Any cord cutters here besides me?

[Viper1j]

I dropped my bill for tv from 168.50 a month to 55.00 a month. I told Comcast to take back all their tv shit, because they kept hiking the bill on me, and just leave with internet. Since I own my own cable modem I'm not paying to rent theirs.

I'm getting 100 times the entertainment value a Roku 4k Ultra in the living room, and Roku Express in the bedroom. Sling Tv, Tubi tv, Pluto tv, and about 20 other apps. Everything from cooking shows to workout shows. All 100% FREE! (Except for Sling) There's even a free PorHub app, (if you're into that)

More tv than I can watch at 1/5th the cost.

If you haven't looked into it, you should.

 

[herm0016]

i have never paid for cable. always used whatever internet services. I have been in the real world (out of school) for over 10 years.

 

[KMFJD]

cut the cord(so to speak) in 2000 when direct tv stopped working in Canada, even back them i rarely watched it and just listened to mtv2/vh1

 

[AntonioHG]

Haven't had cable for a good while now, at first because we just couldn't afford it, but now, it's pretty much worthless. There's just so media to consume anyway.

 

[spacejamz]

Been on directv now for about year?? that free apple 4k thing from last year was pretty nice...have spectrum for my internet and also have my own modem (can't believe some people pay $10/month for years that)...

Those equipment fees/mirroring fees for multiple TV/rooms can kill you...

 

[TheVrolok]

I really want to, live sports are what gets me.. Generally college and pro football.

 

[Exterous]

I really want to, live sports are what gets me.. Generally college and pro football.

I pay for Hulu TV for that reason. Like 5 ESPN channels, fox sports, tnt, tbs and btn along with your local channels for less than a similar cable package would have cost us. Every once in a while it lags a bit but they do a good job. I was concerned how they would do with the super bowl but they didn't have any problems. The only thing I miss is the consistent ability to fast forward through commercials. I would often record and start games 30min late to skip the commercials. With Hulu TV not all channels let you fast forward through commercials though

 

[IndyColtsFan]

We cut cable TV and cable VOIP years ago and would have sooner, except my wife loves TV and insisted we keep it. When that happened, I said "OK, the cable bill is now your responsibility" and after a couple of price hikes and arguing with Spectrum on the phone for discounts, she gave up and cancelled TV. The cheapest option to get her channels she wanted was actually Spectrum's own streaming service, which is $21/month. We also have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Since I switched back to being a consultant working from home full-time, I took the cable bill back since I'm reimbursed for the internet portion. If Spectrum starts increasing their streaming package, it will get dropped too.

It's unfortunate we don't have another solid option for internet, or I would've cut Spectrum completely. To be honest, their service is generally pretty good but they're expensive and they skimp on the upstream bandwidth. For example, I'm on the 300 Mbps plan and the upload is only 20 Mbps; their 1 Gbps plan has an upload of 35 Mbps. If they'd significantly upgrade the upstream on the 1 Gbps plan, I'd probably upgrade to it but as it stands, not worth it for me. It isn't about money for me; it is about value and I need a massive increase in upstream before I'd consider it. Going from 300 Mbps to 1 Gbps in download isn't enough to justify the upgrade alone.

 

[purbeast0]

Nope and don't plan on it. The $1k or whatever a year it costs (versus just having cable internet + other subs) isn't worth the convenience and entertainment we get out of it.

 

[Midwayman]

So much cheaper to cut the cord, but so hard to get all the things on cable in one place.

• Getting all your locals is a challenge
• Getting every weird channel your wife wants is a challenge
• Getting it all so it integrates into one schedule and you don't have to use a half dozen apps to watch TV is almost impossible.

I'd love to do it, but that last one really kills the WAF. Sling almost gets there if you can get locals OTA. Their OTA tuner integrates into the main sling app on most plaforms, but unfortunately not on appleTV. :\

 

[IndyColtsFan]

So much cheaper to cut the cord, but so hard to get all the things on cable in one place.

• Getting all your locals is a challenge
• Getting every weird channel your wife wants is a challenge
• Getting it all so it integrates into one schedule and you don't have to use a half dozen apps to watch TV is almost impossible.

I'd love to do it, but that last one really kills the WAF. Sling almost gets there if you can get locals OTA. Their OTA tuner integrates into the main sling app on most plaforms, but unfortunately not on appleTV. :\

I faced similar challenges as well. Outside of Game of Thrones, I don't really follow any other series and watch maybe 2 hours of TV a week (if that) and I could've gotten rid of cable TV completely and not missed it. My wife watches TV much more and wanted more channels. The Spectrum package we got gave us all the locals and maybe 20 other channels to choose from. Inexplicably, we also have HBO from it, which weren't not sure why - they did a free trial on the weekend a few weeks ago and apparently never turned it off or something.

