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Cutting the cord

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Offline LouisEly Re: Cutting the cord
#21

Posted: February 03, 2020, 6:10 PM Post
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xFinity (a.k.a. Comcast)
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Offline wallus Re: Cutting the cord
#22

Posted: February 03, 2020, 7:25 PM Post
Posts: 1856
LouisEly said:
I'm paying about a combined $200/month for cable TV (including all ESPN channels, FS1, CBS Sports, BTN, MLB/NFL/NBA networks - no FSWI in Chicago), cloud DVR, internet, and cell phone service and that includes all taxes, fees, and $25/mo for a new phone, as well as free access to thousands of WiFi hotspots.

If you add up what you're paying for each of those things individually, including taxes and fees, I'll bet it's pretty close to $200/month.


Always been my argument as well. Seems like a lot of screwing around for minimal savings. Now the equation changes if you get extremely cheap internet, do illegal things and/or don't want very many channels to watch.
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Offline OldSchoolSnapper Re: Cutting the cord
#23

Posted: February 03, 2020, 7:29 PM Post
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I had cable back in the day but always split the bill with a roommate, it was bundled with our internet. When I got married I had it for a year and never have had it since. It's just filler. I watch nothing on ESPN and just wouldn't be sitting down to watch local sports every night anyway. I don't miss it. It's one of those things that you have to get used to not having, but then you don't want it again.

There's tremendous variety so it gets hard to compare apples and oranges. I pay $70/mo for Internet, two cell lines, Disney+ and Netflix. Internet is $19, weird service that most people probably don't have access to but it works, two lines at Republic Wireless are $20 each with a BYOD plan.That's all I need. Internet for work and streaming but nothing hardcore. Too many shows that I want to watch but can't.

When I had cable I'd browse for something so I could watch TV. Now it's only when I want to watch it or I find something else to do. I probably save a lot more than most would but it's not always but straight savings. It can be about trimming excess and being productive with your time.
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Offline homer Re: Cutting the cord
#24

Posted: February 04, 2020, 12:33 PM Post
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wallus said:
LouisEly said:
I'm paying about a combined $200/month for cable TV (including all ESPN channels, FS1, CBS Sports, BTN, MLB/NFL/NBA networks - no FSWI in Chicago), cloud DVR, internet, and cell phone service and that includes all taxes, fees, and $25/mo for a new phone, as well as free access to thousands of WiFi hotspots.

If you add up what you're paying for each of those things individually, including taxes and fees, I'll bet it's pretty close to $200/month.


Always been my argument as well. Seems like a lot of screwing around for minimal savings. Now the equation changes if you get extremely cheap internet, do illegal things and/or don't want very many channels to watch.


That's the rub for a lot of people. You end up paying for a bunch of channels you never use which is why I've never taken the leap with YouTube TV or Sling or any of the "live" TV options.

And it's also possible that the increased competition from the streaming services has forced the cable companies to improve things on their end.
"Dustin Pedroia doesn't have the strength or bat speed to hit major-league pitching consistently, and he has no power......He probably has a future as a backup infielder if he can stop rolling over to third base and shortstop." Keith Law, 2006
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Offline PeaveyFury Re: Cutting the cord
#25

Posted: February 04, 2020, 12:35 PM Post
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And zero issues with service arrival windows, crappy call centers, or installation fees.
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Offline homer Re: Cutting the cord
#26

Posted: February 04, 2020, 12:39 PM Post
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PeaveyFury said:
And zero issues with service arrival windows, crappy call centers, or installation fees.


Maybe cable lets you go month to month now but I hated getting locked into a contract and then having to call and negotiate the rate every time the 12 month deal expired. I can see the advantages of having all your "stuff" with one company but it just wasn't for us.
"Dustin Pedroia doesn't have the strength or bat speed to hit major-league pitching consistently, and he has no power......He probably has a future as a backup infielder if he can stop rolling over to third base and shortstop." Keith Law, 2006
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Offline OldSchoolSnapper Re: Cutting the cord
#27

Posted: February 04, 2020, 12:46 PM Post
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homer said:
wallus said:
LouisEly said:
I'm paying about a combined $200/month for cable TV (including all ESPN channels, FS1, CBS Sports, BTN, MLB/NFL/NBA networks - no FSWI in Chicago), cloud DVR, internet, and cell phone service and that includes all taxes, fees, and $25/mo for a new phone, as well as free access to thousands of WiFi hotspots.

If you add up what you're paying for each of those things individually, including taxes and fees, I'll bet it's pretty close to $200/month.


