OT, Cable TV just went up $130/month..... Hulu?

[DR]

Centurylink. Yikes, apparently we were on promo deal which has since expired so the new price for TV only is $130/month more.

Looking to get rid of cable TV and go with Hulu. Appears to be much, much cheaper. Any experiences or thoughts?

[A.K. Boomer]

Absolute worst company iv ever had to deal with - get an antenna and use the internet - my cable bill is zero...

[dalee100]

Hi,

Cable cutting is all the rage these days. There is little reason to keep up the higher cost of 300 channels of nothing to watch.

[stevep3916]

amazon prime has a good tv package. you might want to think about jailbroken firestick with kodi installed. we have been using 1 for over 2 years , don't miss cable at all. mobdro is another good kodi add-on. plenty of you tube videos on setting up firestick. our cable package,high speed internet,basic cable, phone was over 200.00/month. I think cable co. are pricing themselves out of business. now we pay 95.00/month unlimited use high speed internet. last article I read cable co are losing 500,000 subscribers/month to cord cutting.

[JRouche]

One reason I still have cable is I like local news as its happening, and PBS. Antennas dont work where I live, to hilly. JR

[CCWKen]

You can't rely on internet to replace cable unless you have high-speed available. By high-speed, I'm talking about OVER 5Mb/s. 10Mb/s or higher is preferred. I'm lucky to get 3Mb/s on the best day/time. I'm on a radio interface and the tower/server is over-sold for this area. I have a hard time viewing YouTube videos except early in the morning. After about 4PM, my access drops to a little over dial up speed. I have NO OTHER choice but satellite and that is worse unless recent changes have been made. With satellite, you have a data limit that could easily be exceeded with one movie/program. You could be down graded to dial up speed the rest of the month.

[KiddZimaHater]

I dumped DirecTV after AT&T bought them out, and their service went to crap.
Bought a ROKU Internet streaming gimmick for about $35, and use a digital Antennae for local channels.
Couldn't be happier. I have both Hulu and Sling, and I find myself watching Sling a lot more often. Better variety of channels.

[Paul Alciatore]

When my cable company went all digital, four of the six TVs that I had in the house and shop went black. The only ones that still worked were the ones with the cable boxes. Coming from a background in TV engineering, I am accustomed to having TV almost everywhere that I am. Heck, I downright like it. Additional cable boxes were an option, but there is a monthly charge for each and every one. So I looked around for something else.

For about $30 to $35 you can get a little streaming box called Roku Express. It's about the size of a pack of cigarettes and works with WiFi; so if you have WiFi, it will work for you. Roku Express can bring you any channel that has an "app" for it. It does this over your internet connection and through your WiFi.

I now have three cable boxes (they gave me one rent free for a year due to the conversion) and three Roku Expresses attached to three more TVs. I am only paying for two cable boxes along with my basic cable bill. I can get all the cable channels that I subscribe to through the Rokus, even the premium channels like HBO and Showtime.

The Roku Express will also bring in a number of additional streaming channels like network news, sports, movie channels, and a lot more. I think all of the "biggies" are there. Some are free and some are by paid subscription. I have no idea of just how many are available, but it is a lot; a BIG lot. You can pick and choose which ones you want to load up on the Roku.

So, if you have internet service and WiFi, you might want to give the Roku Express a shot. You could then just drop the cable company and free yourself from all of that bill. However, you might want to ask your cable company if they support the Roku. Do they have an "app" for it? My cable company, Spectrum, does and they even provide technical support if you have problems with it.

If I have to say it, YES it is 100% completely legal. And it is saving me about $40 a month on my cable bill. When that free cable box starts to cost me, I may return it and save even more. There is NO added charge on my cable/internet bill for the Rokus. NONE!

If anyone wants/needs it, I can do a thread (OT) on hooking up and using the Roku Express. I have them on every variety of TV from a new digital one to an old CRT one with only an antenna/cable input and one with component inputs (analog R, G, B, and audio).

PS: I have purchased a fourth Roku. A back burner project is to build a small, battery powered TV/Roku combination that I can carry to wherever I want. Back yard, shower, dining room, laundry room etc. Yea, I'm a TV addict and there is no therapy group for it.

The Roku Express is available on the web and at Wal-Mart and other local stores.

[gellfex]

Cut cable well over a decade ago. Can ping pong between intro rates on broadband from Comcast and FIOS for $40-50/mo. Have Netflix too, and am not shy to bittorrent something special. I'd be happy to pay a reasonable price for programming, or watch commercials, but the cable rates are not reasonable. Even $1 a show like iTunes is pretty steep, think how fast for a family that would add up to a cable bill.

