Well, I am finally cutting the cord. Or satellite.

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SargeW

SargeW

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Well, after being a Direct TV customer for 20+ years they have succeed in running me off.  I received my bill yesterday and the service jumped $11+ this month.  And next month when all of the old promotions expire, it will go up another $40.  So a $50 jump in service that is not getting better, just more expensive has hit my red line. 

I will be using U Tube TV for streaming and locals, and Disney+ for various movies.  And the best part is my son has been using Utube TV for several years now very successfully. And he signed me up under their "family plan".  So I am already eligible for the service.  I  just need to update my Amazon Firestick.  We are having a new one sent, the 4K model, at a discounted rate of $25. 

So even though I had the RV prewired for the Traveler antenna, I am glad I didn't decide to pay the $2000 to put it on the roof during the build. It makes it much easier decision to pull the plug. I don't expect that AT&T will be too worried about my decision as they have lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers in the last year alone. 

 
I had YouTube Tv for a year before giving it up. I now only watch DVDs, Amazon Prime, Vudu and other free videos and movies. OTA is just too depressing. 5 minutes of content followed by 3 minutes of commercials repeated endlessly. And they have commercials playing during the content now down in the corner to distract you. And a lot of the 5 minutes of content is "...coming up next after the break..." They do everything they can to keep you tuned in. I finally had it after YouTube TV raised their prices twice in the year I was on from $35 to $50 to $55. That is way too much money to spend to watch commercials.
 
I stopped cable and OTA about 8 years ago, never looked back.
 
We cut the cord a few years before selling our home and going full-time, 2-years ago.  We have resorted to DVD', local programming when available via our antenna and YouTube Free stuff.  I have wondered about YouTube TV but have had some hesitation.
 
Interesting to hear that you're dumping your satellite service Marty. We've considered getting Dish's Pay As You Go service, with one of the newer (and far less expensive) portable satellite dishes, but in our opinions, there's so much garbage on TV that we just haven't been able to justify it.

The overwhelming number of our favorite movies and TV shows are on a four terrabyte hard drive in the RV, and we can watch them on any of the TVs, anytime. That media server has been one of the best entertainment investments we've made, and IIRC, I think it only cost us about $50.00. To catch the news, we're usually able to get an OTA channel, but not always. That's OK though, the biased information can wait.

Kev
 
That's me too Kev. There is so much fake news out there, I haven't watched the news, or football for that matter for the last 2 years.  I haven't missed it a bit.  And my bank account will be just a tad bit happier every month.  I use the web for weather conditions, and ESPN for baseball and other sporting events. 
 
I gave up cable and satellite when I moved to Los Angeles back in 2012.  Since I was working fulltime I didn't have much time to watch TV and there were dozens of OTA channels to choose from when I did want to be distracted.

When I stayed overnight out of town the motels had the usual TV lineup but I usually wound up reading stuff on my tablet instead of watching TV in the evening.

Since I retired I've accumulated about 4TB of movies, TV shows, etc. on a hard drive.  Plus the complete Three Stooges Collection and about 100+ movies on DVD.  I also have unlimited streaming via the Mobley (Amazon prime, Vudu and Hulu - I just got a $1.99 a month promotion for a year).

Then my sister gave me a 36" TV with good built-in sound.  Now I'm watching more TV and spending more time online than I really should.
 
I too have the complete 3 Stooges collection, it is wonderful, 20 DVDs for only $38. I also have the complete Laurel and Hardy collection, 10 discs for $34. I really love the 3rd Rock from the Sun box set, 17 discs for $22. One of the best is the Steve Martin:The Television Stuff. Three discs for $22 but they are three of the funniest discs of all time. It includes the famous 1978 Universal Amphitheater show that I got to see live. I have a ticket to see Steve and Martin Short next month.
 
You guys need a dose of reality TV, like the Sea Hunt and Highway Patrol series. My 8 year old granddaughter watches them with me and thinks they're awesome. I like the swimsuits and cars. :D

Kev
 
Yeah, I liked Sea Hunt.  All 161 episodes are available free on YouTube.  I also liked Cannonball, a short lived Canadian series about a pair of over the road truckers.  Paul Birch as Mike Malone and William Campbell as Jerry Austin.  Later William Campbell had a couple of roles in the Star Trek series including the super-being Trelane.  It also has a couple of episodes on YouTube.
 
Sea Hunt was part of my inspiration to take up scuba diving. Corner Gas is another fantastic Canadian series. Most popular series ever on Canadian TV and funny as heck.
 
