Has anyone ever considered cutting the cord?

[DaMaN]

Have any of you cut the cord? Do you get your television programs by means other than cable or satellite? I would cord-cut if it were cheaper than my current bill.

I used to be all Comcast (TV/Telephone/Internet) but got laid off a few years ago and decided to go with DirecTv, when I did a quick comparison of the costs.

First I ditched Comcast Voice (Their VOIP telephone service) and replaced it with Magic Jack Plus (MJ+). We are not big home phone users so the quality of MJ+ was good enough to enjoy the cost savings.

Then I started to enjoy the pursuit of savings and looked at the TV piece. What I realized is that you only get the best pricing when you are a "new" customer. Meaning you must have been away from a service for 2 or more years to be considered a new customer. As a result, I went with DirecTv because they had lots of promotions for new customers at sign up and my savings initially were big, but they fell off my account as the term of my account grew older.

So now its been three years or so and now my great savings is....nominal now. I could get new customer savings if I went back to Comcast but I just don't want to be a Cable TV whore every two years.

So I am thinking to cut the cord altogether now.

I have a Roku3 or Roku stick in three rooms and just noticed this new offering from Dish Network called Sling TV.

Dish Network announced Sling TV at CES 2015. The service, launching in early 2015, will offer about 20 channels of live TV over the Internet, including ESPN a first for a legit over-the-top service for $20.00 / month.

Sling TV is claiming to deliver the best of live TV including ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, Food Network, HGTV, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel.

Core package priced at $20 per month; no commitment, contract, credit check or hardware installation required.

Supported devices expected to include Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Google’s Nexus Player, select LG Smart TVs, Roku players, Roku TV models, select Samsung Smart TVs, Xbox One from Microsoft, iOS, Android, Mac, PC.

How Sling TV works

Sling TV is designed to deliver a high-quality television experience inside and outside the home, anywhere a wired, Wi-Fi or mobile broadband connection is available.

Customers will be able to pause, rewind and fast-forward most live channels and Video-On-Demand content. For certain channels, the service includes a 3-Day Replay feature that gives customers the ability to watch some shows that have aired in the past three days; no DVR is needed. Sling TV’s features are available across all supported platforms.

So I thought should I get this service, couple it with an Over The Air (OTA) HDTV Antenna for local news content and augment it with my already large movie collection ,Netflix, Hulu+ & other online attained content mile .

Sling TV is only good per TV so the $20 would be per viewing TV and cannot be shared simultaneously.

I also learned that they plan on adding other content TV packages.

Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications has struck a deal with Dish Network’s over-the-top Sling video distribution service. Sling will have rights to both live and video-on-demand content.

I also read that a kids content package is also on the horizon including most of the well known kids channels on our cable providers roster.

I think that Sling will be right up my alley soon but I am going to wait until more packages come on the horizon and perhaps an ala-carte format is available so that I can create my own packages to suit the area of the house the Roku is in.

Just starting a discussion to see what others have done on PCA mile

[FlyingPenguin]

A friend of mine has. He's using a Roku.

[Executioner]

Yeah I'm tired of paying $200/m for all these channels, and the wife and I watch only 2 dozen or less. I hate paying for channels that I never watch. We are moving in July, and I plan to look at other options. I still plan on getting ShowTime, but cutting the cord on HBO.

[eGoCeNTRoNiX]

I managed to cut the cord for about 5 months.. Then sports came back on and my wife (go figure) couldn't handle it.. She had to have ESPN.. So back to cable we went.. Then, I go tired of Comcast's TV prices and switched to DirecTV with the wireless Genies (LOVE THOSE THINGS) for less than I was paying.. For TV & Internet I pay about $140 a month.. If I can ever find a way to get college ball live online for free or a small fee, I'll get rid of the TV again.. lol I was using Roku's and Netflix and we were happy.

[ZYFER]

With the way the bundles are, you can't get decent internet speeds by dropping cable... So options are limited. Hoping for Google Fiber to come around at some point, since apparently Verizon Fios can't seem to find its way here.

[wvjohn]

I did it last year, because I all watch is some sports. Turned it back on for football season, kept extra "Free for 90 days { channel - Starz - because it had stuff my wife wanted to see. I'll cut that now and just go back to regular service for about $55/mo. Direct TV. I'm stuck as to internet because I have only one choice - Frontier ADSL2 which costs me about $70 for 12/1. Before the best I could get was 2.8/1 for about $50 which totally sucked but was the only game in town.

[psypher]

I have service with DirecTV. I have a Genie, 2 DVR receivers and 1 standard receiver for $117.93 a month. That's pretty much all their channels except for any premium channels (no HBO, Showtime, etc...) I used to turn on/off HBO/Showtime when shows that we watched started up, but in the past year or two they made that almost impossible. The only way to do it is to have a current package. So it looks like they are changing their packages every few years and increasing the price.

I will say, DirecTV is still the best choice. All their channels come in great unlike Comcast/UVerse which over-compresses too many channels and is prone to a lot more artifacts.


As for the issue of raising prices after the introductory offer. It's a pain, but basically you have to call to request they keep the same price or you'll cancel. Right as it seems they are starting to process the cancel, they'll try to keep you and offer the same, or in some cases even a lower price. True story, I called to keep the same price for my Mom or she would cancel, they went through their process and at the end gave her a price $10 lower. As long as you are willing to get cancelled if they call the bluff and jump through some hoops once a year, you don't have to pay their ridiculous "regular" price.


I also have a Roku since I have Amazon Prime and it works great. I even use the Plex client app which streams my stuff (didn't want to build an HTPC for the bedroom). Recently I added Netflix as well. Just make sure you have decent bandwidth.

[DaMaN]

I just cut down DirecTV from the premier package to the Xtra package and saved 52.00 / month.

[Losbot]

I'm tempted to cut the cord. It's getting ridiculous with all their prices.

[DaMaN]

I forgot to mention that I got the hardware upgraded as well to the new Genie compatible equipment that is supposed to be faster and a smaller footprint that the existing equipment.

[Err]

Time Warner is the only broadband provider in my area so I'm pretty much stuck. The sad part is that I only regularly watch about 5 channels. I'm looking forward to cable companies being forced to a la carte due to competition.

[Pugsley]

I haven't had cable for at least 10 years. Get most my stuff off of torrents and Adult Swim lets you watch shows on their site.

I agree with most people here. You are paying for TV service and should be able to pick and choose what channels you get and ditch the rest. I would love to be able to pay 5-10 bucks a month for 5-10 channels.

[normalicy]

Cut the cord about 4 years ago. Been fine. In fact, I find that I now watch more of what I intend to & less random stuff. I survive off of a huge backlog of movies & complete TV series'. I then use Hulu to supplement.