Is anyone really happy with their TV/Internet/Phone service?

mantis

Hello all?
I've watch my bill increase slightly over the last few years. I have not seen any benefits to the added cost.
I'm with Verizon which generally am happy with as the Picture quality is outstanding and my speeds for Internet are excellent.
I only have a phone line as the wife will not give it up. I'd love to turn it off as we all have Cell phones.
One thing I was thinking about is Tivo replacing my DVRs. They have this Roamio system that looks pretty cool.

Did anyone replace their cable boxes or DSS receivers with Tivo? I had Tivo years and years ago and loved it. I was thinking about cost purchasing the Tivo units and the service compared to renting from Verizon.

My goal right now is to lower my month costs as the bill is just getting a little to high especially since we as a family don't watch TV all that much. We use the Internet the most and the Phone hardly never.

txcoastal1

There still is the purchase of the TIVO unit and it has fee's with it too. Unless you are dumping cable completely don't see much savings. I am a Tivo user also.

dkg999

I dumped cable TV about 6 years ago. I've never missed it. Even my 16 yr old daughter is happy without it. We just subscribe to the fastest cable internet available, which right now in the suburb of KC we are in is TWC's 100mbps service. KC is a Google fiber town, so that service is slowly spreading across the metro. We have Roku boxes, a Vizio Smart TV in the teen/game room, subscribe to Netflix, Hulu+, Vudu, Amazon, and still have more shows available than we can possibly watch.

deronb1

We have att uverse and really like it. The wireless boxes work better than i expected. Not cheap though. Have to call periodically, complain a bit and get on some made up promotional package. I cant talk the wife in to getting rid of the landline though. We run our local rec soccer program and she doesnt want 500 people having our cell numbers. Understandable i guess

obieone

Dumped DTV 2.5 years ago, and can't see why anyone is still paying for TV? I just look at the programming and think "Really??!!:eek:
I was paying $70/ month to watch basically 3-4 shows a week.
I pretty much just hang out at YT. Even Amazon Prime isn't worth keeping. The last movie I DL'd was 'Man of Steel', and it couldn't keep me interested. Hollywood just isn't worthy of my $$$.

As far as keeping the landline, if no one is calling it, and no one is using it, you're basically GIVING the ph. co. $XX.XX every month? Last time I checked, ATT, Verizon etc. weren't having any cash flow problems:rolleyes:

gudnoyez

No they are all ripoffs, we dropped expanded cable to basic cable several years ago, the only reason we even kept basic is because you get a better deal on the price of high speed Internet. Without basic cable HS Internet was $69.95 and with basic cable it is $49.95. With Netflix I don't need 100s of channels of crap, I mean come on who needs the food channel 3. I can get all the series I want on Netflix. I could never give up HS Internet though and those Bas.;:-s are probably thinking ways of raising those rates as we speak.

EndersShadow

We like Uverse. We had problems w our bill being to much for cable. We called them w the intent to cancel as go w Netflix, Hulu and the web. they dropped our tv price from 130 a month to 20 a month including 2 boxes. We have that price for a year.

Phone is w Verizon and wish it was cheaper but it is what it is. Can't afford to get something like straight talk.

Dabutcher

I have antenna on roof for local channels. Netflix $8.00 a month. Slower high speed internet w xfinity $34.99 a month. Two PS3's and two blu ray players and seven Redbox kiosks less than a mile from my home. When weather permits I get some exercise bicycling to the kiosk.In the warmer months I just listen to music in my garage and work on bicycles when not working. Not much TV watching those months. Maybe a movie or two a week. Peace. D

mytime

If it wasn't for sports I would drop Dish . But i have to watch baseball and football. Since my football team is out of market I have to have Redzone.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I have Time Warner cable and internet. Overall I'd say I'm a satisfied customer. Sure I'd like the price to be cheaper, but otherwise am satisfied with the service.

