Cord cutting

sucks2beme

I stopped by Xfinity store to ask some questions.
I was 99% sure dumping them was the right move.
While waiting for a rep I grabbed a prepaid internet flyer
For the flat $45 fee. 50 m down and a 1tb cap.
Not really great. But on the backside had a banner
"What's better than free TV? Download xumo today."
The rep was like, oh I can renew your contract at
The current price. Gee, thanks for that great offer.
I'll be back at the end of the month to kill my account.
But what was xumo? Was it linked to having an Xfinity account?
Turns out it is a pretty nifty free TV service.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. How is comcast
Keeping any customers other than those with no options.
I loaded the app on my tablet and TV.
I am not paying for TV for a while and trying this out.
I already have a team mobile 5g internet unit up
And working. $50 flat and no issues so far and
No caps. I am retired, so saving $$$ is right up
My alley.

Jstas

Xumo is owned by Comcast, aka, xfinity, just so you know.

muncybob

With our DirecTV bill over $110/mo. just to watch a handful of channels, I'll be interested in this or anything else people are using. Must have dvr capability though.

sucks2beme

As I said, shooting themselves in the foot.
Selling TV services and hosting free TV services?
Perhaps they are planning for internet only in
The future. Dumping the traditional catv might
Become the norm. And since local government uses
Catv as a cash cow for 911, local sports franchise
Etc this might be their way out.
A third of the Xfinity bill is fees and taxes.

kevhed72

muncybob wrote: »

With our DirecTV bill over $110/mo. just to watch a handful of channels, I'll be interested in this or anything else people are using. Must have dvr capability though.

If you have been a long time customer and/or also have ATT cell service, call them and haggle. It works. It may take a few calls to get to the right person, but eventually they will cave and either start giving you a credit each month or at least give you free HBO, Sunday Ticket, etc.

CGTIII

I only have internet with Xfinity. Use Netflix and Amazon and occasionally Paramount+ and Disney+.
Been that way for 13+ years. Fully satisfied except for Xfinity price.

Perhaps this will help.
6 Best Streaming Cloud DVRs

PSOVLSK

I went from DirecTV to YouTubeTV. I pay $65/mos. You can do a free trial. It’s not nearly as user friendly as DirecTV, but I got used to for the $40 a month savings.

Hulu and Fubo are similar to YouTubeTV in price, content, and UI.

CottageChz

I’m down to internet plus paying for one streaming service. Got another couple streaming services for free with my cell plan and a brother who shares another with me. I was never a big tv watcher so with the exorbitant cost of cable these days it’s not worth it. The cable box IS so much more convenient than navigating streaming services, but not worth what they charge now.

Would love to get cable again but they’d probably have to cut the cost in half or so, doubt I’ll ever see that.

Oh yeah, we have an antenna too. If you don’t have one yet try one. Can be great depending on your area and they’re like $20.

CottageChz

Also, just looked up Xumo, looks decent. Going to try it on the FireTv.

Kex

Just FYI: options like YouTube TV are 2.0. Same with Hulu+ and others like Sling.

Apps like Paramount+ & Disney+ or any tv+ content that typically allow you to watch popular shows on demand are typically 5.1 and HD video. Some other content may be 2.0 (like F1 TV etc.). One time purchases (like movies) are usually 5.1 and HD or better, unless they are too old.

You don’t usually need a DVR with any app content, since you can just select whatever previous episode you want to watch and just stream it on demand. There’s no need to record it first.

tonyb

Just make sure your getting as many channels as possible in HD or 4k content. Standard definition over streaming is pretty crappy if you ask me.

Just my observation from having cut the cord.....seems TV watching is going in reverse as far as quality and ease of use. I just might throw an antenna back up on the roof this spring.

kevhed72

tonyb wrote: »

Just make sure your getting as many channels as possible in HD or 4k content. Standard definition over streaming is pretty crappy if you ask me.

Just my observation from having cut the cord.....seems TV watching is going in reverse as far as quality and ease of use. I just might throw an antenna back up on the roof this spring.

Agree....too many services, channels, and too much sub par content and our PQ suffers due crappy ATT bandwidth. Waiting for the pendulum to swing back to consolidation with all these streaming services.

sucks2beme

Cable never allowed for channel choice. Just a few premium add ons.
A lot of other streaming services follow this same model.
The big guys have bought out a bunch of these to make sure
They had a toehold in case the world went 100% to streaming.
Kind of like big phone carriers when they jumped into cell service.
Now cell is the biggie and landlines are about dead.
There are a few options now to pick out channel groups you like.
I really don't care much about 4k. I'm more about content.
The last two years have seen a big rise in streaming choices.
I'll most likely will rotate a bunch of them instead of sticking to one.

tonyb

Yep, there certainly is more choices in streaming services. Don't be fooled into thinking they are all of the same quality though.

