If you go to any business or person out there, they will biased and try to sell you what they carry, good or bad. Just like a number of these threads, there is a lot of inaccuracies which could have impacts on your husbands ability to work from home.

When someone says that if you backup to the cloud only pointers are set and internet bandwidth is not used is overall false. Most if not all cloud backups actually backup the data and take up space and bandwidth. Maybe there is an exception but overall this could impact your husbands internet needs because of data caps and speed.
Most if not all routers (not modems) have dual frequency ranges 2.4ghz and 5ghz, and I have the new routers that have 6ghz. Most of all your home devices like the ecobee, nest, door locks, Irobot, sprinkler controllers, garage door smart hubs are all 2.4ghz.

If you stream, the way you setup your network (wired or wireless) is critical. I use multiple routers and get up to 800Mb speeds on my iPads and iPhones. Most people get 300Mb in their homes, and this doesn’t matter what speed your internet carrier provides, the wifi is your internal network in your house. I also use wired bridges, wireless mesh bridge, switches throughout the house, again pretty easy when you have done this for decades.

Forget tv it’s a waste of time
Read a book, take a walk, get a hobby or go to the bar….,

There is a big difference between backing up to the cloud and using a streaming service DVR. The streaming service DVR does NOT use upload bandwidth. The data never comes to your home, it is recorded directly to the provider's equipment.

I have asked several times: What streaming service are you using that requires upload bandwidth?

You should offer a consulting service t give people honest advice without trying to sell them anything. That would be a huge benefit to most of us who are old enough to have missed the digital age.

Don’t use the Xfinity equipment. You are paying a ton of money to rent it every month. Buy your own Modem and Wireless router. We have never paid to rent cable company equipment. We use Erro Mesh Router and get service all over the house including out at the pool.

You are conflating backups to the cloud from a home system (which requires uploads) with a DVR capability from a streaming service such as YouTubeTV (which doesn't require uploads). They are not the same.

We dumped DirectTV and now use YouTubeTV. Love it! Local channels plus tons of other channels. You can set up a library and record any shows you want. It also keeps track of what you watch most and puts it at the top of your screen when you turn it on. A tiny bit of a learning curve but no more than any other service. You can get a weeks free trial I think.

Yes. If there are 1,000 streaming customers who want to record an episode of "Law and Order", it doesn't make sense for the streaming service to store 1,000 digital copies of one episode on their equipment. They only need enough copies to be able to stream the show when a customer wants to watch it.

As I look at options I am narrowing down to Apple TV and Roku for devices.

I look at how we currently access our television entertainment....Xfinity internet and television programming/recording.....costs me $180 per month. 100% convenient for ALL my devices. Easy recording of programs regimen (we rarely watch live broadcasting, record and watch at leisure).

The options "seem" to save a few dollars over the Xfinity pricing.

Internet around $50-$70/month....Youtube TV $70/month......maybe another $10 for whatever might not be available on Youtube TV and other free streaming apps.

Winding up at approximately $140/month.

What I dislike thus far about the options is the fact that there is no one place to get all we would like. And the no one place availability affects how we like to "program" recording/watch later. Also the hunting and pecking from app to app to sort out what to watch where. and so on.

So for me at this point the convenience (of Xfinity) has a price.....and I am leaning toward staying with Xfinity. We have been with them for the past 18 years.....internet and broadcast interruptions over the period....almost none. Technical quality, no complaints.
Dealing with customer service requires patience. Pricing negotiations from time to time.

But conveniently packaged and accessible.

However, still looking at options to try to save a few dollars.

The convenience factor is weighing heavily!

So you have got all the different options.
The simplest thing for you to do is get Quantum Fiber if you can get it and get YouTube TV, Netflix, etc. Quantum has not data caps, no contract, no tax, and they set you up with a mesh wifi network and you are done. 1GB bidirectional you won’t run out of bandwidth. Cable Tv with set top boxes is out dated and you are always going to pay more after your promo period is over. The big problem with cable is you get good download speed but terrible upload speed so if you work from home you need to understand this. Fiber does away with all these limitations and is the best.

Run out of bandwidth? I would suspect not since 1080p only uses about 5 megabits per second. We used to stream 1080p to two different sets without buffering with a 10 megabit per second nominal download service. One of the things I like about fiber-to-the-house is that you get a dynamic IP address at an RJ-45 ethernet jack in the wall and can plug any computer or router into the jack. The "modem" is the ONT on the outside of the house. You don't need a specific "modem/router".

I agree. That is why I have stayed with Xfinity.

I would choose Roku over Apple TV.

If you like what you have then there is no reason to change.

We like the movies and shows on Netflix and the ability to watch wherever we are (not tied to a cable or dvr in our home). Also, I can learn to run a new system if it saves $500 but I understand sticking with what you are comfortable with.

What works for us (thanks to the goof folks on ToTV)!
 

(Oops, can't correct the typo in the title, sorry. S/B GOOD FOLKS!)

For us, building a bundle in the past was a challenge with only two components—land line phone and lnternet—little interest in commercial television. We finally gave up on CenturyLink and—kicking and screaming—went to Xfinity. We have to eat our words, as they've worked very well for us. We had magicJack service for traveling, and it had always worked well for us, so we set them up as a VoIP system at home, and we added a ROKU stick to the televisions.

It all works—and works well.—and costs us considerably less than CenturyLink had. Xfinity is far cheaper, the ROKU stick is a one-time purchase, and magicJack service costs under $50 for the YEAR! We could not have done this without guidance from fellow ToTVers; many thanks again!

That is what Xfinity says I have. And I HAVE NOT TRIED moving the new smart home item further away. In fact, I have been doing the opposite and I can testify that does not help. Next time I have a new switch or bulb or garage door, I will sure try that. Past smart home items got set up by fits and starts and I can't remember if location was a factor.

The old 192.0.0.1 and such worked when we first got Xfinity. Now Xfinity says to use 10.0.0.1. That shows me the router set up but does not allow any changes because the modem is smarter than I am. Monday I am going to connect with cat5 wire and see if that makes a difference.

Thanks for the lead.