I switched from the horrible DVR boxes to TiVo a few years back and haven't looked back. The cable company boxes were always slow, would freeze up from time to time, had a horrible interface, had limited features, and their version of season pass never worked reliably. With TiVo I have a great interface that's intuitive to use, I have a box that's super reliable and never needs to be rebooted, I have access to services like Netflix and Hulu, the season pass functionality actually WORKS, and I can manage my recordings from anywhere in the world I have an internet connection. There are lots of other features as well like being able to watch shows while away from home that I've not yet explored.

I have a Roamio Plus, a Roamio and a Premiere box. While the Premiere box works fine, the Roamio is the way to go if you're switching over, it has some functionality like wireless and TVo Stream built in and the interface is lightning quick.

Depending on what your cable company charges you may end up saving money in the long run. Time Warner charges $18 a month for their crappy DVR boxes, I pay $12 a month for each of my TiVo boxes. So the savings comes down to simple math and how much you pay for the TiVo box to determine where you break even and start to save money.

heartystatue

We haven't had a land line in six years and never looked back. Between Text, E-Mail I am still avail 24/7. We are lucky to have many choices in the KC area for Cable. I still think its too expensive but when someone has a sale I just tell the provider I can get a better deal and they always lower it. A lot of the companies are wanting you to sign a contract with them now 1 to 2 years. I told them good luck with that and to pound sand. I will go where I get the best service for the best price. I think the land lines are way overpriced. My Dad did keep his land line. Magic Jack he pay's something like 10.00 a year. Good Luck!

tonyb

Interesting.....so what I'm hearing here is competition drives down prices, creates innovation for new products to give consumers more choices, more bang for their buck.

In my area, Comcast has gone 2 years guaranteed pricing with no contracts and came in at half the cost of AT&T Uverse I had. I'm waiting for ala carte programing because anything else is a waste of time and money. You have to keep switching providers every couple years to keep your bill lower, and that sucks too. Only recently have they allowed a third cable company to enter the area, WOW cable will now compete with ATT/Comcast. Still, only 3 ?

Just like deregulation has allowed more to compete for electric and gas services, we need more to compete for cable services. Think of what you'd pay for cell phone contracts if you had only 2 or 3 providers. More competition, more innovation......cheaper prices for us......unless your name is Apple. LOL

badchad

I like my Verizon FiOS service, not necessarily the cost. My internet speed is usually just a tad higher than the advertised 25/25, and has rarely gone down, if ever. I think my picture and sound quality are good as well.

Even so, I've thought about cutting the cord, but the old lady is against it. She likes her DVR.

polrbehr

REALLY happy? No.
But for the amount of services I get (2 landlines w/ every feature under the sun, DVR and 4 other CATV boxes w/HBO pkg., 100 Mbps 'net + free webhosting) for the money I can't really complain. I do wish Verizon FiOS was available where we live though, as I have friends who bargain with Cablevision all the time, threatening to leave if they don't get a better price.

I guess I can walk away and go with Dish Network or DirecTV, but it's not really worth the hassle. Plus they just sent me a new broadband router for free, it works great and I get a better signal all over the house. With 17 wireless devices it made sense to upgrade.

mantis

dkg999 wrote: »

I dumped cable TV about 6 years ago. I've never missed it. Even my 16 yr old daughter is happy without it. We just subscribe to the fastest cable internet available, which right now in the suburb of KC we are in is TWC's 100mbps service. KC is a Google fiber town, so that service is slowly spreading across the metro. We have Roku boxes, a Vizio Smart TV in the teen/game room, subscribe to Netflix, Hulu+, Vudu, Amazon, and still have more shows available than we can possibly watch.

Have you added up your monthly costs for all that? Sounds kinda the way to go. We honestly don't watch that much TV and I could easily put up a Antenna for Locals in HD

PSOVLSK

For you guys without cable, how do watch ESPN, Fox Sports, etc? Sports always holds me back from cutting cable.

