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Cablevision, telephone and Internet

pdplot

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We just got our new Altice/Cablevision bill. $266.00. They raised the Internet price from $53 to $103. We also have landlines with Frontier for home ($68) and office ($103.00), Cellphones with A T & T - Smartphone for wife and dumb flip phone for me ($163) and Directory listing - Dex-YP - for office at $24 - Grand Total - $624.00 each and every month. Over $7K per year. Four different companies. Outrageous. We don't even have the premium Cablevision or the fastest connection. The only other cable company is Frontier and they're slower and just as trouble prone. We had a telephone system years ago with Ma Bell that was a regulated monopoly and the best system in the world. Now, we have a hodgepodge crazy quilt of companies with foreign outsourced reps you can barely understand and the price keeps going up. And now it takes up to 20 hours before you can even speak to one.
 

Gliderman8

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We got rid of our landline years ago... Everyone calls our cell so no need for the landline. We stream our TV with YoutubeTV and have not regretted one moment about cutting our cable cord.
 

NutmegCT

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But that $600/month gives us so many more choices and toys than in earlier years!

shutterstock_1073453186-1-1024x576.jpg

(Never have figured out why life is better with 400 TV channels - but few are worth watching. I remember the 1950s when TV came on at 6am and went off at midnight; we had only four channels, but our family really enjoyed most of what was available. One telephone system - and DDD made the operator nearly obsolete.)

Every new provider and layer of "service" increases profit for someone, somewhere. Love the cable stations where we see the same commercials on most of the stations, every 12 minutes.

yeesh
 
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pdplot

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We keep the landlines for two reasons - my office number has been the same for over 60 years, and 2. we have frequent power outages here in SW CT and the landlines always work with no electricity needed. Cellphones need charging. A problem with no power. We'll check out streaming but since my wife watches TV every night while I do rarely, a complete package might cost as much as the cable. We only watch 8 or 9 channels anyway including HBO and TCM, Motor Trend (formerly Velocity), Public TV, Adult Swim!, Tennis Channel, NatGeo and a couple of others.
 

Mickey Richaud

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Elliot and I are on the same page. Verizon cell service (2 smart phones) and Comcast Xfinity internet (warp speed, or whatever they call it), with YouTube TV through Roku streamers. ~$280/month all in. Like the cable/satellite offerings, we don't look at most of what's available. PBS isn't, and we're too far away from the local station to pick it up. But there's so much similar content available anyway. Haven't looked back since.

Edit: Forgot to add the cost of YouTube - $50/month.
 
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DrEntropy

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Just got a digital antenna here for the garage, to try it. A week into it and there isn't much to choose from, other than local affiliates for local news. And every horse opera ever made...

Likely will drop cable TV and adopt the scheme Brer Mick uses.
 

NutmegCT

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We got rid of our landline years ago... Everyone calls our cell so no need for the landline. We stream our TV with YoutubeTV and have not regretted one moment about cutting our cable cord.

Elliot - My cable (Spectrum, $120/mo) provides me with phone, TV, and internet. I have an LG smartphone for $9/mo. But now you're getting me interested in YouTube TV as a replacement for the Spectrum TV.

Do you get "local stations" on YouTube TV - like local news, weather, sports, etc.? Or is YouTube TV generic programming like most cable TV services?

Thanks.
Tom M.
 

NutmegCT

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Mickey - same question: does your YouTube TV include local programming (local news, weather, sports, etc.)?
Thanks.
Tom M.
 

Mickey Richaud

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Tom -

Your question's addressed to Elliot, but I'll chime in as well. Local stations are included, excepting PBS (yet). And you can sign in if you travel, as we do with the motorhome - providing you have internet. Video and audio quality are both excellent.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/what-is-youtube-tv/
 

NutmegCT

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Thanks Mickey. Just checked and found that YouTube TV is $50/mo, while my Spectrum TV, including four PBS stations, is $30/month.

If I drop Spectrum TV, I save $30/month, but the Spectrum "bundle" for phone and internet then goes up from $90 to $110. That plus the $50/mo for YouTube TV then increases the total cost. They got me coming and going!

