Home TV & Phone
 

Currently we have ATT Direct TV and ATT phone as providers. They are growing in
price to the point we will have to drop them and go to a different provider. Would appreciate any suggestions anyone may have.? These providers have been raising their prices to the point we are ready to say good bye to them and move on. When they settled with Time Warner they bought HBO. They now charge $17.99 if you want HBO! That is just a small taste of their crawling up the cost ladder. We are serious about going to a new and different provider but want to look at options, Thanks for your help.:ho:

Cable TV
 

What are your recommendations for Cable TV? Currently have Direct TV and it is becoming too expensive to continue.:ohdear:

Spectrum TV & internet is hard to beat.


We did Spectrum TV for years, but last year we started using YouTube TV.


~$50 for internet, ~$50 for YouTube TV.


YouTube TV travels where ever I go, Spectrum TV did not.

You might look into streaming for your cable needs.

With the right comb you can get everything your getting from Cable TV at a fraction to no monthly cost depending on your needs and only cost could be internet.
Netflix, Amazon prime, hulu, ect, have monthly fees that you can eliminate with right set up.

Look into open air antenna for local stations either attic, outside, or small individual units for each TV. You can find alot of info in forums on open air antenna's and streaming options.

I reccommend an Amazon Firestick. Been using for several years and able to travel with you if your a snowbird. Reccommend 50Mbps or higher to eliminate buffering issues.

With a smart TV (but not needed with Firestick), streaming device and open air antenna you do not need Cable.

Read forum posts on cutting the cable and firestick for more info.

In my opinion, the Roku streaming stick is the best one to use. Also, if you go to the website, "suppose.tv", you can check off all of the channels you want to watch, and the site will list the streaming services that you need, including the prices, to get those channels.

Agree...........we use Roku on our dumb TV's. Smart TV's we stream directly.

We have more choices with streaming than we need and all we subscribe to is YouTube TV. They raised their price from $40 To $50 about 8 months ago but added Discovery Go and the History Channel. They just snagged the History Channel and claim they never offered it. I pay for no other subscription and have searched the web for info and can't confirm I'm 100% correct.

I'm sticking with this setup for now because it is Primo! Disappointment is a part of all the services available to us. Time will tell if History was or wasn't included before. I did my checking 2 weeks ago.

Amazon Prime is an excellent addition with many interesting shows.

For the time being Streaming is the way to fly. $53 for Youtube TV all in & $20 for the Comcast Internet Service. It's a beautiful thing.

OOoops almost forgot Netflix. Our son put us on his account and it is unbelievable how much more this adds to the total package.

We are streaming with Roku due to the cost of Direct TV, this past month they upped our bill by yet another $10 without having the decency to tell us why.

My husband is not a techie so I had to do this all on my onsie:icon_wink:. I researched everything available and settled on YouTubeTV and if you go to tv.youtube.com/settings/liveguide you can set up your channel line up to just the channels you want to watch. I then found Pluto (which is FREE) and you can set that up in a similar manner.

Now I have two major streaming channels and we are going to add a couple of personal choices which will cost us a minimal amount each month.

There is a learning curve, but I did it and if I can anyone can! We are saving almost $200 per month at the moment, but this will change next year when prices start to go up. Still cheaper than cable.

If I had a viable choice though, I would opt for a cable streaming program and add ons. There are features in the cable that we miss, or rather my husband misses.

Person said they eliminated the cost of Netflix, Hulu, prime....how done?

I live in the northern Villages where there is old wiring and few options. However, I just switched to CenturyLink "bonded" service which is rated at 40 MB and we almost always get at least 35 MB. It's $49 per month after installation. YouTube TV is pretty good for streaming and that's also around $50 per month. 35 MB is more than enough for streaming services. We had Comcast for both and dropped them for the same reason, ever climbing prices.

Probably did something illegal.

Been using Roku and subscribe to HULU. Get all the major networks live plus movies and more. Using Centurylink for internet. Price for HULU is $55 and the price for Centurylink is also $55 for 80 mbps. Centurylink now has 100 mbps for $45 for new subscribers for life. Recommend at least 60 mbps for trouble free streaming.

I’m leaving Dish for the same reason. Going to Comcast. Hope their better.

Telephone - buy OOMA on Amazon $79. Set up $75. Monthly charges $5.46 for 911 & tax. Great clarity.

We dropped ATT TV and our land line and went with YOU TUBE TV and consumer cell phone
 

You Tube TV is $55/mo. You get 72 channels including the Orlando local channels. Easy to do, download app, do everything online including setting up the recurring charge to a credit card. They have very good customer service. You do need a fairly good internet speed so we dropped the extremely slow century link and went with Xfinity 60mbs for same price.
We have Consumer Cell for our cell service. For $20/mo, you can get a device that works off your cell service which you connect to your main phone base. Easy to do and works great. We have unlimited everything for $75/mo. For 2 cells and the home phone.

Thanks
 

Thanks to all. You have provided a host of information to learn and look into. This is the reason the Village's are so good and Talk of the Villages so valuable. :ho:

My husband must have the NFL package so we’re stuck with Direct TV.