By the way, I'm happy with Verizon Fios except once a month when I write the check.

EndersShadow

PSOVLSK wrote: »

For you guys without cable, how do watch ESPN, Fox Sports, etc? Sports always holds me back from cutting cable.

By the way, I'm happy with Verizon Fios except once a month when I write the check.

There are ways... specifically if you have a "trusted" person with cable and high speed internet.... you buy a slingbox, install it at their house... and then use it to watch YOUR stuff .....

Its a bit more complicated than that, but it should in theory work.

Also I am sure there are websites out there that stream it online, but I somehow doubt they are legit :biggrin:

GospelTruth

We cut cable when we moved out West 4+ years ago. We get Charter cable with their highest bit rates and use Netflix/Amazon to watch TV that we don't get with OTA. With Netflix we also do the disc option and we get the shows that aren't streamed like Homeland. With that strategy, we tend to be a year behind on the airing of shows, but we don't care. Additionally, we find not having a DVR freeing. We don't feel like we are recording shows that we want to watch and then HAVING to sit down and watch them rather than getting out and enjoying the outdoors.

I wish we could cut the land line, but my wife's family lives in Australia. We subscribe to Vonage for a yearly rate that includes unlimited domestic and long distance calling to some 60+ countries including Australia. It comes down to about $25 bucks a month for the yearly prepaid plan which isn't that bad. When you take into account how much Charter charges for a land line and then how much they charge per minute overseas, it's a no brainer.

I keep waiting for the day when you can subscribe to specific channels (like ESPN) only and watch them on a Roku/PS3/WD Live. That to me would be the nail in the coffin for the cable providers - at least their TV business.

dkg999

mantis wrote: »

Have you added up your monthly costs for all that? Sounds kinda the way to go. We honestly don't watch that much TV and I could easily put up a Antenna for Locals in HD

All total, I spend about a $100 to $110 a month, depending on how many Redbox, Amazon, Vudu movies we rent. My TWC cable internet is $74.99/mo.

I have a large ClearStream digital antenna from Antenna's Direct and it will pull in around 45 stations here in the KC metro. I'm not the biggest sports fan, so what games I cannot get on local channels I go to the bar and watch.

nguyendot

The price keeps going up on my cable bundle. I have to keep calling every 6 months to get a bundle deal again since I'm out of contract with them. I'm not happy with the price, it's like $240 with phone/cable/internet and it's not getting cheaper.

I need to find a way to get super fast internet and feed all the tvs with decent programming. Gotta have Showtime for Shameless, Californication, House of Lies.

Jimbo18

I have Charter for cable internet (30meg) and my landline is also with them and the bill, without contract, is $69/mon. I add Hulu+ and Netflix for an additional $18. I added an antenna for local channels and get about 20+ but only about 5 or 6 that I ever watch. I have 3 Roku boxes and use those for almost everything.

There are shows I miss, like the last season of Breaking Bad, but I bought that off Amazon, other shows like those on HBO or Showtime that I like, I will either buy or wait for them to come to Netflix or Hulu+. I barely miss cable at all, except for the NFL. I either go to a friends house or try to find something on the interweb.

shawn474

Happy? Hell no. Necessary evil? Hell yes. We tried to give up cable last year and did so for about 3 months. we quickly found out that it didn't save us much money at all. When we cancelled cable they jacked up our internet cost as your discount was invalid when not buying the bundle. Tried to go Roku and OTA antenna and succeeded for 3 months, but football season and basketball season came around. What I did do is only get one receiver with DVR. That cut some cost down. Took the TV out of the bedroom and that improved things a lot (in terms of bill ad other extracurricular activities- hahaha). I have realized that we aren't as dependent as we thought on TV so we may try again to go without at some point in the future.

exalted512

I'm fed up with directv. Every time I call about price, or making some change, I get one thing on the phone and a totally different thing once my bill gets here. It got to the point where I started recording my phone calls with them. The last time I was told I was going to pay $45.99 for the next 12 months. Then I got my bill and it was $50.99. Then, after I called them, they said there was nothing they could do and then told me it was actually only $50.99 for the next 3 months, then it was going to progressively get higher.

