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September 1, 2016 at 3:54 am
#4639
rand soellnerKeymaster
A recent lightning strike that took out our satellite DISH service for about 3 weeks forced us to start looking at other services through our Smart TV (Samsung), which we never did before. We even watched an entire movie through a wireless connection (ethernet hard-wired Cat6 is better) through our router and YouTube!
Since then, we have done some more research. Evidently there are a number of major providers hard at work improving their services to run the satellite and cable TV companies our of business, replaced by online Internet TV and movie services, for a LOT less money. We pay around $90 a month right now, every month for perhaps 80 to 100 stations, including all the HBOs. We actually watch perhaps a dozen of the channels: History, Discovery, CNN, NBC and a handful of others.
Check out the new Internet TV service: SlingTV. They have several packages that sound very similar to what we’re getting now for only around $50. And if we are looking at these options, chances are, so are all of our Clients for whom we design homes, which spells a shift in the way in which we layout TV and Internet (Category 6 Ethernet) for our Clients’ Schematic Electrical plans. Check it out, before your Clients ask you about it. Times, they are a-changing.
September 1, 2016 at 1:52 pm
#4643
Bennett SabatierParticipant
I dropped cable 2 years ago and don’t miss it. I use an Apple TV box, which gives me access to many of the apps for watching tv online. The only caveat is that you are typically required to “sign in” to your cable provider in order to view the shows. I get around this by using a friend’s sign in. I simply buy the guy dinner every time I visit (he lives in North Louisiana). I suggest to people that they all pitch in as a family to one family member to have the cable service (or Dish), then share the log in.
The services I do pay for (Hulu, Netflix, and HBO) amount to about $35/month. That’s $50 less than I was paying. On those services I can watch just about anything, except for the Walking Dead, which AMC finally has an app on the Apple TV. Now I am just waiting for an app for Amazon Prime, which has thousands of movies and TV shows available.
If you are going to “cut the cord”, you still need the cat6 cable. Wireless works if you are in close proximity, but if you ever have router problems, it can be aggravating. Where I live, we have Fiber to the Home, meaning we have some of the fastest speeds available in the nation (up to 2Gps). I pay $55/month for 80Mps download/upload, no modem necessary. You can get 1Gps for $200/month, but that’s a bit overkill to me, though the way my kids eat up the bandwidth, I might consider bumping that up one day. The speed helps when cutting the cord.
I also have a HD antenna (interior) that gets me my local network channels. We are not densely populated here, so there aren’t very many choices. But as long as a plane doesn’t fly overhead, my signals are generally good, and I get all 5 major networks (PBS, Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC).
I would say that this decision has curbed my TV time, but I can’t say for sure. The time that I used to spend flipping through channels, I now spend searching through the different apps and all their choices. I keep thinking I will watch some old TV shows I used to enjoy as a kid, but never seem to find the time. There are just too many new things to see.
Rand, you are right about the times a-changing. Who knows where we will be in 10 years with all the technological advances. But I can guarantee one thing… the media people will find some way to throw a thousand ads at you, no matter what the medium.
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