How has your cable cutting experience been?

A big thank you to those who mentioned Locast. I had never heard of it. Even though we did get an antenna, reception is finicky. This morning, for example, my wife could not get ABC and she likes to watch the local news and GMA. I came down and installed the Locast app (we have Apple TV) and she was able to watch the station crystal clear. I also installed it on our bedroom TV (a Roku TV) that isn't connected to the antenna. I put it on my phone, too.
 
disneysteve said:
A big thank you to those who mentioned Locast. I had never heard of it. Even though we did get an antenna, reception is finicky. This morning, for example, my wife could not get ABC and she likes to watch the local news and GMA. I came down and installed the Locast app (we have Apple TV) and she was able to watch the station crystal clear. I also installed it on our bedroom TV (a Roku TV) that isn't connected to the antenna. I put it on my phone, too.
Click to expand...

windy today in New Jersey guessing that’s why you have Trouble with your antenna getting a good picture. Glad Locast worked out for you.
 
dclpluto said:
windy today in New Jersey guessing that’s why you have Trouble with your antenna getting a good picture. Glad Locast worked out for you.
Click to expand...
How does the wind affect signal transmission? That would certainly explain it but I'm curious about that.
 


dclpluto said:
severe weather can effect your tv antenna. Heavy rain or lots of wind. Just google it will come up.
Click to expand...
Good to know. It mentions how the movement of the trees or any debris flying around can impact the signal.

Now I'm extra glad I learned about Locast.
 
disneysteve said:
We are in the process. A couple of weeks ago we got an antenna for local channels. That works - most of the time. Occasionally there are reception issues though they can usually be solved by repositioning the antenna. It's kind of a pain, though, because I'd like to just be able to mount it on the wall and be done with it. I'll have to give Locast a try. I'd be happy to pay $5/month for the ad-free version if it works well for us and is more dependable than the antenna.

We also signed up for Sling. That's been great. Really no complaints at all. Excellent channel line up. Good app. And crystal clear picture. That's $30/month.

I promised my daughter I wouldn't cancel cable until after the Supernatural finale airs next month just in case we have any trouble getting CW on the antenna that night. But once that has occurred, I plan to call Comcast and make the change.

For those who have Comcast, how much are you paying for internet only service?
Click to expand...

You can watch it on the CW ROKU channel app if you’re worried about reception. My back up plan is to use channel apps.
 


FYI but related to cordcutting... You can sign up for a year of Peacock premium for half price today (normally $50, down to $25 today). Use code TODAY50.

The free version of Peacock is decent, but if you're into English Premier League or want access to the original shows and full catalog, premium's the way to go. I took the deal for the soccer!
 
Just a follow-up. We cut the cord three weeks ago from Charter Communications cable modem, land line, and basic expanded TV with two upgrades (sports package for tennis channel and another extra tier to get Hallmark and some cooking channels). We were paying $228 per month for these items. When we had called Charter a year ago to ask if there were any discount possibilities it was a no - you have the best deals we can give you unless you add new services. When we cut the cord, they immediately offered us about $80 a month savings, a faster internet option from them, and buying out any new contracts we had signed up for. Loyalty certainly is not rewarded in this business, but switching around and changing things up gives all kinds of saving. We said it's too little too late, mentioned our call a year ago, etc. We had been customers of Charter for 30 years lol. Also, can you believe I had to wait on hold or get a call back for 45 minutes just to turn off services.

We now have ATT fiber optic 300 mbps for internet -- We absolutely love the fast internet -- great download speeds for DS for movies and gaming, no more Zoom and Microsoft Teams lag for me (I am full time work from home forever for now -- company just released a third of our office space and I am one of many who are classified as full time work from home, who for future would do post pandemic, hoteling if I come into the office. We actually have for three people who live in our home over 23 devices connected to the internet in some way. Many don't take much band width, like light bulbs that we can change the colors of for each season, etc.

We cut the land line. DH already ran into a situation where he needed to contact one of us, but hadn't brought his cell phone along and didn't know our cell phone numbers by heart (only knew our land line by heart) so borrowing a phone still didn't know how to contact us, so it's a live and learn experience (car issues and a long walk home as without the cell phone coordination with AAA was difficult).

We went with an ATT TV package (their second tier TV package that on first look and even with our attempts to do a close study appeared to have in our comparison all the channels we like). We studied it closely before the switch. Streaming services I had looked at in the past, didn't offer all the channels we wanted, so I didn't switch till we found this. It is also is more like a cable replica with a guide and things like that and box where you have the TV on right away without extra clicks, etc. thru our apple TV box than other streaming services (more appealing to DH). With initial teaser rates for first year internet, TV, and no land line we are saving over $100 a month and were given some Visa gift cards for $250 or so (two different promotions one for trying the TV and one for the fiber optic cable). After the first year, there are still saving, but not as substantial and interestingly enough they have a special phone number you can call to renegotiate. We have discovered four things we miss so far about cable that we didn't anticipate that we would miss (1) We like it that we still have a guide, but much prefer the charter guide to the ATT guide as it shows way more channels at a time, (2) We don't have PBS any more. It wasn't on the list, but somehow we overlooked that. We didn't think we watched PBS except for fund drive time, but find that we liked some of their nature shows and things like that. We also found out that the only streaming service with PBS is Utube TV, (3) We don't have BBC World news. ATT has BBC America, but that's not the same thing. I miss the more international perspective of that, find that other news channels I am left with, just don't cover much outside the US, but it's not enough for me to go back to Charter for sure (4) We have HGTV, but not all the redundant channels (four before), just one now. On Charter with four channels with this kind of stuff (Discovery, Travel, and Country) we seemed to always have this kind of programming available to watch (one of the three shows we like on this) if there wasn't something else we wanted to watch. To get around this for the first time ever, I have recorded some of this kind of programming as a backup just to have this. // If we do decide to go back to Charter we will be paying way less than what we did before because of being a new customer. The best way to get discounts for decades has been to switch things up and change. We'll be fine with this new setup, but change for us is not totally seamless and without loss of some things we liked. Anyway we are OK with the new streaming service -- has the 14 main channels we like all included. For sports we just watch tennis, and this has the ESPN and tennis channels, so we are good on that.
 
