new customer" and other discounts have expired. 

So I'm starting to look at cable TV alternatives such as streaming services.  Of course I'll still need to keep Internet, but I want out of this bundle from hell.  Interested in leaning what others use.  What works for you? And what are the pros and cons?  And cost?

[cstudep]

One thing is certain, the cost and usefulness of much of the "alternatives" is very highly dependent on what it is you want to watch.

We have not had anything resembling "TV" for probably 6 or so years now. It's pretty easy for us though since most of what we are interested in watching is older British TV shows. An internet connection and a subscription to Britbox and Acorn TV suits us perfectly fine. We have had Prime since the days when you actually got 2 day shipping so there is some stuff to watch there as well sometimes, but we are actually considering getting rid of it.

When you start trying to piece meal a lot of what I would call current TV it can get pretty expensive pretty quickly, which is where the HULU and YouTube TV things seem to come into play. Not having used any of those I can't really comment on them so I will have to leave that up to those that have.

[MiniDave]

Rose is in the middle of looking at all the alternatives we have - which are plentiful - but it seems every one of them is expensive.

Our first choice right now is to stay with Google fiber internet - we're grandfathered in on our current plan with them and we get 1 gig for $55/mo, then we would need to add You Tube TV ($65/mo)or some other streaming service - and maybe more than one in order to get all the channels that she watches, along with the only one that's important to me - F1. We'll probably end up spending about what we do now or around $150/mo - which I think is criminal for TV, but happy wife, happy life. BTW, Google also offers an upgrade to 2 gig, but everything I've read says we don't need anything like that for what we do.....still, it's impressive!

We also have Dish here, which I wouldn't have on a bet as it's all satellite all the time and I hear it's not very good anymore.....

Or we can *shudder* go back to Time Warner/Spectrum which would run us about $200 a month......we suffered with them for over 30 years and every 6 months we had to call and argue as they wanted to double the cost - towards the end they wanted close to $300 a month for internet and TV! I was SO happy when Google finally lit up our neighborhood - Don had had them for 5 years by then - we were the last area in the city to launch.

There is also Consolidated Cable - formerly Cox I believe - but again, costs and reviews are both not very good from what we've been able to learn.

Lastly, for you Bruce maybe consider Musk's satellite service? It's coming online now and I've read a few people on Garage Journal who also are in rural areas and have no other choice who have it and are pretty impressed. As he gets even more satellites in orbit the service will only continue to improve.....I think it runs about $100 a month.

https://www.starlink.com/

The thing is I think all of the cable and others are going to be getting out of the TV business soon.....you may have no other choice in the short term but streaming.

[94touring]

I haven't had cable for well over a decade.  Netflix, hulu, and Amazon are the 3 I pay for.  Enough shows and movies to watch for all of eternity.  We will typically rent something off Amazon for a few  extra bucks once or twice a month.  The other benefit from having these streaming apps is they're on my phone too, so when I'm stuck on an airplane with nothing to do I can have whatever shows or movies downloaded to my phone to watch.  I couldn't care less about sports but I see Amazon has some sports channel options. I'm sure my smart TV has some options for purchase as well.  News/propaganda is probably available somewhere to rot your soul.  Otherwise I have a few podcast I subscribe to, mainly off YouTube for free.  MrBallen has been my latest obsession if you like 15-30 minute stories of the strange, dark, and mysterious!

[BruceK]

Thanks for the input guys.

So, I put in a couple of calls to my Internet/cableTV/landline(!) provider to find out how much Internet-only would cost me. Of course nobody would answer the phone there ("we are experiencing higher than normal call volumes", yeah right) and after being kicked off Hold at 10 minutes of wait time (twice), I was told by recorded message that someone would call me later (didn't happen). So I called their "new customer" line and I got to speak to a live human immediately (totally shocking, I know).

They quoted me Internet prices for 250 mb, 500 mb, and 1 gb.   I currently have their 250 mb service and it seems quick enough when streaming Netflix or Prime, so I don't think I need to pay for a higher speed unless I run into some buffering issues down the road.

At this time I'm looking at dropping cable TV (and the stupid requirement of a landline) and switching to YouTube TV where it looks like I could save about $90-$100 a month and that would keep nearly all of the channels I currently have. And that includes ESPN channels which are only important to me for F1 coverage.  I don't give a crap about other sports coverage and that seems to be a big money maker add-on for sports fans (sports addicts?). 

Next step is to take up YouTube TV on their free trial offer. 

[MiniDave]

I think several of the streaming services have a free trial period.

If you have Amazon Prime they have a metric ton of stuff to watch for free or small fee (I'm cheap and only watch the free stuff - even so there is way more than I can watch.) And of course, the British automotive version of the three stooges is on amazon too

We're going to be switching off the Google TV service on Jan 1, and then we'll get YT TV to start. The thing about cost is all of these streaming services are going to continue to go up in price till at some point it will be hard to justify (already there IMHO)

I don't know how long Google will keep us at the grandfathered rate, I'm pretty sure it's going up again and again too.....

Just curious, what did they quote you for 250, 500 and 1 gig service?

[94touring]

I think I pay about 10 bucks each for a monthly subscription.  Netflix I splurged on the 14 dollar plan for 4k quality.

Aside from TV steaming, I also pay 10 bucks a month for my Spotify account to stream music.  Have a gazillion songs on several playlist that is at my disposal anytime I want to listen to them, like on a long airplane ride, drive, or at my shop.  No ads and no crappy radio stations. 

