Cable went up. Again.

[covetsthesun]

Cable co raised the rates again. We have the tv/phone/internet package for $150/mo including taxes.

Since it's not going to get cheaper, we are looking for good ways to cut the cord.

1. We do want to keep a "landline" since it's easier (for us) than cell phones for business conversations. What other VoIP options are available?

2. We have 2nd tier tv... but still have 500 channels of "stuff" we don't need or want. DO like the onscreen guide and use of a DVR to record shows.

3. And internet... we don't have the fastest..but it's adequate. We're not aware of any other options for the net.

So, how do we cut the cord...and reduce our costs below $150/mo and have good quality service?

Pardon the ignorance... we really haven't kept up with all the new gadgets and stuff out there.

Thanks
cts

[wa8yxm]

AT&T bought DirecTV so I'd expect the price for both to go up.

I have more but it's political.

[JiminDenver]

We are cutting the cord here at the house. OTA provides 30 watchable channels and another 30 Spanish, religious and shopping. Right now we tape with 20 year old VCRs. The Cell phones provide 20 gig's of internet at high speed and more at reduced speeds. A freedompop hotspot with rollover will be the back up.

The cords I am cutting are a landline for $70 a month that is used for the security system that will cost a few bucks to switch to cellular.

A Comcast cable bill that went from $57 a month to $130 when they forced me into a bundle to get their modem that provides public wifi. They fought me to drop the TV part until recently when I called to shut it off. Now they are willing to let me have it for what I use too but it is too late. I know I don't need it.

We do have a portable satellite for when we are in the mountains and there is no services at all. It is month to month and gets turned on and off as needed.

So we are dropping $200 a month and it will cost $10 to turn on the phones hotspot. I'll miss the occasional streaming of hockey or college football but I can listen to them and use much less data.

[charlysmom_dad]

This year, we got rid of Dish because the programs we enjoyed when we first got it, 13 years ago, were no longer there. 
We went with roku, with a subscription to netflix. Plus, most of the shows we like are on ota tv. 

Our internet wasn't all that great, so we upgraded to U-verse. Now streaming is so much easier.

 I understand why you'd want to keep your landline. We talked about getting rid of ours for 2 years. We finally did it two weeks ago. All the calls were sales pitches or political calls.

So far, we're happy to use our cell phone (consumer cellular)

[covetsthesun]

fj12ryder wrote:
One point of clarification: What do you mean by "keep a "landline", but are looking at VoIP? If you have a landline you don't need VoIP. VoIP uses the internet to connect calls.

What you're paying isn't all that bad for the services you're receiving. That is about what we pay for the same services you're getting. We also have tons of channels that never get watched, but we can't pick and choose. We now pay for the "rental" of the set top box, and our cable modem. Those were no charge before they started adding all the extra fees. They didn't change anything, just added the charges. Pretty aggravating. We have a Roku box but it's mostly the same: lots of channels that are hardly worth watching.

We have VoIP through TWC. Son#2 has Vonage. It's what I'm referring to as a "landline" meaning I don't want to use our cell phones for everything. We're over in Smithville, so we're "neighbors".

We know people who've chucked it all. Use only cell phones, OTA's and TWC for internet only. We're just tired of all the price increases. Especially when new people are getting more for the $89 promo price.

[MrWizard]

No landline, no cable, no satellite
Cell phone bill approx $122 month, but it will go up next month by another $20
Have an old grandfathered unlimited data plan (Verizon is raising the rate)
Netflix and Amazon Prime
OTA antenna, and a Home Worx PVR/DVR records over the air broadcasts in HiDef and they are NOT encrypted, can watch them with the PVR our with my laptop, I even convert some of them to DVDs for permanent keeping
I recorded the nbc live broadcast of sound of music and Peter pan
Besides the news and a few movies there are only a few shows we watch regularly

We thought about Sat tv, but $50 a month for all the stuff we won't watch seems ridiculous to us

[tplife]

We erected a Channelmaster Ultra and a Winegard Yagi on a 10-foot RadioShack mast. For OTA availability, use the US Gov't site or TVfool.com. This will tell you what you can receive by antenna before you take the plunge. A device like Matricom Kodi Android Box is an UNRESTRICTED alternative to companies like Roku that want to sell you their programming. Sportsdevil and Channel1 will get you sports and movies at a much broader set of choices. Currently we're NetFlix subscribers for what it's worth. We are considering it (the Kodi box) or a ChannelMaster DVR as an upgrade in the near future. Don't miss those cable or satellite bills at all.

