Cable/Internet service for new residents
 

Good morning,
My wife and I will be moving to the villages right after Christmas. My question has to do with cable and internet service. We have a dish on the side of the house. What's the best way to go, and what's the approx. cost. Up north we have Comcast, but it is very expensive, over $250/month. Regards.

Which village are you moving to? TV is very large and not all providers are available everywhere.

Near LSL, 200 mbps internet, phone and middle cable package with DVR and cloud storage 168/ month xfinity

South of the turnpike; Spectrum internet for $58/mo; using Amazon Prime and Netflix; will add YouTube TV when I get bored. Don't want a land line. I was tired of paying $280/month for Comcast up north, so I know what you mean.

As others have said, it depends on your village.

Xfinity has a starter package, first year $20/month. 25mbit. Yes, this is enough bandwidth for multiple streams. Yes, I know what I'm talking about, I do this kind of thing for a living.

Century link is another provider but their speeds vary depending on distance to the head-end and your village. Century link in my village only offers 2mbit. This is enough for email, that's about it. In other villages it's 100mbits or more even. Check first because they are typically the most affordable option. If they have a 20mbit or better plan on the cheap, get it.

I have no personal experience with Spectrum, but they are a large provider, so as long as their plan is over 20mbit and is reasonable, go for it.

We stream Hulu on the Hulu plan "Hulu + live tv". Some people use youtube TV. Both are great. Hacked firesticks and other hinky pirate connections for $10/month should be avoided.

Good luck, welcome.

We purchased our home in October. Bought my own modem and Roku's and use XFinity for internet. $50/month for 300MB service. I know, overkill. Youtube TV, $65/month. House up north with Xfinity everything (phone, internet, cable) was $265/month. Best feeling in the world to bring the huge box of equipment back to the Xfinity store.

Dropping Comcast was a good day in my life (AT&T too but that's a different story).

We're quite happy with You Tube TV ($75) and my wife likes Hulu basic ($9) as a kicker.
Century Link ($45 plus tax) works great for internet We're just north of CR-466A

All Villages homes are prewired for Xfinity/Comcast. The only provider that broadcasts The Villages TV and Radio stations on 02 and 99. Others have to run a cable under the grass. You can get a idea of package prices with and without contracts, just type your in your address on Xfinity site. Dish has lousy quality over cable.

In my opinion You Tube TV is doing everything we need at $64.95 a month plus internet , more channels than we ever watch plus local and regional broadcasting . As a side comment dump the unsightly dish.

The problem with xfinity is that their upload speed is crap. I won't argue your 25Mbps is [barely] enough for streaming (I prefer more for file download reasons), their upload speed might be 1Mbps. Yes, a measly "1". And, that's megaBITS. So, I need about 10 seconds to upload just 1MB (megaBYTE). That a very sluggish 6MB / minute.

Before you just dismiss that as "who needs upload speeds?", let's remind the reader that you need upload speed for things like dropbox, video uploads and cloud backups. If you want to backup a 100GB computer to Carbonite for example (which is not an unreasonable amount today), that would take 277 hours or a little over 11.5 days with xfinity.

You don't see those numbers in the advertisements for internet service. When shopping for internet, ask everyone of them what UPLOAD speed to expect. They all tout their download speeds but most don't like to talk about upload speeds which are critical today.

And, I too know what I'm taking about as I also do this kind of thing for a living.

Experience for consideration
 

We are south of 44 but I found in researching that I could put my address in the various websites and see what the packages offered at my address were out there.

That being said we selected Centurylink 1Gb service at $65/month price for life. Have had Spectrum, Comcast (Xfinity) and cannot describe my feelings in words appropriate for this forum. Currently streaming only with YoutubeTV (unlimited storage for 9 months and local channels), Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. Significantly less stressful not dealing with the S & C companies after that first year tickler price is past.

Many of the dishes have been disconnected, but not removed.

Good Morning,
We are moving to the Village of Hadley. I understand every home is prewired for Comcast. My further conclusion, shows cable is preferred over dish, must better quality.

I'm one of those guys that actually uses upload speed. One small part of my job is video production. I also have had a youtube channel since 2006 and lately been doing BBQ videos. My NJ home is in the sticks and only recently was I able to get a 30mbit download pipe with 1.5mbit upload. It blows. We have been streaming for years on a 15mbit pipe though. When I do big uploads I bring it to my office where we have twin 10GBit pipes u/d although the 2nd one is just a fail-over on a different provider. This won't be an option when I retire in a few months and finally move to TV permanently.