DirecTV Now is another option and I tested that for a couple of months but eventually gave it up as it had issues at the time. AT&T appears to have hiked the price a couple of times since then too. I've heard YouTube TV is very good but haven't tested it.

 

[JM Aggie08]

We've had PSVue for the last 2 years, combined with Netflix, Hulu (exclusive content, and it's only $6), and Prime Video. We've never looked back.

 

[Tormac]

I never had a "cord" to start with.

I always went to my friend's house (who had cable to watch football) and it boggled my mind that he had a thousand channels of crap, and the best things were the nature and science shows on PBS anyways.

Between youtube, PBS online, and the Chinese streaming sites I never felt the need for cable.

 

[BurnItDwn]

The "fast" ISPs here have a nice duopoly are either Comcast or ATT, so, even though we killed our cable TV package when the MIL moved out to live with my BIL, we still have to deal with the same evil telco/cable company in order to get online.

There are some Wireless ethernet providers in the area, but, they have low data caps and speeds well under 10mbit and may as well be dial up as far as I'm concerned.)

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Welcome to mid 2000s OP

 

[nakedfrog]

Been almost four years for me.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yes, but between the internet, hulu, netflix, and other intermittent subscriptions, I'm not actually saving money. So I'm bad at it.

 

[Midwayman]

DirecTV Now is another option and I tested that for a couple of months but eventually gave it up as it had issues at the time. AT&T appears to have hiked the price a couple of times since then too. I've heard YouTube TV is very good but haven't tested it.

Yah, they're the closest to 'cable' over IP. Unfortunately they're having a spat with Viacom right now that means they lost several of the channels my wife wants plus the prices are getting up there. I don't think I'd actually save money vs my current Dish sub. Plus they have the worst DVR options of anyone I think.

 

[rh71]

Enticing but the randomness of our trusted/favorite channels plus having the couple sports channels we actually do watch make the cost worth it. I also find it a bother to seek out specific shows from my Plex or Netflix... I'd rather have the randomness to keep things fresh. My kids like Sci and Smithsonian channels for Air Disasters or Engineering Catastrophies etc. We'll watch Pool Kings or whatever else on the home improvement channels. Or we'll switch to the local sports teams channels that are always blacked out on streaming. Can't replace everything without a ton of work. Simply not worth it for us. We pay $153 for 2 tvs, a phone, and 75/75.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

We just pay for xfinity and directtvnow app. We also have NF & Prime. I think for those services our bill combined is about $150. We're currently saving about $100 off what we were paying for cable/hardware (minus modem)/internet. Using firesticks to stream content. So for it's been working. DTV Now does have issues, the app is clunky and slow sometimes, but it has all the channels my wife wants plus local and tnt/tbs/espn for live sports. Works pretty well so far.

 

[snoopy7548]

Cut it maybe four or five years ago and never looked back. Sick of all the commercials, having to record a new episode on an exact date and time and if I miss it, my only choice is to torrent it. I've never been into sports and I rarely ever watched live TV. There was just no point in having cable for me.

Now I have SickRage setup to automatically download all new episodes of the shows I watch from a private torrent site. I use Kodi as a frontend for all of my local media and it's simple, fast, and beautiful, with endless customization. This runs circles around any cable box UI I've ever seen.

The only problem is I'm too lazy to call and get my internet rate reduced every year, so it has gone from ~$60/month to ~$90/month. I'm still saving over having cable, though.

 

[Drako]

We mainly use Youtube TV, Netflix, and Prime. Will sign up for HBONOW when GOTs starts back up

 

[DietDrThunder]

We cut the cord 6 years ago. Reconnected the old 1970's TV antenna for local over-the-air channels (found out there are more than I knew about), have Prime and Netflix. Will be putting Netflix on hold for a while, then watch Hulu a while, then switch back and forth.

 

[dainthomas]

I really want to, live sports are what gets me.. Generally college and pro football.

Sling has a sports package that shows most college sports.

I have an Amazon Recast that I use to record shows/games off my hd antenna. My local NFL team is always on one of the networks so I don't miss anything. And now with T-Mobile giving away MLB tv I don't miss anything.

 

[DietDrThunder]

Sling has a sports package that shows most college sports.

I have an Amazon Recast that I use to record shows/games off my hd antenna. My local NFL team is always on one of the networks so I don't miss anything. And now with T-Mobile giving away MLB tv I don't miss anything.

Even though they market it as such, there is no such thing as an HD antenna. An antenna is an antenna. It is the transmitter and receiver that are digital HD. This is how I am still able to use an old 1970's TV antenna with my new Samsung QLED TV.