I also got tired of the cable prices continuously going up and up, as well as unadvertised fees and taxes. Whenever I mentioned it to the cable co. they would give me a quote for a "great deal." When I asked them how much more would the fees and taxes add to it, they quietly said "about $25."
I ditched cable and bought Roku sticks on Black Friday, subscribed to Youtube TV that has ALL my channels. My wife wanted to watch something on Starz so I found a one day special of six months for about $20 TOTAL. HBO is an additional $15 if I decide I want it, AND I can drop it or start it whenever I wish without someone calling me and begging me to continue.
The quality of my streaming TV via Internet is even better than my cable was.
Cut the Cable.

Who else offers HBO

Most streaming services offer HBO as an option. Go to the website, "suppose.tv" and check off HBO and you will see all the services that offer HBO. Or, you can just go to HBO.com and subscribe to HBO as an individual channel for $14.99 per month.

You could have landline service for zero dollars a month after it is setup. This is using Google Voice, which is free nationwide unlimited service with excellent call quality. It also has tons of features like voicemail and other things, which are included with the free price.

To use Google Voice, you need an Internet connection in your home. You also need an Obihai OBi 200 or OBi 202 set top box, which costs about $35 to $70. The OBi 200 is a one line model and the Obi 202 is a two line model. You could have two free landline phone numbers using two Google Voice accounts, one for voice, the other for a fax machine or a second landline for voice calls.

If you want to transfer your existing landline telephone number to Google Voice, that is not allowed. However, you can transfer your existing landline telephone number to a cheap "burner" cellphone with that has one month of prepaid service. Then the number can be transferred from the cheap "burner" cellphone to Google Voice.

After your Google voice landlines are setup, every month is totally free! The call quality is absolutely excellent, and there is unlimited free nationwide long distance. However, the "911" locator service will not work, unless you subscribe to a "911" locator service, which costs about $20 a year.

Google Voice can also be used as a free second telephone number for your cellphone. Calls to your Google Voice landline can be answered using your cellphone, and the voicemail can be accessed from your cellphone. The voicemail can also be automatically transcribed and texted to you. This is another one of the many free extra services of Google Voice.

I was going to drop my Comcast landline service and switch to Google Voice, however, if I drop my Comcast landline, but keep my Comcast cable TV and Internet, my price increases because of my grandfathered package that I subscribed to years ago. So, I use my free Google Voice service for my fax machine and for when I sell things on Facebook Marketplace or Craig's List. I now only use Facebook Marketplace because it works 20 to 30 times better than Craig's List, and is free.

Cable TV
 

Cut the cord and get a streaming service like ATT Now , Prime TV, YouTube Tv ,
Hulu etc get internet for anyone and add internet all you need is a fire stick or a smart
TV usually there is no contracts and a free trial period

Premium channels like HBO and Showtime are pretty much redundant with respect to movies. Many people pay a lot of money for a premium channel because they like a particular show that the channel produces. I have found that if you want to save money, one way to do it is to dump the premium channel and buy the shows you want on dvd.

Well..................with all this input, whatcha doing???

Ohiobuckeye
 

Hate to tell you PennBF, but I had Cable & Internet service with Spectrum for 8 yrs. & when we signed up with them our bill was 59 or $69. a month for Cable & Internet, 8 yrs. later it was $165. a month & still going up. Don't let any of these Dish or Cable Co. trick you into getting you to sign with them because they'll promise not to let your cable bill get that high that quick. They're just blowing smoke up your back side. In 7 yrs. you WILL be paying $150. a month & it will keep going up. I was surprised when we moved from TV that we got Cable & Internet for FREE, pay nothing my daughter were the first to move in this subdivision 10 yrs. ago & there's 15 to 20,000 living here & it's still FREE. Yea, 20,000 is about the size of one of your subdivisions. Anyway the only way you can beat the raising prices is to switch cable companies every 2 yrs. you're not going to get away from it long term.
Good Luck!

Direct TV - price raise
 

We have had Direct TV for Eons. Every year, I call in when they raise our prices - ours went from $63 to $150. They kept saying they didn't have any deals. After the 4th try, I told them to stop our Direct Tv on Feb. 14th to give me enough time to switch. Miracles - they suddenly gave me $75 for a year for the same service I have been enjoying for years. Next year, I will simply call in and say discontinue my service to see what their price will be. We looked into cutting the cable but found we like what we have and by the time we got everything we wanted it would be more expensive than the $75 price.

Ohiobuckeye
 

Yes, sometimes that works!

I've had Directv twice and found they doubled my bill after one year. A big sports fan but to make a long story shorter, I got tired of playing the game and switched back to Dish. They gave me a price guarantee two year contract with a $300 MasterCard for just less that $100. I record a lot so I really like how the hopper works and the remote is so much easier to use. I found that Directv recorded shows disappear after awhile. I like a lot of the classic movies and like to keep them available for viewing.

I find my aggravation level has gone down significantly!!!

The downside is that I will have to go out to watch my Giants when they aren't on local stations and I'll have to play the game with Dish going forward. Oh well!

FWIW - I found Dish more pleasant to deal with that Directv reps. IMHO.

Everyone will have an opinion so please don't attack mine. To each his/her own.