Last edited:
kathy884 said:
Just a follow-up. We cut the cord three weeks ago from Charter Communications cable modem, land line, and basic expanded TV with two upgrades (sports package for tennis channel and another extra tier to get Hallmark and some cooking channels). We were paying $228 per month for these items. When we had called Charter a year ago to ask if there were any discount possibilities it was a no - you have the best deals we can give you unless you add new services. When we cut the cord, they immediately offered us about $80 a month savings, a faster internet option from them, and buying out any new contracts we had signed up for. Loyalty certainly is not rewarded in this business, but switching around and changing things up gives all kinds of saving. We said it's too little too late, mentioned our call a year ago, etc. We had been customers of Charter for 30 years lol. Also, can you believe I had to wait on hold or get a call back for 45 minutes just to turn off services.

We now have ATT fiber optic 300 mbps for internet -- We absolutely love the fast internet -- great download speeds for DS for movies and gaming, no more Zoom and Microsoft Teams lag for me (I am full time work from home forever for now -- company just released a third of our office space and I am one of many who are classified as full time work from home, who for future would do post pandemic, hoteling if I come into the office. We actually have for three people who live in our home over 23 devices connected to the internet in some way. Many don't take much band width, like light bulbs that we can change the colors of for each season, etc.

We cut the land line. DH already ran into a situation where he needed to contact one of us, but hadn't brought his cell phone along and didn't know our cell phone numbers by heart (only knew our land line by heart) so borrowing a phone still didn't know how to contact us, so it's a live and learn experience (car issues and a long walk home as without the cell phone coordination with AAA was difficult).

We went with an ATT TV package (their second tier TV package that on first look and even with our attempts to do a close study appeared to have in our comparison all the channels we like). We studied it closely before the switch. Streaming services I had looked at in the past, didn't offer all the channels we wanted, so I didn't switch till we found this. It is also is more like a cable replica with a guide and things like that and box where you have the TV on right away without extra clicks, etc. thru our apple TV box than other streaming services (more appealing to DH). With initial teaser rates for first year internet, TV, and no land line we are saving over $100 a month and were given some Visa gift cards for $250 or so (two different promotions one for trying the TV and one for the fiber optic cable). After the first year, there are still saving, but not as substantial and interestingly enough they have a special phone number you can call to renegotiate. We have discovered four things we miss so far about cable that we didn't anticipate that we would miss (1) We like it that we still have a guide, but much prefer the charter guide to the ATT guide as it shows way more channels at a time, (2) We don't have PBS any more. It wasn't on the list, but somehow we overlooked that. We didn't think we watched PBS except for fund drive time, but find that we liked some of their nature shows and things like that. We also found out that the only streaming service with PBS is Utube TV, (3) We don't have BBC World news. ATT has BBC America, but that's not the same thing. I miss the more international perspective of that, find that other news channels I am left with, just don't cover much outside the US, but it's not enough for me to go back to Charter for sure (4) We have HGTV, but not all the redundant channels (four before), just one now. On Charter with four channels with this kind of stuff (Discovery, Travel, and Country) we seemed to always have this kind of programming available to watch (one of the three shows we like on this) if there wasn't something else we wanted to watch. To get around this for the first time ever, I have recorded some of this kind of programming as a backup just to have this. // If we do decide to go back to Charter we will be paying way less than what we did before because of being a new customer. The best way to get discounts for decades has been to switch things up and change. We'll be fine with this new setup, but change for us is not totally seamless and without loss of some things we liked. Anyway we are OK with the new streaming service -- has the 14 main channels we like all included. For sports we just watch tennis, and this has the ESPN and tennis channels, so we are good on that.
Click to expand...
I pay $5 a month for PBS through the PBS app and get access to a whole ton of things they have that is available only for Passport members.
 
I've been without cable since Nov 2019.

Started with SlingTV (ESPN package side with $5 extra for Game Show Network Tier), Amazon Prime, Netflix (free on phone), Disney+, and Hulu.

Just dropped Hulu (not enough to watch, especially at "coming" full pricing - I dropped before regular price kicked in) for HBO Max. For now, I've kept the rest, although Disney Plus probably would have been dropped if I remembered my renewal date (since I pay annually). Instead, I'll really hope their content improves, but if not, I may move on next Thanksgiving (date now circled on my calendar:)). I've realized that I enjoy Netflix/Amazon shows and SlingTV gives me enough sports and "have on background" tv, so I only need 1-2 additional services...which I may even rotate in future years like I did this year with Hulu and HBO Max...
 
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We have another setback in our cable cutting experience in going to ATT TV (streaming - not DISH). We were expecting to get NBC when we signed up, got it initially, but then on 12/1/2020 lost it (It seems that ATT wasn't able to work out negotiations to have the service). It means we haven't been able to watch a favorite show, the Voice. With this and PBS not available without special setups (appreciate the PBS suggestions and am checking these out), DH may want to go back to cable. I talked him into sticking it out for a year, and at that point will switch back if he wants. We will if we go back to cable keep our ATT Fiber Optic 300 mbps internet though -- The ATT fiber optic internet is awesome (so nice to have such fast and reliable internet at home). Our cable modem internet was not nearly as good -- Charter said theirs is fiber too till it gets to the house, but for years we have had periodic problems.
 
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