Always been my argument as well. Seems like a lot of screwing around for minimal savings. Now the equation changes if you get extremely cheap internet, do illegal things and/or don't want very many channels to watch.


That's the rub for a lot of people. You end up paying for a bunch of channels you never use which is why I've never taken the leap with YouTube TV or Sling or any of the "live" TV options.

And it's also possible that the increased competition from the streaming services has forced the cable companies to improve things on their end.


This is exactly what happened. I got Sling because it was "only" $25 a month and I figured I'd cancel when the Brewers were out of contention or season was over. The rest of it was just a bunch of crap I never wanted. Regular plain old YouTube is filled with millions of hours of old docs, webcasts and original material that can be very interesting. If I could literally just order FSNWI I probably would pay $10 for just that one channel as it would provide about 80% of my use of a TV.

Once the price is above $10 I lose interest completely.
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Offline MrTPlush Re: Cutting the cord
#28

Posted: February 04, 2020, 1:25 PM Post
Posts: 13184
LouisEly said:
I'm paying about a combined $200/month for cable TV (including all ESPN channels, FS1, CBS Sports, BTN, MLB/NFL/NBA networks - no FSWI in Chicago), cloud DVR, internet, and cell phone service and that includes all taxes, fees, and $25/mo for a new phone, as well as free access to thousands of WiFi hotspots.

If you add up what you're paying for each of those things individually, including taxes and fees, I'll bet it's pretty close to $200/month.


Well...not all of us live in Chicago. So your case is not very comparable to many.

Where I live, to get all the channels I would want, I would need to get the middle tier cable package. After adding dumb monthly charges for HD boxes/DVR boxes and upgrading the internet to a faster speed it is about $190. Mind you this is the special intro pricing and it tells you it will be the standard price after the one year contract. I am sure it is notably more post one year.

I can not bundle and instead do: internet for about $70 and Hulu Live with DVR/unlimited screens (what I currently have) for like $70. That is a total of $140.

I will likely cancel Hulu entirely eventually. I don't watch that much TV and can always go to a family members house to watch the sports...or bar I suppose. As someone else mentioned YouTube has a lot of good content. Which is what I usually watch half the time anyway.
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Offline Marc Newfield of Dreams Re: Cutting the cord
#29

Posted: February 05, 2020, 2:58 PM Post
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When we sold our place this summer I decided to dump Spectrum. TV/Internet was over $180/mo. Went with YouTube TV, and it has worked out well. Has all the sports, and major channels, the only one I miss at times is Comedy Central. Saving $65/mo.

The only tough adjustment was keeping the phone away during live sporting events. That 30 second delay gets ya.
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Offline bjkrautk Re: Cutting the cord
#30

Posted: February 05, 2020, 3:21 PM Post
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Wish someone would make a skinny bundle with:
NFL Network
ESPN 1&2
Big Ten Network
FS Wisconsin
FS1
TBS
TNT
TruTV (thanks NCAA tournament)

...along with a smattering of other non-sports channels. PS Vue actually would have covered my needs, but Sony shuttered it last month. Either going to have to shuffle services on a monthly basis, or stick with cable until someone makes my ideal streaming product.
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Offline MrTPlush Re: Cutting the cord
#31

Posted: February 05, 2020, 3:29 PM Post
Posts: 13184
There is a reason that hasn't happened...those are the channels everyone wants and they include them with a bunch of trash you don't want so you can pay more. That is one of the nice things about the streaming services...a lot less garbage channels you don't even want.
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Offline OldSchoolSnapper Re: Cutting the cord
#32

Posted: February 05, 2020, 3:38 PM Post
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A couple conglomerates own all of the content. This is how they get away with their insane fees, by forcing a provider to take 25 channels instead of the only two anyone watches. The real answer lies with the Internet - people can and will just stop watching TV, but the Internet is oxygen at this point and LOTS of places have one choice.
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Offline tmwiese55 Re: Cutting the cord
#33

Posted: February 05, 2020, 5:07 PM Post
Posts: 5207
Location: Madison, WI
OldSchoolSnapper said:
That doesn't really work anymore. Most of them only allow you to view live sports when connected via the Internet service that's part of the subscription.


IDK, I have multiple friends that use my Fox Sports login to watch Brewers/Bucks. One tries my charter stuff on everything where you need to show that you have cable and it works.

