Becoming a cord-cutter (sort of)

[SeilerBird]

Wow

I just googled this;

View attachment 159197

and this;

View attachment 159198

Maybe it's very new and the announcement was buried in a spam folder

It is not new it is the same thing they have been trying to sell me for years. They just changed the name. The free account is more than enough for me.

 

[jymbee]

Starlink operates much like conventional cell towers except the signal from a local ground station is relayed through antennas a few hundred miles up and moving across the sky. Just like a cell tower can only serve a certain number of people Starlink can only accommodate a certain number of users around each ground station.

Starlink RV accounts are provided on a "best effort" basis and have lower priority than fixed users in an area. Your friend can get an RV account but if his area closed to new users because it's ground station is full it's likely he will have degraded service while he's there. Or no service if Starlink has not yet established a ground station in his area. Some RV users are reporting being slowed to close to dial-up speeds when they're in a heavily congested area.

Thanks much for the insights Lou. I guess they'll just have to continue to check the Starlink status in their area. Let's just hope that long term the Chief Twit isn't contemplating some kind of bait and switch. First the 1TB threshold, then...

 

[DutchmenSport]

Never had Starlink, but did have Direct TV and Dish TV in the past. Dropped all of that and went to over-the-air television like in the "old days." Fast forward a few more years and we stream video now. The only "Paid" service was utilize is Amazon Prime, but we also purchase stuff from Amazon so this, in a way, is kind of like a freebee.

We have Roku televisions. So there is the 100% free Roku site. Then we ue Fawesome (100% free), TUBI (100% free), Freevee, Peacock, Pluto, Plex, (all 100% free).

If you have a Roku television, you can easily flip over to "over-the-air" television and use your camper's on-board antenna for local stations.

There is so much "free" stuff out there, it's insane. There's no reason to "pay" for a service.

All you need is a truly unlimited data plan ... Enter... Visible!

 

[Tom]

If you have a Roku television, you can easily flip over to "over-the-air" television and use your camper's on-board antenna for local stations.

The OTA antenna on our 5W doesn't work. Called the manufacturer and they confirmed it's likely not connected/wired to anything.

 

[SeilerBird]

There is so much "free" stuff out there, it's insane. There's no reason to "pay" for a service.

Yes there is a reason to pay for a service. Very few MLB games come over the air for free. As a lifetime of bleeding Dodger blue the MLB TV for $129 for the season is a bargain for me.

 

[Ex-Calif]

If you have good self-discipline, some of the services permit you to sign up and then activate/deactivate your account on demand. Netflix & Hulu are examples. That enable you to "binge watch" a series or movies and then deactivate to save $$. Also useful if you just need tv for a vacation trip in the ole RV.

My sister does that. In fact she gets the "two week free trial", binges what she wants and then cancels. Her Scottish ancestry is definitely strong - LOL...

I also use an app called "Just Watch." You type in a title and it shows you all the places (and $$) where it can be watched.

Yes there is a reason to pay for a service. Very few MLB games come over the air for free. As a lifetime of bleeding Dodger blue the MLB TV for $129 for the season is a bargain for me.

I do the same thing with F1.

 

[jimrex]

Never had Starlink, but did have Direct TV and Dish TV in the past. Dropped all of that and went to over-the-air television like in the "old days." Fast forward a few more years and we stream video now. The only "Paid" service was utilize is Amazon Prime, but we also purchase stuff from Amazon so this, in a way, is kind of like a freebee.

We have Roku televisions. So there is the 100% free Roku site. Then we ue Fawesome (100% free), TUBI (100% free), Freevee, Peacock, Pluto, Plex, (all 100% free).

If you have a Roku television, you can easily flip over to "over-the-air" television and use your camper's on-board antenna for local stations.

There is so much "free" stuff out there, it's insane. There's no reason to "pay" for a service.

All you need is a truly unlimited data plan ... Enter... Visible!

I agree... I would find plenty to watch for free or on Slammazon, but someone really likes her Alaskan shows and local news available wherever we go.

 

[DutchmenSport]

Jimrex: What's "Visible"?

Visible web site, click here.

A bunch of YouTube Videos, click here.

 

[niget2002]

We cut the cord many years ago. Before Youtube TV existed.

At first we just had an OTA antenna and used a network based tuner to stream OTA channels to devices through Plex. After a while, we added Playstation VUE. It was very similar to Youtube TV, but better priced with more channels. Playstation did a horrible job of marketing that product and ended up decommissioning it a few years back. At that point we switched to Youtube TV as I'm a big college football fan and it had the best sports options while still having some of the channels my kids like.

At this point we have the following streaming services through various means:

Netflix (paid for)
Youtube TV (paid for)
Amazon Prime (provide through prime)
Hulu (not +, provided through our cell service)
Disney+ (provided through cell service)
ESPN+ (provided through cell service, don't even watch this one)

We also have a family plan for Spotify that we use for most of our music listening. Ugh, and if we're adding music options, I still pay for SiriusXM on two vehicles. It's amazing for travel when cell service drops.

The cost we're paying is still cheaper than the DirectTV was when we had that and the Fios TV when we had that.