What do people do for WiFi only? Comcast & AT&T charge so much!
We have our WiFi through Frontier…I know I know…lots of folks have issues with them, but we have been happy with their upgrades and customer service in this area…and they sure beat out the Cable company especially in terms of cost…and customer service.
We have internet and a landline for $42 a month. It’s considered a bundle!
Internet only would have been over $50.
Including the landline saved us money…so that is what we are doing.
@4kids4us – I have been using DirectvNow (the streaming service) and I just got an invite to participate in beta testing of their new platform which includes “Cloud DVR” – so I am guessing that willl provide a way to record and store programs via the app. I haven’t really felt any need for that so far because most broadcast programs are both streamed live and available for watching later on, though sometimes there is a delay between when they are streamed and when available for reviewing… but the point is that the cloud DVR system is coming in the near future, at least for that service – but not yet for the Roku. (If I am accepted for the test, I will be testing on my smart phone for now)
It took me forever to decide to jump to Sling for tv and zero regrets. I got the AirTv interface, some low cost deal they were offering, for the additional local channel capability. Went from something like 210/mo via Verizon, not incl cell (another highway robbery) to 135, including 50mbps and the home phone (Verizon,) and Sling. Have Sling with 40+ channels (only rely on about a dozen) plus Showtime and the political news channel package for those that weren’t in the 40. That doesn’t include the Prime and Netflix costs, but they were there before, too.
Sling isn’t perfect (it does include Netflix viewing.) It ocasionally freezes or does magic tricks. But it’s new-ish and growing. Good enough. (And D1 has had similar issues with Roku and whatever she’s on now.) The documentation is, well, just about non-existant, but Google is a resource. I just see it as an emerging technology and am happy to save $800+ annually.
No TIVO type thing for us. But the Sling menu allows you to watch some already-run current shows and some other on-demand. A little hinky, but ok.
Well, I just renegotiated with Comcast, as one promotion is up and the rates increased this year. I would be paying $247, an increase of $30.
Thankfully I had the new rates in front of me, or I wouldn’t have u derstood a thing they were talking about. They must take a class in “confuse the customer”.
I’m eliminating Showtime and The Movie Channel by selecting a lower triple play plan, but we don’t watch them anyway. I’m keeping the extreme high speed internet and phone (which was only a $5 difference to eliminate and only DH doesn’t want it, I do).
We get all the cable channels we already have, Starz, high speed internet and phone for $201.79 for 2 year contract. I tried and tried to get hbo thrown in, but no deal.
We can get an additional $5 off for auto pay and Ecobill and bring it to $196.79
Not the best, but not the worst either. DH loves all the sports channels, and we do like the ease of just turning the tv on. We also have Netflix.
A Samsung smart TV pretty much eliminated the reason to keep Comcast for us, it is now super easy to stream with the built in Youtube TV, HBO, Netflix & Amazon apps. We ditched the receiver, tangled spaghetti cables, 3 power strips, cable box, DVR, Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, and just have a soundbar and surrounds - and only ONE remote. We are even down to a single access point and Ethernet cable. We stream music through the Sonos app - CD’s are gone too. I can actually see my floor again - and no money to Comcast.
@TooOld4School Sounds great. Do you watch televised sports much or is that a non-issue for you?
@doschicos Yes, we are sports crazy and watch mostly college sports - Big 10 & SEC mostly with a scattering of home town professional & international. (We even stream our relative’s HS hockey travel games). We’ll watch the Super Bowl, but pretty much gave up on any sport or show with politics injected.
Best part was converting to streaming reduced our monthly bill by 55% - about $82/mo for internet, TV, Netflix, Amazon, 2mo HBO/yr during GoT - we even have 4K(!) That more than paid for the new equipment.
What do streaming service do you use for the sports, @TooOld4School? In my family’s case it is mainly european soccer and tennis. I’m finding that I watch little conventional tv these days. Who do you use for internet? Thanks for answering my questions.
We have two AT&T wireless hotspots for internet. We can take them with us when we travel or I work at a client site. (ATT still has unlimited hotspot plans available - T-mobile has a phone or tablet unlimited add-on). They run 30-40Mb/sec at home, and speeds vary elsewhere ; we are about 1 mi from an AT&T tower at the edge of a small city. That may or may not work for you depending where you live (rural=good, suburban=OK, urban=bad). Rural towers almost never experience de-prioritization.
We plug the hotspots into a router via Ethernet.
For awhile we just used our phones or iPad and streamed to the TV via Airplay or plugging the phone into the HDMI port. You could use your phone plan alone for that. Best quality is with Samsung phones because you can get a stable HDMI adapter. Chromecast requires an internet connection and is flaky.
Another good strategy is to flip back between different internet providers to always stay in the promo period. That only works i you have more than one in your location.
You will need about 8-10Mb/sec for HD + Browsing, around 20-25 for 4K.
We use YouTube TV for video ($35/mo). It has a lot of sports channels (ESPN1,2,U, FS1,2, Golf, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, BTN, SEC,Tennis), and you can get Fox Soccer for $15/mo extra.
https://tv.youtube.com/welcome/
You get 6 accounts, 3 concurrent streams and 9mo unlimited DVR with a subscription. Works for us, the kids, and my mom.
Thanks for the explanation. I’ll check out Youtube TV. We do have 4K currently. On the other hand, we are luddites when it comes to cell phones. Maybe you should just hire yourself out for house calls and set it all up for me. 
@doschicos , If you live in Hawaii and will cover the airfare, you are on!
I can’t offer Hawaii but do you like maple syrup and lobsters? 
And winning football teams. 
I can’t find unlimited hotspot plans on ATT’s web site - all I see is the unlimited plus cell plan, which only gives you 10 Gb of hotspot data/line, then it’s throttled to uselessness.
Or is the hotspot a separate “line” on your plan? In which case to get speeds faster than 3Mbps you need the $90/month plan.
Hmm.
The plans are always changing, sometimes it seems like every other week. And what is available in one area might not be available in another. I literally had an AT&T rep talk me into a higher speed plan that was no longer available the day after I was placed on it, and then I had problems getting out of it when I wanted the newer, much better plan. (It was a slightly higher speed DSL plan when fiber plans became available a week later). Ultimately my problems were resolved, after working with a succession of different reps who all told me different things…
You can get the ATT unlimited hotspot plan with the unlimited plus cell phone plan as a stand alone add on. I’d go into a store to check, and plans change all of the time. It was available as a stand-alone plan called connected car when I got it, but that is discontinued. They also have rural phone/internet plans, and some 3rd party vendors offer unlimited hotspot too.
Watching our free Sling trial. Mr. is happier than a piggie in a mud puddle - he signed up for a package that is all news and almost no sports.