The funniest part is that I actually got rid of Charter in November and the logins still work. I have internet another way now and am still able to login to the Charter app and watch everything for free. I'm going to keep riding it for free as long as I can just to spite them, even though I hate not just having normal cable. 3 months so far.
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Offline adambr2 Re: Cutting the cord
#34

Posted: February 05, 2020, 5:23 PM Post
Posts: 20588
If you're one of many that just needs TV for Wisconsin sports, you're almost better off living out of market. If I didn't live in Wisconsin, I'd just pay $122 a year for MLB TV, get a decent outdoor antenna installed for CBS, FOX, and NBC football games, and Reddit the few Packer games I can't get doing that.
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Offline LouisEly Re: Cutting the cord
#35

Posted: February 05, 2020, 5:39 PM Post
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MrTPlush said:
Well...not all of us live in Chicago. So your case is not very comparable to many.

From what I can tell, most major cable companies (including Charter Spectrum) offer cellular service now as a part of their offering, so I would think that most people would have that option.

Part of the problem is living in Chicago*. What I want to watch the most are the Badgers games (football, basketball, hockey), but now those are pretty much split evenly between ESPN, BTN, and Fox/FS1, and it seems like every streaming service is missing one of those. In order to watch the Brewers here I need the MLB channel; not sure how the Cubs new TV network will work as they don't have a deal with Comcast yet as far as I know, but that was 18 games a year I got to watch. This past season I think the Packers were only blacked out once or twice here because of conflicts with Bears games - that was luck, but you have Thursday night and Monday night games that are on ESPN and the NFL network. Marquette basketball is split between FS1, CBS Sports, and some other obscure network. The Bucks are sometimes on TBS/TNT/NBA, so I might as well get cable so I have all of those sports channels.

One of the other benefits of cable is that if you miss a game (NFL, BTN, sometimes ESPN) there are often replays of the game that are on later.

(*Don't get me started on the taxes and fees here.)
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Offline Samurai Bucky Re: Cutting the cord
#36

Posted: February 05, 2020, 7:46 PM Post
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This site seems to keep up the channel list, etc.

https://thestreamable.com/channels
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Offline OldSchoolSnapper Re: Cutting the cord
#37

Posted: February 06, 2020, 11:58 AM Post
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tmwiese55 said:
OldSchoolSnapper said:
That doesn't really work anymore. Most of them only allow you to view live sports when connected via the Internet service that's part of the subscription.


IDK, I have multiple friends that use my Fox Sports login to watch Brewers/Bucks. One tries my charter stuff on everything where you need to show that you have cable and it works.

The funniest part is that I actually got rid of Charter in November and the logins still work. I have internet another way now and am still able to login to the Charter app and watch everything for free. I'm going to keep riding it for free as long as I can just to spite them, even though I hate not just having normal cable. 3 months so far.


My dad has Spectrum and when I try to use it, what I described happens. I can watch Hallmark Channel but it will not allow me to connect to Spectrum live without being on their network, i.e., in their house.
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Offline SeaBass Re: Cutting the cord
#38

Posted: February 06, 2020, 12:01 PM Post
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OldSchoolSnapper said:
tmwiese55 said:
OldSchoolSnapper said:
That doesn't really work anymore. Most of them only allow you to view live sports when connected via the Internet service that's part of the subscription.


IDK, I have multiple friends that use my Fox Sports login to watch Brewers/Bucks. One tries my charter stuff on everything where you need to show that you have cable and it works.

The funniest part is that I actually got rid of Charter in November and the logins still work. I have internet another way now and am still able to login to the Charter app and watch everything for free. I'm going to keep riding it for free as long as I can just to spite them, even though I hate not just having normal cable. 3 months so far.


My dad has Spectrum and when I try to use it, what I described happens. I can watch Hallmark Channel but it will not allow me to connect to Spectrum live without being on their network, i.e., in their house.

You wouldn't be able to use the Spectrum TV app but you should be able to use 3rd party apps like Fox Sports Go, ESPN, TBS/TNT, etc. Many networks offer their own app. As long as those channels are part of the original cable package you should be able to log into those using Spectrum credentials.

For context, I believe the Spectrum TV app is a way to access your cable subscription without needing to use one of their cable boxes. Say you have 4 or 5 TVs in your household, having a box for each of them would get pricey, so you could use the app instead to cut down on the box fees. It's only intended for use at a customer's home.
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Offline OldSchoolSnapper Re: Cutting the cord
#39

Posted: February 06, 2020, 12:10 PM Post
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Weren't they cracking down on that like 3 years ago to the point of notifying users who were doing it?
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Offline SeaBass Re: Cutting the cord
#40

Posted: February 06, 2020, 12:17 PM Post
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OldSchoolSnapper said:
Weren't they cracking down on that like 3 years ago to the point of notifying users who were doing it?

What's the point of having Fox Sports Go or HBO Go if you can't watch it on the... go
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