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20 Aug 2021 - Podcast #757 - (21:05)
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I'm late to the cable cutting trend, but I started looking seriously at the options when my internet service provider hiked the price by more than 40% in July. It was time to get rid of cable television.
If you've already done this, you probably won't find much that's new here. But if you've been on the fence for a while, annoyed by rapidly rising fees from cable companies, maybe this will help. I reached the "enough is too much" stage when my cable bill increased by 42% in June. It had been $152 for several months and then jumped to $216.
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We have modest requirements. The internet speed is 100Mbps and the company manages to come close to that speed most of the time and even exceed it occasionally. We have three televisions, only two of which are attached to cable boxes. The medium cable plan is $100 per month and internet service adds $50. The two cable boxes add a total of $14. But we also were being charged more than $21 as a "broadcast TV fee" for channels we could watch over the air and $5 per month as a "sports surcharge". My wife usually watches the Super Bowl (mainly for the commercials) and I don't watch even that.
If last year's $125 fee was too high and then it was raised to $152, that was even worse. But $216 was enough to break through the inertia.
There are lots of publications and websites that deal with replacing cable television, and an increase of nearly $800 per year was enough to get my attention. I watch very little television, but I do use my television to watch DVDs. My wife has two sets, one of which is attached to a cable box, and she watches a lot of television. I didn't care much about what might be included and what might not, but I knew that Phyllis had channels and networks that she'd like to keep. I asked for a list. Eleven networks were on the list.
We already knew that we could receive the four or five primary local channels with even an indoor antenna, and that most of the 47 sub-channels would provide good signals — maybe even better than what we'd get via cable because cable systems have to degrade signals a bit. So we would be able to drop cable television and depend solely on over-the-air signals. That would reduce the cost from more than $200 per month to about $65 per month. But that would also eliminate the eleven networks my wife wanted.
If you'd like an estimate of which over-the-air signals are available where you live, see the ChannelMaster website where the antenna manufacturer lists signals that are strong enough to be received using an indoor antenna and those that may require an outside antenna. I have found the list to be generally accurate.
There are lots of streaming services such as YouTube TV, Hulu, Philo, Fubo, Sling, and more than 50 more. I decided to look at YouTube TV, Hulu, and Philo, then later added Fubo. YouTube TV offers more than 100 channels and it looked like the winner until I noticed that two of the networks my wife wanted weren't available on the $65/month service. Hulu has about 60 channels, but the same two channels that YouTube TV didn't have also were missing from Hulu. If we combined Hulu (at $65/month) and Philo (at $25 per month), we'd have everything Phyllis wanted. So although Fubo positions itself as a "sports" service, I took a look at it.
Fubo, at $65/month, it's the same price as YouTube TV and Hulu, but it was missing only one of the networks my wife wanted. She said that would work for her. So then it was time to identify a streaming device.
I ruled out Apple TV immediately because it's expensive ($180 each, and we would need one for each television) and because I don't buy into the Apple ecosystem except for an aging Macbook Pro and an Ipad. Two sites provided good reviews of the hardware, Tom's Guide and C|Net.
That left devices by Amazon, Roku, Google, and Nvidia. One of the first things I discovered is that Roku offers free access to the one network Phyllis wanted but that Fubo didn't have. My younger daughter cautioned against Roku because she and her husband owned two devices that couldn't be upgraded. They dumped cable service several years ago. When I checked Roku's website, I found almost 20 devices currently being manufactured, 23 that are no longer being manufactured but can be updated to the current firmware, and 14 "legacy" devices that can no longer be updated. The legacy devices are all relatively old and have minimal specifications.
Eventually I selected the Roku Streaming Stick Plus because it has voice support in its remote control and it supports 4K televisions. We have no 4K televisions, but it seemed reasonable to spend an extra $10 per device to future-proof the purchases as much as possible. The Streaming Stick Plus also includes an external antenna that's housed in the power cable. The objective is to provide better Wi-Fi reception in more distant rooms.
C|Net rated the Roku Streaming Stick Plus third, slightly behind the Roku Express 4K Plus and the Chromecast with Google TV. Tom's Guide gave the Roku Streaming Stick Plus top marks, followed by Chromecast with Google TV and the Nvidia Shield TV (2019).
I purchased three Roku Streaming Stick Plus devices for a total of $120 and, when they arrived, signed up for a 7-day trial of Fubo.
Installing the Roku device turned out to be absurdly easy:
And that's it. You'll need to create a Roku account and then organize the services that Roku provides, but there are on-screen instructions for that. And if you've signed up for a streaming service such as Fubo, you'll need to add the service to the Roku device.
Continuing the cable cutting theme, let's take a look at optimizing the Roku streaming device and organizing the Fubo streaming service. By itself, Roku offers some streaming options, both free and paid, but most of the streaming channels, programs, and motion pictures we'll watch will be served by Fubo.
Phyllis and I will share the Fubo account, the free videos offered by to Amazon Prime users, and Netflix. Each of these has options for setting up users within the account. For Roku, though, we each have individual accounts. Within a single Roku account, there's no option for identifying individual users. Any changes made to one Roku device will be replicated on all other Roku devices linked to that account.
I like change. Phyllis tolerates change. It's possible to change background images and themes used on the Roku screen. I've already changed the theme and I know that my favorite channels won't be her favorite channels. Better still, any changes Phyllis makes on the Roku device linked to either of her televisions will be replicated on the other television, so she'll have consistency across her devices. That's a double win.
Before setting up the Fubo streaming service, I corralled the free channels I wanted from Roku. That seemed logical to me, but you can skip this step and start working on your streaming service's favorites if you prefer.