Marty,

Your message motivated me to review our AT&T/DirecTV account. We use the service at our CA S&B house and via a roof-mounted Traveler antenna on the coach while we're in WY for most of the summer. Here in the OH townhome we use a basic Spectrum hardwired TV service that's part of our HOA package.

Over the years, for one reason or another, we've added channels & packages to the AT&T/DTV account, and currently pay $220/month. This will go up in January. We'll be reducing the number of channels/packages, which will cut the bill by at least 50%.

Meanwhile, we've accumulated 3 FireTV Sticks, and watch quite a bit of streaming video at all 3 locations. This will cause a further review and reduction of our ATT/DTV service options.
 
Good for you Tom. I am not a Direct TV hater by any means. I have been a subscriber for about 20 years, and have been happy for the most part. After each increase in rates I have re-evaluated the service, and it's value to me.

Due to changes in our viewing preferences we never watch network news, or sports anymore (football). Most everything else is available via OTA tv, or thru low cost alternatives.  The only real draw back is if we are in a place that has zero cell service.  But those locations are usually short term, a few days, then we move on.  When all the incentives expire in 2 weeks, I was not comfortable for the bill to go up about 35%.  I just don't use it that much. It was that little push I needed to make the move. Actually it feels pretty good as even at the discounted rate we were spending about $1200 a year to keep the service we didn't use much.
 
We cut the cord about a decade ago. Dish was getting too expensive, 250 channels and we watched only one or two. We get 14 OTA channels locally and still watch only a couple. On the road, the wife watches old tv shows on DVD or we read. When the grandkids go I plug in a movie at night. During the guys weekend I'll move the bedroom tv outside and turn on an OTA college game. Doesn't matter which spot.

In the bricks and sticks we have Roku, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and my son just signed us up for Disney+. Honestly, I prefer to listen to the radio and read.
 
Kevin Means said:
Interesting to hear that you're dumping your satellite service Marty. We've considered getting Dish's Pay As You Go service, with one of the newer (and far less expensive) portable satellite dishes, but in our opinions, there's so much garbage on TV that we just haven't been able to justify it.

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We got a cheap portable Dish Sat and receiver and Pay as you Go plan. We used it for 2 months in '18. It worked in remote areas where cellular service was not available. This year we went to Alaska where sat coverage from Dish is difficult to get on a small dish, so we left it home and didn't sign up for the service. We generally stream and it works in most places. I'm not sure the Dish equip was a wise investment since we've only got limited use out of it. We plan on the Canadian Maritime's next year but again that may be to far north for Dish. 
Streaming in Canada is not possible with our Verizon and AT&T car connect plan.
 
We had, and dumped, Dish Network maybe... 10-15 years ago? And I didn't even think it was worth more than the introductory $25-30/month at that time (and still don't)! It's more commercials than shows now, which is ridiculous to pay for. We lived just fine (even with small kids) on OTA and DVD's for many years, and have since added Prime and Netflix which cost less than $10/month each and more than covers our TV/movie needs. And the MLB.tv streaming subscription (I wait until mid-season when it goes on sale) during baseball months.

I travel frequently for work, so I still get doses of dish channels in hotels... and it all seems like total junk to me. Excessive advertising and the same shows on marathon for hours at a time on A&E, Discovery, History, HGTV, and similar channels. Much of which I can stream free or buy DVD sets for a one-time $20-30, if I really like them that much.

Tom, take a quick inventory of the shows you actually watch regularly. By the sound of things, you could save a thousand dollars in the first year if you permanently buy/download programs you watch instead. That does force you to give up "new" seasons, but we don't miss that anymore.
 
Well that answers my question.  We have a King Dome sitting on top of the motorhome.  Don't have service.  I've thought about cable.  Is it worth it?  Doesn't sound like it. 
 
We still have our Dish "Outdoor" account, but as we augment it with more and more streaming services, mostly free, I'm keeping track of how well streaming works in our usual camping areas. At some point, I'm sure streaming will overtake our satellite usage, and Dish will go away. Having the Dish Outdoor PAYGO account does give us the option of just shutting down the service for a month or so of testing though, until we're sure that's the way we want go. If it doesn't work out, restarting just takes paying for the next month.
 
For some time now I've been hearing that satellite TV providers have been losing customers to streaming services, but I don't know any actual figures. If true, I wonder how satellite is going to stay competetive. Are there enough customers in rural areas, and RVers traveling about to compete with the ever-expanding and improving cellular infrastructure? Satellite's overhead seems like it would be extremely high in comparison. (No pun intended.)

Kev
 
I've heard the cord cutter rate has been 3-4 percent a year for the past few years and is rising. It corresponds to the growth in streaming services.
 
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