Internet TV vs Satelite TV >> ROKU Box

And to add one more thing here about internet TV, Century Link here in Vegas has unlimted 10g download speed internet for only $28.00 per month we run sometimes up to 3 TV's and laptop at same time and it still downloads fast, faster if less is used, we have both Netflix and Amazon for only $160.00 per year, that's a lot of programs for cheap compared to traditional cable/satellite.

However can't get that kind of service yet while on the road but I do believe that day is coming soon..

Bill.Winegard wrote:

timmac wrote:

Version has changed there wifi plans recently, go into a Version store and talk with them, we have a large business cell phone plan already, it also works with personal cell phone plans..

It works like this, you buy a larger monthly cell phone plan so you have extra minutes left over and for $20 a month you can get a wifi jet pack with 4g and lots of minutes of its own, if your wifi goes over its uses the cell phone minutes so you have lots and lots of time, we have never gone over and I use my laptop a lot when on the road.

We have been with Version for a long time and the salesman says Version is even going to be adding better lower cost service as time goes by with the wifi..

I have been in many Verizon stores and online and there are no plans that would come close to being affordable if you are trying to stream TV programming over the internet. You can add additional GB's at $10 per 2GB but without doing any streaming I am already using 6-8 GB/month between my 2 computers, 2 phones and a Kindle. If I have to update my 2 Garmins it takes about 4GB for the 2. You are lucky if you still have an unlimited plan but the rest of us must pay to play!

Our current plan (just checked billing) gives me 20gb for only $20.00 a month, if I go over this in 1 month it will share any other time not used on our IPhone wifi, we have never gone over as of yet, however we have a business plan and we have 8 cell phones, 2 are IPhone's and the wifi plan, maybe I am getting a better deal on the wifi because we have a large plan, we have been with Verizon for over 14 years now and maybe I do have some older grandfather prices locked in.

docj wrote:

timmac wrote:
WiFi booster will help when your only receiving 1 or 2 bars, I am not talking about being out in the middle of no where, when we go on trips we hardly ever go with out some bars on our Verizon service, the booster would help keep the bars strong miles away from service.

The OP was asking about a WiFi booster. That has nothing to do with cell phone reception. WiFi and cellular are two totally different communication concepts. If your cellular signal is too weak you would need an amplifier for it that is different than what is used for WiFi,

I am the OPer, and they do sell a booster antennae that you mount on outside and connects to a interior antennae that will boost booth wifi and cell phone signal.

timmac wrote:
WiFi booster will help when your only receiving 1 or 2 bars, I am not talking about being out in the middle of no where, when we go on trips we hardly ever go with out some bars on our Verizon service, the booster would help keep the bars strong miles away from service.

The OP was asking about a WiFi booster. That has nothing to do with cell phone reception. WiFi and cellular are two totally different communication concepts. If your cellular signal is too weak you would need an amplifier for it that is different than what is used for WiFi,

I agree Satellite TV is costly but we've had it for years and has been part of our budget for so long that we don't even notice it anymore. We have all the premium, HD, and sports channels they offer and nothing beats having it all when RVing. Takes about 5 minutes to set-up our Slimline 5 dish I picked up for $50 (mounted on a home made stand) and we can enjoy HDTV that has plenty of options that people really want to watch. We subscribed to a couple of internet tv services at home and rarely watch them anymore, the kids do watch them as they find old B horror movies funny and they also enjoy the Japanese animation shows. Do what works best for your situation, but DW wouldn't go RVing without HD Sat TV.

timmac wrote:

Version has changed there wifi plans recently, go into a Version store and talk with them, we have a large business cell phone plan already, it also works with personal cell phone plans..

It works like this, you buy a larger monthly cell phone plan so you have extra minutes left over and for $20 a month you can get a wifi jet pack with 4g and lots of minutes of its own, if your wifi goes over its uses the cell phone minutes so you have lots and lots of time, we have never gone over and I use my laptop a lot when on the road.

We have been with Version for a long time and the salesman says Version is even going to be adding better lower cost service as time goes by with the wifi..

I have been in many Verizon stores and online and there are no plans that would come close to being affordable if you are trying to stream TV programming over the internet. You can add additional GB's at $10 per 2GB but without doing any streaming I am already using 6-8 GB/month between my 2 computers, 2 phones and a Kindle. If I have to update my 2 Garmins it takes about 4GB for the 2. You are lucky if you still have an unlimited plan but the rest of us must pay to play!

2oldman wrote:
Your idea is highly dependent on your willingness to forego first-run programming (DTV) for Roku (which is not) and often spotty internet service. I really like what I get on DTV, can get it anywhere, and don't have to pay huge data bills.

I'm aware of what Amazon and Netflix offers, and, some of it is ok, but I wouldn't enjoy a steady diet of it.