99.99% of people in TV don't know what their upload speed is, nor do they care because they never push anything of substance up to the internet. Nor do any of them patch games, like Cyberpunk 2077 where a big download matters. We're not going to be back in TV again until next week, so I'm still in NJ. Last night when Cyberpunk went live, there was a 10gb patch!!!, this sucked because wife was streaming TV and so I had to limit the patch to 2mb on Steam. No, I am not a kid, I just act like one.

After the first year of Xfinity, I went to the 100mbit plan and I get 5mbit upload. Not anywhere near great, but again, it beats the old 768kbit I lived with in NJ for years. It's kind of like smoking a brisket. You just have to wait :)

Comcast/Xfinity is the best voice remote/ internet by far superior. Ours is $176. You will probably get a deal as a new customer. Plus you don’t lose it with the rain storms. Good luck.

We dumped Xfinity for Spectrum and are much happier. Xfinity kept increasing their price ( yes, I know Spectrum will do the same) and their service was crap. We live in Pine Ridge and had several, unexplained outages. Calling them did no good as we could never actually talk to anyone. You just get referred to their website. Try to access that when your internet is down.
Once Spectrum increases our price in about a year, we may just keep their internet and go with YouTube TV. We already have Roku sticks and love them but have found some buffering issues unless your TV is close to your router.

Just as a note, most 2.4ghz routers default to channel 6, if there are a lot of routers nearby all sitting on channel 6, you'll have that. Setting your router down to channel 1 or 11 will help a lot. 2.4ghz channels bleed a lot so that's why going to either end helps.

If you're on 5ghz, most of the channels are discreet, so it's less of a problem, just change it off of the default. Range is also smaller, so there is less interference. At this time though, most older TVs and such aren't on 5ghz. That's usually limited to recent phones and tablets.

We are in Bradford and have both Comcast and Spectrum. We had Spectrum installed, one tv, 100 meg internet with over 100 channels including HBO and Showtime (both included in the price) no home phone for $146 per month for one year. It goes up $20 after that.

It will eventually cost that much right now is the honeymoon period initial install.

Do not sign a contract
Do not do autopay
Comcast is very expensive here
Spectrum you get a discount for first year - all services here have a lot of taxes

Get your own router use spectrum and you will need premium like showtime right now HBO sucks

It will be $145 then up to $190 after first year for 1 TV and that’s 50mbps

Your cell will go up due to all the taxes and experience drop calls

I would call Marc with Sky Sat 20 He gets great prices with all the carriers and has 40 years experience in the The Villages. I have been dealing with him for 20 years and have recommended friends and neighbors . You can reach him at 352 775 1152 . Tell him Rich the airline pilot recommend him .

With all due respect.
Not signing a contract and not paying with auto pay is bad advice. Most people in the Villages will pay cable until the day they die or move out of the house. Not having a contract and having 2 to 3 price increases every year is foolish. Its not how long you have to keep cable its getting the lowest price for as long as you can.

Northern villages. Xfinity internet (medium speed) plus Very basic cable (local channels no dvr), using discounts for electronic billing. No complaints in 2 years. Less than $80/month.

We also get HULU ($14/mo) and NETFLIX (free, we are a user on sons account), Amazon prime (comes with amazon prime shipping)

We live south of the Turnpike and have Comcast for Internet (over 200mps), a decent selection of channels and a line line I use only for fax. The cost is about $175/month.

For the record I moved from the northern end of TV. I paid about the same.

My xfinity Comcast bill is $125 ...
1 tv, internet blast, I bought my own modem. No problems at all.
Welcome to the villages.

Do Century and Spectrum require different connection than Xfinity ( existing cable )?

Went to channel master as I got rid of the cable. I get local channels and I have Amazon fire stick. A friend still uses cable and continues to pay over $300.00 a month to watch his "favorite" channels. All four of them. How crazy is that?

comcast my price thru internet
 

I have blast speed plus dvd and other room dvd receiver.
my own modem (netgear router all in one)
150 channels
hd service
2 rooms only
total with tax 130 a month
no alarm normal 1.2 terebyte limit.
no add one's

also have fire stick 2 rooms
fire tv 24 inch
basic stuff 13 devices sharing modem

We are also in Hadley so you are stuck with Comcast Infinity, Prices are astronomical. We have the very basic service with internet and only local stations (about 10). Internet is always sporadic. We have tried all the streaming services and have found that they can't keep their prices in check and they keep going up. We finally settled on Sling Blue and have been very happy with it. Rarely have any problems with it and its only $35 a month. Our combined cable and streaming bill is less than $100 per month.
Depends on your viewing requirements and whats available in your wallet.