Same as if your comparing streaming music devices and services. We have a variety of choices now, but they sure aren't cut from the same cloth.

Jstas

My biggest gripe with the streaming services is that they seem to be at war with each other and it's not a price war. They pull their content from each other and then up their prices.

I have Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO Max because of my HBO subscription and Hulu through Sprint/T-Mobile. We only pay directly for Amazon Prime and Netflix and indirectly for HBO Max. Hulu is a "customer perk" from T-mobile/Sprint that you actually do pay for in all those hidden fees but it's not a line item in my household budget. I have the Google services by default but not their subscriptions so it's al la carte from my Google account.

Amazon Prime is good with good original content. It comes with the Amazon Prime subscription for the delivery service which is honestly a bargain if you order stuff from them regularly. With the loss of so many brick and mortar stores around here and nothing but big box stores that never have what I need/want, Amazon Prime has been beneficial and the $130 a year it costs is far cheaper than the shipping costs without Amazon Prime and we use it regularly, especially when I have to find stuff to repair stuff around the house and local places have 1-2 week lead times but the same warehouse has an Amazon Prime storefront and can deliver the part in 1-2 days.

But, Netflix had some real good stuff and then Disney pulled all it's content over to Disney+ and now Netflix is struggling with content.

Google has everything but it's al la carte and anything from a competing service is twice as expensive as regular offerings.

I fork over almost $300 a month for Comcrap because I need high speed internet with no data caps and it's solely because of shady business practices and political dealings that I have no other option for broadband in my area. Since I work from home, I have to have a high level of broadband service. If I just paid for that service, I'd be forking over about $250 a month plus fees for the service with no data ceiling. 'Cause one bad weekend with a problem at work that I gotta be on WebEx or Teams conferences for will blow out Comcrap's data cap in one Saturday. So it's more cost effective to get the unlimited "triple play" baloney from them and get TV as well.

To get the TV package I currently have, it'd be about $130 a month without broadband or phone service. To get the same stuff from the streaming services, I'd be paying for Netflix, Disney+, Discovery+, Amazon Prime, YouTube TV and Hulu base services and then twice as many add-on subscriptions. When I added it all up, it'd be about $80 a month and I'd still be missing local channels so I'd need an antenna anyway. The only thing I'd be missing is fees.

So cutting the cord for me would end up being MORE expensive because of the level of broadband I need.

If I could get FiOS or something with gig fiber to my door, then it's a different story. I'd take a hatchet to that cord in a heart beat but it's not available for me. Despite it being available in the next town over, that I own .33 acres of, I don't have a mailing address there or a utilities drop so the guy across the street gets access to FiOS and I don't despite it being a 40 foot difference to string a line between two telephone poles across the street.

sucks2beme

That was the big one. Bandwidth and caps. I used to do a lot of remote support.
Fios was rock solid.
When I moved it was either AT&T dsl (yuck) or comcast.
I was driving into work, so demand was down.
Team Mobile 5g is here now, Verizon 5g is coming.
My son finally got suddenlink fiber. Great price and great bandwidth.
You'd think the options in many places would be better.
But 90% of the U.S. is stuck in the internet stone age.

bikerboy

We dropped cable years ago. I pretty much had to twist my wife's arm but it's been good for the most part. I bought a antenna TiVo (off the forum here) for ota recording and playback. It's about $10/mon for the TiVo service. With Comcast internet and a free peacock streamer from them we can see more tv than we need. We have Amazon prime and that's it for pay to view.
With the cost of cellphone, internet, and tv it's stupid how much we pay.

Jstas

sucks2beme wrote: »

That was the big one. Bandwidth and caps. I used to do a lot of remote support.
Fios was rock solid.
When I moved it was either AT&T dsl (yuck) or comcast.
I was driving into work, so demand was down.
Team Mobile 5g is here now, Verizon 5g is coming.
My son finally got suddenlink fiber. Great price and great bandwidth.
You'd think the options in many places would be better.
But 90% of the U.S. is stuck in the internet stone age.

It's because Comcrap knows their lunch is eaten and they locked the breakroom door and will only let their competitors out when they agree to what basically amounts to racketeering and price fixing forcing them to sign non-compete agreements.

Otherwise Comcrap's market share would drop like a rock and they'd actually have to be competitive and their business model doesn't stand up to that.

So they have to strong arm their competition into being deliberately less competitive through lobbying, lawsuits and political chicanery and pretty much bribery.

I know people I went to school with who work there and I have no idea how they can live with themselves being a part of that horsehockey.

sucks2beme

The service in the Dallas suburb I was in got horrible.
Down for days at a time. When fios showd up
there was a stampede.
The 5g offerings seem to be the up and coming thing.
Easy end user turn up and low deployment costs.
Add in cheap and it spells trouble for dsl and cable.
Caps are for saps.