[Brit_in_TX]

For live TV I am using Hulu Live which I think is about $75 a month.  This gives you a bunch of live channels and cloud based DVR to record stuff and watch later.  I have this as I like to watch live sports and it is the best way to get access to wide variety.  The recently announced that are bundling Disney+ and ESPN+ with Hulu Live.  One thing my wife has found is that Hulu gives you ability to watch shows that are "only" on other streaming services, not sure how it works but she has search and found that she can watch them.  In addition with have Amazon Prime (mainly for the shipping benefit, but the streaming service is a nice add on), Netflix and HBO Max.

In terms of internet service, I have a service from Spectrum and get about 460 Mbps at the router.  If you are getting 250 Mbps down from your service provider, this should be sufficient to stream multiple 4k video streams (one 4K streams needs around 25 Mbps).  Most of the issues I see with bad performance of internet access at home is due to the equipment used or excessive use of Wifi. 

The other issue with ISPs is they advertise "up to" speeds, so it depends what you are really getting.  If you pay for 250 Mbps and get 60 Mbps at the router, will paying for 500 Mbps get you 560 Mbps or 120 Mbps.  Also with the move to Fiber you should be getting close to that. 

Bruce - I assume you are using GVTC as my in-laws have to use that.  When they cut the cord, they did not make it easy. 

[cstudep]

Not being all that interested in any sort of "sports" or "live TV" stuff definitely makes it easier and cheaper as it seams the sports stations are the ones that really drive up the cost of things.

It used to be a lot cheaper to cut the cord, but now that everyone is doing it all the stuff you used to be able to get for free or for a low price now costs a lot more. It was bound to happen though.

We just recently got fiber through our local electric co-op, I pay for the 1gig service and generally get about 950-980 Mbps speed. Can't complain about that. Since I now work from home full time I need the faster speed for the stuff I do.

[BruceK]

Dave, Internet service quotes were: 
250 gb for $60
500 gb for $80
1 gb for $120
Unfortunately, they are the only internet service provider available.

Craig, yes it's GVTC.  Who, more than 24 hours later, have still not provided the "callback" calls they promised when they automatically terminated me on hold after several 10 minute waits.  Can't wait to deal with them when I cut the cord.

I just installed/signed up for YouTube TV 14 day free trial this evening.  Some hiccups on the install when they wanted to verify my physical location for my TV (for sports blackout purposes) but the software wasn't cooperating.   Of course no chance in hell of talking to an actual live person to resolve this.   I finally used my phone to prove to YT where my TV lives.

[Brit_in_TX]

I just installed/signed up for YouTube TV 14 day free trial this evening.  Some hiccups on the install when they wanted to verify my physical location for my TV (for sports blackout purposes) but the software wasn't cooperating.   Of course no chance in hell of talking to an actual live person to resolve this.   I finally used my phone to prove to YT where my TV lives.

Hulu Live requires the same thing.  The other thing I discovered recently when travelling, if you want to connect to Hulu Live on your phone or ipad when away from home, you need to access Hulu live at home on your phone or ipad in the prior 30 days - which is something I never do as I have a TV.

[BruceK]

Well I'm just 24 hours into my YouTube TV free trial and, other than the inevitable learning curve of figuring how it all works, things look very positive.  It's very responsive and intuitive.  I never watch live TV (therefore avoiding the viewing of all commercials) and that is easy to accomplish with YT TV because of the built-in DVR functionality (called a "library").   In fact, the DVR is extremely generous allowing unlimited recordings to be stored and played back, and it keeps them for up to nine months(!).  So, no need for housekeeping on the DVR to avoid running out of space. Although some level of housekeeping may be needed just to be able to find new recordings apart from the already-watched ones!  Still need to learn more on that.

I am accessing YT TV on the LG brand TV in our living room through the use of an Amazon Fire TV stick and YT TV is one of the apps the Fire Stick accesses (like Prime or Netflix).  With no channel numbers used for YT TV (just the network names), the very simple Fire TV remote without a numerical keypad (below) is all that is needed.

Next step is to install it on our bedroom Roku TV and see how that works. 

[BruceK]

Day 2 of my YouTube TV trial and hooking up the second TV was easy.  I remain happy with the functionality of it so far.   

I now  understand the weird way the unlimited storage cloud DVR works. If you record a one-time program such as a movie you can later delete it in your "library" (likely the same with a sporting event but I haven't tried that).   But if you record a regular TV series, it will work to grab every showing of that program that airs.  And you can't delete them.  So if the TV series happens to be on all the time in reruns (e.g. The Andy Griffith Show) the DVR will soon start sorting and organizing every single episode slotting them into the TV season they originally aired. So for a long running show, there could be hundreds of episodes that will continue to show up on the DVR.  I guess eventually you'll have access to the entire catalog of a particular TV show (well, at least all the shows  that are being re-run). There's no way to remove individual episodes, but you can cancel the entire series. And if you do that I think that might remove them from view in the Library.   And of course once recordings reach 9 months of age they are automatically deleted by the system.

There is functionality to go to the most recent recordings, so that helps with navigating in the library.  There is also a A-to-Z and Z-to-A sort functionality.  There may be other functionality that I have not yet found.

[BruceK]

Cord cut.

I dropped off the cable boxes, remotes, and the DVR at the cable company this morning to end my service.  I'm gonna like saving about $1,100 a year.   I'm just praying they don't "misunderstand" and stop my Internet service at the same time. I was assured they won't do that.

[ve9aa]

ROKU............absolutely free after your buy the very inexpensive box and remote control.  Has a bunch of channels (apps) but it's a little bit limited and some of the movie channels are cr@pol@

I can't get fiber op or even old timey cable where I am and I'm only 15miles from town.

We are so far out in the sticks we have to come in to hunt!

So I am on satellite TV. (expensive)