Hi All,
Thanks for all the info. So, in conclusion, we went to our local Comcast office, and they put us on seasonal, $50. This in itself is a scam, for what, just prevents me from having to return the equipment. And, an additional $20 to keep my internet, so I can see my cameras. So, $70 in total. Oh well, better than $255. Which I will address when we return in May. Now, in Florida, we are going to go with Comcast. It appears, we will be able to get good internet speed and television package for around $150. Hopefully, I'll be ahead of the game by about $35/month.Thanks again.

Spectrum
 

I have moved a lot in the past few years - so I have had just about every internet/ TV service out there. I am sure everyone has pros and cons re: each one. I will share mine. When my closing papers for the Villages told me that my provider - was ‘Comcast’ - my heart literally sank :-(. I had Comcast before - service wasn’t that bad - but when I moved - despite not having Comcast at my destination - I had to pay out the remainder of my “Comcast Contract” - it really sucked. My last provider was Spectrum (before I moved here) - not perfect - but I loved the channel line-up and ALL of the additional LOCAL channels included (I love the old shows!!) - and Spectrum did not require a contract - plus, I loved their STREAMING TV ( no cable box) - easy to navigate. Anyway - I stopped at the Spectrum store - and they said I was eligible for their service in my newly built home!!! Most amazing - day of closing I went to meet the Spectrum installer at my new home - he was already there - he just needed to come in the home to plug in the router/modem - maybe 5 minutes at the most - and I was set to go!!!!! Best ever!!

Comcast
 

Comcast has price increases every January. If your service includes cable tv starting with January 2021 every month you will pay $18.50 broadcast fee and $9.20 regional sports fee(increase of$5.50 from 2020) The triple play plans( phone,internet,cable tv) are cheaper than using two of Comcast services. These services from Comcast are 2 year commitments with a penalty if u cancel before. Modem/ router monthly rental $15.00, TV box $7.50 from $5.00 in 2020. It is better to own your own equipment. When I purchased my own modem/router my blast internet speed went from 200mbp to 100mbp? Recently my 2 years was up and Comcast was going to charge me over $200. Monthly. I was paying $159. monthly for 3 services after calling to cancel and negotiating I was able to keep the same service for the same price. (Forgot about yearly price increase) my monthly bill now says I am saving $83. A month. If you call them to use their service make sure they email you a copy of what you agreed to before you sign it to make sure service and price are what they stated. Next time around I will cancel phone and tv and use cell phone and stream tv. The price for any internet service is excessive but that’s how they make up for losing people from their other services.

My wife and I are snowbirds. We have Comcast in both homes. Your best bet is to buy your own modem/router combos for both locations. It's a hit up front, but you will recoup the cost in 10 months (in each location). Approximately $150 apiece, but you are paying somewhere around $17/month to rent the modem/router combo. There's also Roku sticks, unless you have a smart tv. We had to buy the Roku's so that my elderly father in law could navigate his way around and the Roku's make it simple (less buttons to push, less chance to turn on spanish language or change inputs). We couldn't do seasonal because we have have security in both homes. But we are still paying $50/month for internet in each location and have Youtube TV ($65/month), which travels with us. $165/month combined for both homes with 300MB service in each. No WiFi drops, rock solid.

TV
 

Your best bet is to get the best internet service you can afford, buy a fire stick or similar device and stream since it requires no equipment, contract etc.

We have found Prime Video, Brit Box and You Tube TV to meet all of our needs and there are plenty of others to choose from.

If you want to avoid contracts - use streaming you can drop or add monthly.

Century Link high internet $50 for life. Direct TV has the most channels for basic package

I use xfinity internet, i do not need cable. But i have roku, netflix, hulu.

xfinity
 

How did you get 300 mbs for $50? I'm paying $75 for 100mbs plus $20 for the modem.

It was a new service, so the intro rate was $50/month. Way more than we need. I’ll have to renegotiate when the promo ends, probably will have to drop to 100 or 200 mb to keep the same rate

We are moving-in to The Villages tomorrow. I'd like to my my own modem-router and sign-up for internet with Comcast. The equipment I've been looking at doesn't seem to have a cable-port though. I want to make sure that I don't buy the wrong modem-router. Any advice on which one to buy and what cables if any I need to also buy?

go back to 1950 the best tv/ tv is bad today

I have this one up north, it's a cable modem and router combo: Access Denied

URL is blocked. It's a Netgear Nighthawk C7000-100NAS. On sale for $160, regularly $190

Has four cable ports on the back and i have a strong signal everywhere in a 3000SF house. It's also on sale at the Best Buy in Lady Lake.