And it's Verizon, not Version.

agree. we took a look at Apple TV, Netflix, Hulu and the rest a couple of years back with the idea of replacing Comcast at our home with one or all of those services. seemed like a reasonable plan until we realized that virtually all of our favorite programs including my Chicago Cubs were not available or drastically delayed. no thanks.

ngreen wrote:
Are you depending on the RV park wifi signal to be fast enough for downloading tv video? I have never been to one that had that fast of a signal. For a mifi or hot spot use - you would have to have unlimited data because one movie uses a lot of data.

and many parks are now throttling your speed when their equipment detects any sort of streaming. I've had that happen when downloading software updates.

timmac wrote:

Version has changed there wifi plans recently, go into a Version store and talk with them, we have a large business cell phone plan already, it also works with personal cell phone plans..

It works like this, you buy a larger monthly cell phone plan so you have extra minutes left over and for $20 a month you can get a wifi jet pack with 4g and lots of minutes of its own, if your wifi goes over its uses the cell phone minutes so you have lots and lots of time, we have never gone over and I use my laptop a lot when on the road.

We have been with Version for a long time and the salesman says Version is even going to be adding better lower cost service as time goes by with the wifi..

This above is quite confusing to me.

I don't understand your reference to your jetpack (or any data device) using left over cell "minutes" on your plan. To my knowledge, data usage and voice "minutes" are always priced totally separate.

We just moved from an older Verizon plan to their new "Share Everything". I asked a jillion quesions to be sure I thoroughly understood how this new plan worked. Here's how it was explained to me:

With the new "share everything" plans from the major carriers, the first thing you do is choose "the plan". Although it sounds strange, "the plan" you choose is actually the amount of data you will be sharing between your devices(2G, 4G, 6G, 8G, 10G, etc.)

After you've selected your "plan", then you start adding devices that share that data plan. It's usually about $40 per smart phone, $20 for MiFi, notebook, etc.

On the phones you add to your plan, you get you get unlimited voice and SMS texting for each one. Any data they use for surfing or MMS texting comes out of the shared data plan's bucket.

On the older plans you still had separate allotments for data usage and for voice/text minutes. Some family plans allowed the sharing of VOICE minutes between phones.

i.e. If you had 900 voice minutes on your plan and a grandfathered unlimited data plan, you could not "borrow" from your data allotment if you went over on your voice minutes. The same was true in reverse. If you had 2000 voice minutes and only 2G of data, you couldn't "borrow" from your voice minutes if you needed more data for your MiFi.

If there was ever an unlimited everything plan -- you have a gold mine. It's my understanding that with the grandfathered unlimited data plans, any Verizon customer wanting to upgrade their phone after June 28th, 2012 has to either give up the unlimited data plan and switch to the new "share everything" plan with a 2 year contract OR pay full retail price ($600-$1,000) for their new smart phone.

Roku is a great product to supplement good OTA signals when you are near metropolitan areas. We winter in Florida in an area with fantastic digital OTA stations and thus put our Direct TV on suspension at home. For DVR service with the OTA signal, we purchased two used TIVOs with lifetime programming included.

Fortunately at the park we stay in, the local phone company makes decent DSL available for internet access. We use the DSL as the signal source for streaming. I can't imagine how much bandwidth would be required to stream movies over our 4G MiFi. If the DSL was not available to me, I'd cut way down on my Verizon cellular data plan and use a Millinicom MiFi (jetback) for data. They charge $70 for 20G of 4G service.

For those of us that don't have grandfathered unlimited data plans and want to use large amounts of data, what other choices are there?

2oldman wrote:
Your idea is highly dependent on your willingness to forego first-run programming (DTV) for Roku (which is not) and often spotty internet service. I really like what I get on DTV, can get it anywhere, and don't have to pay huge data bills.

I'm aware of what Amazon and Netflix offers, and, some of it is ok, but I wouldn't enjoy a steady diet of it.

And it's Verizon, not Version.

Yep I got that name wrong..

However just check my Verizon plan and I get 20gb for $20, and if I go over it will use up my extra minutes on cell phone plan before going over, you can get about 10-12 hours with 2gb but not HD quality, that will cost more data, so my plan will give me about 100-120 hrs of tv time before going into any extra minutes off my cell phone plan.

I should add one thing is this might not be good for full timing and if you watch a lot of tv and heavy into sports, but I don't watch much and don't care to much for sports and not a full timer, so for me it will cost less than direct tv.

For the part time camper that does not want to buy the dish, cable box and monthly service ROKU would be the cheaper way to go and no commercials..

That's if they already have wifi service and near wifi signal, but the younger generation will most likely already have this service, its going to be the new way, especially when Apple TV comes into service, they will have HBO on there plan..



:C