Finally, I sent them the call I had recorded. I could've done that in the first place, but I was just curious if they would fix the problem before I had to do that. They didn't. They refused to do anything, said there was nothing they could do...etc. After I sent them the phone call, they called me back and offered a one time credit of $192. That was the difference they were plan on overcharging me from what I was originally told on the phone. As soon as the credit runs out, we'll be dropping them. It's bull ****. This wasn't the first time something similar to this has happened to me either with DirecTV. When I first got them, I believe I got NFL something for free for 3 months. Well, I called to drop it. Then I got charged for it. I called them back and they said "well, we show that you called and discussed it, but we didn't show that you actually cancelled it." Really? They at least pro-rated it - but that's like saying, they screwed me over, but at least they used lube. It doesn't change the fact that they still screwed me over. Luckily, it wasn't something terribly expensive since I caught it early. But its ALWAYS something. F DTV.

/rant.
-Cody

jacks2start

I like my direct tv for th NFL ticket,, but man all the sales chans are a real pain

jflail2

Thanks for creating this thread. I read the title and thought "you know what, it's time to give Verizon the boot in favor of that new T-Mobile buyout deal." So I reached out to Verizon via online chat and asked how much I'd have to pay for my phone if I cancel my service. Rep asked why, and I simply said "you're charging way too much for 1 phone, I'm going to take my business elsewhere."

The rep came back in about 2 minutes with a price for my exact same service that is $40 cheaper a month. They apparently "included" the "Smartphone Line Access" as part of my plan, when previously I was paying a separate $40 for that.

So Verizon folks, if you're annoyed with how expensive your monthly bill is, give them a call, let them know you're strongly considering cancelling, and you may be able to work up a deal.

As of now, I am mildly pleased with my cell phone service.

oldmodman

I have Time Warner Cable for Television and internet and I am very happy with the quality and reliability.

My only complaint is that the price is 400% of what I want to pay.

ken brydson

oldmodman wrote: »

I have Time Warner Cable for Television and internet and I am very happy with the quality and reliability.

My only complaint is that the price is 400% of what I want to pay.

Same with my Comcast... Reliable and fast but $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

tonyb

For me, to keep costs down I just have one box on one TV.....internet/Phone + HBO/Showtime and the second tier HD package with dvr and I pay 102 bucks a month. Now if I was to cancel that, go over the air and use a Roku and associated services my internet alone would cost almost half as much because they jack it up when not bundled. Plus lose all the sports which would suck.

Really though, aside from sports and local channels, there's maybe 5 other channels I watch....the other 250 channels are a waste. That's the sucky part, I'm not one to jump for joy over paying for something I'm not using.

zingo

I like my Frontier FIOS.

B Run

I'm 100% happy with AT&T Uverse, never had an issue and we get really fast internet and every channel they offer, wireless HD boxes etc. I think it's worth the price.

Erik Tracy

Crime Warn....sorry....Time Warner Cable bundle customer.

I've also experienced price creep over time and specials that expire and price jumps which require calling in with persistent complaining to get to the right managerial level to get authorization for a new special price - just to keep the price the same.

TWC once did a service 'upgrade' that then deleted my music channels - and when I called to have them added back they said they never showed I had them in the first place and wanted to charge me to add them. WTF???!!!! Finally got my way and got back to what I had for no extra charge.

I find it a shame, and a waste of time to have to negotiate like I'm at a flea market. Their pricing paradigm should be more like that car insurance ad that as the diminishing deductible - REWARD your long time customers.

Some days I'm at a point where I do want to dump them...but after reading this post and similar ones on other forums...the grass is not greener - it's the same color - brown - just like s&#t.