The search continues. Onward through the ... bandwidth.
Tom M.
 

JPSmit

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I am going through this right now - COVID is making it worse because our cable provider dropped all promotions the minute this started.

We pay just about $225 for unlimited interweb, land line and 2 phones. The current plan is to switch providers for the phones and save about $40 per mo.

We cut cable years ago - we have an antenna pointed at the CN tower so get about 12 channels there.
We have netflix which we use less and less.

We have amazon prime which we share with our daughter - haven't used it much yet

We have DisneyPlus - shared with my brother - have barely watched it.

We have IPTV - $15 per month (VooDoo) - literally hundreds of channels, local and otherwise (Am sitting here with the Home network from England on) - SWMBO is particularly happy because we have HGTV east/ west/ Canadian. DIY network USA/CDN. and the various British home reno networks as well. - It's a little less reliable and a bit quirky but so worth it price wise! Plus I have access to TV in various languages including Dutch.

Finally we have chromecast - are currently casting Shakespeare and Hathaway alternating with the Great British Sewing Bee - either from Dailymotion or Reddit.

So, in terms of actual cost. Maybe $255 per mo - though I also have to confess that interweb and phones are work expenses.
 

Gliderman8

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Tom—
Mickey beat me to it. Yes, you get all the local stations and more. I also use it occasionally when traveling as well.
 

NutmegCT

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JP - Never got a reply on my last PM to you.

Folks seem to watch a lot of TV and internet stuff, with or without the COVID issues. I've noticed I can get my local TV over internet when traveling anyway, free motel wi-fi fortunately. Great to have all the choices, but at $200 to $600+ per month, yikes. Each to his own of course.

OK - nearly 9am. Need to watch the Ruritarnian Mumblety-peg network, special live broadcast of the Omigoshgolli tournament.

ba-dump
 

Mickey Richaud

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JP - Never got a reply on my last PM to you.

Folks seem to watch a lot of TV and internet stuff, with or without the COVID issues. I've noticed I can get my local TV over internet when traveling anyway, free motel wi-fi fortunately. Great to have all the choices, but at $200 to $600+ per month, yikes. Each to his own of course.

OK - nearly 9am. Need to watch the Ruritarnian Mumblety-peg network, special live broadcast of the Omigoshgolli tournament.

ba-dump

Well, since we have internet anyway, YouTube TV only adds $50/month. Plus, $185 of our monthly cost is for the 2 android phones.
 
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I have to admit I get almost everything I want over the air, some duplication but I get over 40 channels that way. And things I might like to watch that are net only, like Mrs Maisel or some of the Star Trek, I dump to an external drive that I plug into a cheap laptop running VLC player and run into the TV HDMI port. Not exactly 2020 in tech terms, but I get what I want.
 

Mickey Richaud

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Wish I could, but I can't get anything over the air, unless I erect some ungodly high antenna. Mountains and trees between us and Knoxville, about 30 miles away.
 

NutmegCT

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... Plus, $185 of our monthly cost is for the 2 android phones.

:scared:

Over the air TV? Same as Mickey. Miles, mountains, and trees block the signals.

Good grief, I remember when TV signals were free, advertising paid the station and the producers. Only four stations - but we watched 'em all.
 

PAUL161

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We have Dish Satellite TV and most of the programming is junk, but we don't have cable out here in the sticks so were locked in to a satellite server of one type or another. We tried dish internet, but every time it rained it went out! We've been told forever that fiber optic is going to be run down our road, which is funny because an underground commercial FO cable runs directly across the front of our property! But serving private customers a joke, as they claim there's not enough people who will sign up for it. I guess there might be a dozen houses in about 5 miles and I doubt if some of them can afford the upgrade. We've been signed up for 10 years and still waiting. :rolleyes:
 

sail

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I like YouTube TV better than cable. Pretty much the same channels plus unlimited recording. You can put it on up to 6 devices so phone, laptop....
 
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