[kohai]

covetsthesun wrote:

I've read articles about cable tv cord cutting...and things like Roku and Netflix are mentioned. I don't know anything about these devices. Are these viable options for cable tv and how do they work? One of our friends got a set top antenna for "free" local network tv and a netflix subscription.

You can't get all of your cable channels via roku/netflix. I use a Tivo DVR with an over-the-air antenna and get all the major stations (and I don't have to watch commercials). I supplement that with netflix and Amazon Prime. I tried Hulu Plus but it didn't have enough of what I wanted to see and I wasn't willing to pay them and watch commercials.

For NFL football, I subscribe to the Game Pass (can't remember the price, something like $60-$75 a year). I can watch all of the games starting the day after the game. Any that are broadcast over the air are recorded by my tivo. Also, no commercials on Game Pass so a game is only about 2 hours long or you can watch the ultra condensed version in 25 minutes. (This is on my roku.)

The other person responding mentioned Sling (not to be confused with the sling device). That is another way to get a basic set of channels.

On the roku, I also pay $5/month for Acorn TV -- British TV shows streamed to the house.

I will acknowledge that sports are the one thing that cable is better for. To watch the local college teams, I have to go to my parents or borrow their login to watch them online.

With Netflix, I tend to watch shows a year behind their original air date. So, I'm always a year off. I tend to binge watch some of them. 🙂

With this combination of things above, I am happy to not have cable.

[Flapper]

There are a lot of factors that play into your specific area, and what is available.

We cut back to just internet. Actually, Comcast had a bundle deal for really basic TV and Internet that was cheaper than just internet. So dropped the bill from $180 to $54. Got a Tivo "OTA" (over the air) for recording shows off the antenna, which is better HD than what Comcast provided at a premium. Costs $14 per mo. for the "TV Guide" service from them (needed to be able to set up future recordings). We get ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW, free via antenna. Had Amazon Prime already. Added Netflix ($8 per month). Tivo allows connecting to both Amazon and Netflix, so you don't need a Roku, or other additional box.
Between the two, you can find almost any cable show. May cost from $25-35 additional to get the whole current season of a show. Many older shows, and the shows they themselves create, are free. Lots of older movies for free, but new releases are charged for.
So, over time, we've cut the bill from $180 to about $90 per month.
Phone was never part of the above, but for a really basic AT&T landline here, it's $14 per month. No long distance, but we have cell phones for that.
Tivo is a bit flakey (especially over home wifi), but for a "plug and play" alternative, it is the easiest. There are cheaper ways to go about recording shows, but they all involve some level of hands on techie work to get them up and running.
The only downside might be sports - we don't watch, but that is the big hook that cable companies still have to keep people subscribing.

Just heard that Comcast, and therefore probably other Internet providers, are exploring how to get us to pay based on the amount of Internet used (like cell phones). Looks like they are trying to figure out how to make us pay lots more for TV, even if we did "cut the cord".

[APT]

I'm happy with Ooma. The modem was about $125 from Costco up front. The ongoing taxes/fees are $4/mo. I use a 4-handset phone system throughout the house. I also pay $120/yr for the premium services, but I could see how those features are not important to many.

75Mbps internet only is $78/mo. Netflix/Prime/Hulu is $24/mo. We have a Roku 2XS and Roku 3 at about $180 invested years back. I have my own Motorola Surfboad modem as well. You could probably use Chromecast or Firestick for a little less. Any you'll probably want an antenna for OTA local programming. You can use this site to find out where and how far away your local stations are.

$150/mo isn't too bad for what you get. I would incrementally add Netflix/Hulu and attempt to not use your DVR/cable box for a month or two to see if you can adjust.