The Roku channel is an obvious first stop. You'll find a constantly changing variety of old TV shows, news, and classic films. Yes, there are commercials. I watched the first two episodes of The A Team from 1983. Then I added Crackle, which shows mainly big-budget movies. Yes, with commercials. Another free streaming service that looked interesting is Tubi, with lots of movies and TV series programs. The TED channel is available. It's easy to find elsewhere, but adding it to the Roku main screen made it easily available. Peacock offers free access to (mainly) NBC programs, but not from the current season unless you subscribe. Adding Turner Classic Movies revealed something I didn't know: There's a West Coast feed and an East Coast feed. You can watch either of the live streams and you can also pick from a variety of on-demand motion pictures.
I linked Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to the Roku main page. I subscribe to Netflix and my Amazon Prime membership provides access to some free videos. Although we're not using YouTube TV, I placed a YouTube link on the Roku main page because our cat really likes to watch free squirrel and chipmunk videos that are carried on YouTube. Sometimes, though, she prefers to watch the reflection of the videos in the glass of a framed photograph on the opposite wall. (Cat logic.)
Both the Roku channel and Fubo can be viewed on various computers and mobile devices. Fubo's basic plan is limited to three simultaneous streaming services, but there are only two of us. For an extra $5 per month, families can operate up to 10 simultaneous streams. If you do that, you'll need a lot of internet bandwidth.
With more than 100 channels to choose from, it's a good idea to set some as favorites so they will appear at the beginning of the home page list (left) and at the top of the schedule page (right). When I was preparing this report, the Tokyo Olympics were in progress; hence the large number of Olympic icons.
The schedule view (Guide) shows what's coming up on the current day and for up to a week in the future. There are also panels for sports, shows, and movies.
After selecting favorites, it's easy to move them around so that the channels you watch most frequently are the first ones you'll see. Each user has their own set of favorites. Both the initial setup and ongoing modifications are easy.
I delayed making the call to the internet service provider for several days. It seems that the process of discontinuing any service has become arduous because top management often mandates that "customer service" representatives cannot take no for an answer. Many companies make it virtually impossible to cancel a service by forcing the customer to decline offers several times.
The process was much easier than expected.
The call lasted for 8 minutes 36 seconds with the first minute and a half being occupied by confirming my identity. Here is an edited version of the call.
There was no pushback. None at all. That alone was a big surprise. Granted the internet service provider, Wow, is leaving the Columbus and Cleveland markets and selling its Ohio access to Atlantic Broadband. Service areas in Chicago, Evansville (Indiana), and Anne Aurndel (Maryland) are also included in the nearly $2 billion deal. Wow will continue to serve customers in 14 service areas in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Wow cannot schedule future service terminations, but the support person I spoke said that he has documented the request and all we need to do is call back on the day we want to terminate the service
The cost for our 100Mbps (downlink)/10Mbps (uplink) service was $50 and we still rent a cable modem for $14 per month. For the same price, we will now receive 200Mbps (downlink)/20Mbps (uplink). This should be more than adequate for our modest streaming needs — typically no more than two HD video streaming sessions, possibly concurrent with occasional large uploads or downloads.
Online work, email, and other usual internet activity consume relatively little bandwidth. So the bottom line is that our internet and television fees will drop by about $100 per month. Not bad for a bit of research work and a phone call.
The process of watching television might be a bit more complex than it used to be, but there are also new features that are useful and pleasing.
More complex? Yes, because we have to know where to find what we want to watch. Local live programming is all delivered via the television's antenna. Some of the channels appear on the Roku interface, and most of the choices are found on the Fubo streaming service. Getting used to sorting that out takes about three minutes.
Some streaming services allow users to record programs that they can't view when they're scheduled or want to watch later. The Fubo plan we use offers 250 hours of recordings.
If your library offers Hoopla, you can link your library account to that service and check out up to 20 TV programs and motion pictures per month. These are streamed without commercials. I've been watching the television adaptation of Stephen King's series of Mister Mercedes novels.
Want to watch the local news in Fargo, Albany, or San Diego? Roku has local news services such as NewsOn and Local Now. Many of the major-market news programs (think New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago) are missing, but NewsOn offers News 12 New York (which is actually a Connecticut station). If you miss a local newscast, you may be able to view it later using NewsOn.
Given the number of options, it might be easy to spend more time wandering around than actually watching programs.
Earlier I cited inertia as a reason for retaining cable television service long after the cost exceeded the value, but that's not all. Part of it was simply reluctance to get started on a project that appeared to be needlessly complex.
There's a lot to figure out, but it turns out not to be difficult. Consumer Reports has published several articles on the subject and there are other good resources:
So, yes, you'll have to do some reading and follow that up with some research; but you could save $1000 or more every year by eliminating large fees from your internet service provider's bill.
Egghead had closed its last retail store in 1998 and switched to selling online. In 2001, Egghead.com declared bankruptcy and computer retailer Fry's bought some of the assets.
I wrote: Fry's operates huge electronics stores in California, Texas, Oregon, and Arizona. Despite being an early online retailer, Egghead just couldn't figure out how to make things work. Some of the folks who paid $100 per share for Egghead stock were left holding stock worth 30 cents per share before bankruptcy. Fry's has been selling electronic since 1985, but didn't even have a website until last year. Fry's says it will continue to operate Egghead.com under that name, but nearly 70% of the company's employees will be laid off.
Fry's went out of business earlier this year and the domain "egghead.com" now redirects to Amazon.