Anybody remember when the cable model was supposed to be commercial free? Then it became the same old sh*t but you're paying both ways. Comcast is one of the most profitable companies in the nation, they don't even know what to do with all their cash, but drop rates? Never!!

[bob308]

we cut the cable 10 years ago. have not missed it. we have an antenna we get the local news and pbs.

[DR]

we cut the cable 10 years ago. have not missed it. we have an antenna we get the local news and pbs.

I signed up for the free Hulu trial. PBS News Hour is something we wanted and it's not on Hulu. We may be able to get it using an antenna as others have mentioned.

If it wasn't for my wife wanting certain shows i think I'd dump Hulu too. We have Netflix and Amazon Prime which pretty much cover any TV watching I do. I'm not particularly crazy about Centurylink either except for the fiber optic cable we're on.

[Paul Alciatore]

For a while there cable and broadcast TV were in direct competition. And both wanted the audience. Then someone discovered that the cable companies could not use a broadcast signal (local station) without the consent of that station. So they asked for that consent. And the local stations, in their greed, wanted the cable companies to PAY them for the reuse rights. That was funny. At the same time that they were harassing me to no end to get a better signal out so they could have more viewers, they were asking the cable companies to pay them to get their signal with all their commercials out to them. Duhhhhhhhhh! Talking about looking a gift horse in the mouth. I once tried to explain that it was to their advantage to pay the cable companies to carry them, but you can guess how that went over. Pure greed and I believe it ultimately lead to their downfall.

Well, the cables won that one and broadcast TV is on the downswing now. But now the internet is doing battle with the cable companies. And their answer is rotten programming and hefty rate hikes every year. Duhhhhhhhhh! I think those same managers who I worked for at the TV stations are now running the cable companies. I don't have much doubt as to who will ultimately win this one. The only thing floating the cable companies today is they bundle TV with internet access. Their reliability, at least by my standards, is absolutely awful. I have heard them advertise 99% reliable. That means that they are having trouble 1% of the time or about 14 1/2 minutes a day. That's 87 HOURS a year of down time. That is not an exaggeration: it is just about right from my experience with Spectrum Cable, in fact probably on the low side. When I was responsible for a broadcast station's signal 10 seconds was a long individual outage and that did not happen daily or even weekly. Ten hours a year would have gotten me a trip to the office carpet. And if I couldn't show that it was absolutely not my fault, I would get no or just a small raise that year. Cable companies are NOT reliable; in fact, just the opposite. And that has gotten worse since the advent of "all digital". Digital is not ready for prime time. Or for any time.

Now I wonder what will come after the internet. The way things are going it will probably be one government owned network for the whole nation, with a multitude of chanels. And each of those channels will be more boring than the worst of what is available today. I don't know what technical means they will use to deliver it, but I know there will be long outages on a daily, if not hourly basis. But I may not be around for that.

Cut cable well over a decade ago. Can ping pong between intro rates on broadband from Comcast and FIOS for $40-50/mo. Have Netflix too, and am not shy to bittorrent something special. I'd be happy to pay a reasonable price for programming, or watch commercials, but the cable rates are not reasonable. Even $1 a show like iTunes is pretty steep, think how fast for a family that would add up to a cable bill.

Anybody remember when the cable model was supposed to be commercial free? Then it became the same old sh*t but you're paying both ways. Comcast is one of the most profitable companies in the nation, they don't even know what to do with all their cash, but drop rates? Never!!

[Dan_the_Chemist]

Ten years ago we needed to trim our spending. One of the things that we cut was DirectTV. It was hard for the first month or two. I didn't know what to do with the 3 or 4 hours each day that I used to spend in front of the toob. I found I could fill most of that time by going out to my shop, playing with the dog, walking, or actually doing stuff. After a year I realized it had been a wonderful thing to do.

I can still indulge in visual entertainment. I just watched a 20 minute video on heat treating aluminum. I dare you to try and find that on regular TV. Channels such as the Discovery, Science, and Learning channel are all reality based crap.

A while ago a holiday houseguest thought we were deprived and offered to give us a year of satellite TV as a gift. NOPE. My wife didn't want it either.

Cut the cable, take back your life. You'll find you are a lot more alive without the toob.

[true temper]

Dan you have it figured out. We cut the cable a couple of months ago I would have done it a long time ago but my wife enjoys a few programs. I think she is going to try hula or something.
I hate TV 80 channels and not a dam thing I am interested in. Plus I hate the commercials.
I can be sure I can find something to watch on Utube, and the adds are not long.

[Mcgyver]

It was such a happy day cutting the cord. Here in clubby crooked corporate Canada, some are also cell phone providers and they are just as bad in that arena..... but technology gave them the chance to bend over their markets, and technology has taken it away.