[fj12ryder]

One point of clarification: What do you mean by "keep a "landline", but are looking at VoIP? If you have a landline you don't need VoIP. VoIP uses the internet to connect calls.

What you're paying isn't all that bad for the services you're receiving. That is about what we pay for the same services you're getting. We also have tons of channels that never get watched, but we can't pick and choose. We now pay for the "rental" of the set top box, and our cable modem. Those were no charge before they started adding all the extra fees. They didn't change anything, just added the charges. Pretty aggravating. We have a Roku box but it's mostly the same: lots of channels that are hardly worth watching.

[philh]

cut the cord on TV and landline

Get an OTA antenna with a TIVO DVR

Internet service becomes a commodity. I had AT&T for decades. When they doubled the internet price on me, I tried to negotiate and didn't get anywhere, except became a comcast customer. Six months later, AT&T is sending me great offers to return 🙂 when comcast gets stupid and raises the rates, I'll go back to AT&T.

[Tom_N]

I pay:

Wired phone and 10mb DSL internet..............$80.93
2 Verizon cellphones...........................$71.60
DirecTV w/lots of channels & DNS RV service...$137.64

Total.........................................$290.17

Plus, 10mb CenturyLink DSL when in FL for the winter......$80.04 a month

Your $150 looks good to me.

[Iraqvet05]

We cut the cord about two years ago. We were paying about $150/mo for AT&T U-verse and Vonage VOIP. I had to purchase equipment since all of our cable boxes and modem belonged to AT&T. Initially, I think i spent about $300 on some coax, an outdoor antenna and mount, a modem and a wireless router. We also purchased a Roku 3 ($100) which is just a small internet interface that streams services to your TV. You will need a free HDMI input on your TV if you want to use the HD output on some Roku devices. There are also DVD/Blu Ray players that have wired/wirless streaming capability that cost less than a Roku. Amazon's Firestick is also an alternative at $40.

We went with Comcast ($40/month) for internet and Hulu and Netflix streaming content for about $8/month each. Keep in mind you will need a descent download speed of about 5 MBps or more to stream so it may not be an option in rural areas. Speaking of rural areas, your OTA TV reception may not be so great if you are far from station transmitters.

For VOIP, there are cheaper providers than Vonage. I have been using VOIPO since we cut the cord. Vonage was charging about $30 a month and VOIPO comes out to about $6/month if you prepay for 2 years of service.

We do not use DVR but most major OTA networks (CBS, FOX, etc) will have the show in their website to watch within a few days from the original broadcast. We simply hook an HDMI cord into our laptop and connect to our TV to watch shows like Big Bang Theory.

So after initial equipment cost, we went from paying $150 a month to $60. I do miss some shows on cable but it was worth it to me.

[donn0128]

Roku, netflix and all those others including any of the Voip phone schemes require hi speed internet. You can never really cut the cable, except by getting an OTA antenna, dump cable and your cell phones.

[lap527]

We cut the cord last July. We dumped Dish. Our tv bill went from $113.00 to $28.00 plus tax a month. We have an outside antenna, we get all major networks including MeTv off of our antenna, all high definition (free). I purchased a channel master dvr+ from Crutchfield.com,so we can record off of the antenna. We also signed up for slingtv.com, a streaming service for $20.00 a month and added sports for extra $5.00 a month, no contract, month to month service. With the slingtv we have 20 basic channels we actually watch, we can't record those channels because it is streaming but several of those channels we can go back 3 days to watch whatever was broadcast. Slingtv is new and not perfect but it works for us. I also added netflix that that we share with with 3 others at a cost of little over 3 bucks a month. With Netflix the 4 screens are 11.99 a month but we share hence the savings, all legal. I then upped our Centurylink internet speed to 6mbps, fastest we can get here and our bill actually went down after doing auto pay. Yes, we still have a landline. I can actually watch slingtv on my tablet while hubby watches netflix on the big screen, or watch anything through dvr or off antenna. It has actually worked out quite well. I may drop the extra 5.00 sports package after football season but haven't decided yet. You can PM me if need be. As I said it it has worked out quite well for us. Oops forgot, we use a Roku to get plenty of free channels.