Good point since this is competing with the current internet services.
Alternatives to Big Cable
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Good point since this is competing with the current internet services.
The Cable Rant from Hell or, Why I am Looking for Alternatives to Big Cable
Day 1: Morning. We eat static for breakfast. I pull the plugs, from the TV, charger jacks, from the cable box and router. Let sit 5 minutes or more, replug and reboot. No joy: "AT&T Service is not available at this time. Please do the following: Unplug, wait around, and reboot all your crap and repeat 10 times in a row. If that don't work, here's a web address." But ... the internet is out ... how am I supposed to ... ?
Finally find a phone number, and of course the first thing they tell me to do is reboot everything. Said I did all that already, several times. It appears there is simply no signal coming into the house. She runs some remote tests. By now it is about 3pm, and I accept that it may be too late for a service call that day, I understand, fine. They will definitely try to make it before the end of business tomorrow, and understand how important my cable and internet are to me. Oh do they now. Got their nose right up there huh.
Day Two: Wake up, and behold! Internet! Still no cable TV, and finally the guy shows up. He mickey-mouses around for 2 hours, reboots the cable box, and everything works. I ask him what he did besides reboot the box just now and he says he didn't do anything. He's looking at his computer book and says, "Oh! Look! Look!" He hands me the iPad.
Me: "What am I looking at?"
Cable Guy: "See? Someone was here yesterday, outside, working on the lines or something. See?"
Me: "Never knew. I do know that 5 minutes after the cable and internet went out, I received a text message from AT&T telling me they just improved my local cell phone service." He did not think that was funny. Neither did I. It was supposed to be true, and it was.
Okay so everything works. For a day. Then bupkiss again.
Me: "What did you touch!?!?!"
Wife: "Nothing! It was off when I woke up. I already called. They said a service charge may apply this time. I said it most certainly may not until they find out exactly what the problem is, because all this equipment is theirs not ours."
Me: "That's the girl I married. What time are they coming?"
Wife: "Maybe tomorrow, if not by the end of business tomorrow, definitely before the end of the world."
Me: "No cable or internet ... for maybe days? To save our marriage, I think we now need some time apart."
With pens hovering over the divorce papers, they come again, tell me the data port on the street is shot. They fix it. Everything works. Except the DVR functions. Now we can't record anything. I notice I have a garbled poor-quality phone message, something about needing to get into my garage one more time so can someone please wait around all day again?
Their automated phone assistance made me want to stick a gun in my mouth. Nearly impossible to talk to a live person. When you finally get one, they have no record of your problem from past calls. So I figure out a way to fix all this.
Me: "Hi, I'm Ohms Lawbreaker, account number 555-666. I'd like to cancel my cable TV, internet, and cell phone service please. My wife will be cancelling her cell phone service too, but I guess she'll have to do that herself."
AT&T Rep: "Oh, so sorry to blagh blagh! Is there something wrong with the quality of your service? Perhaps we can fix that for you."
Me: "No, no problem."
AT&T Rep: Long lag ... "Sir? If you could tell me the reason -- "
Me: "No reason. Don't think I need a reason not to buy something."
AT&T: "But it would help for our records if -- "
Me: "Ain't that the truth! I'm so disorganized myself. Tell ya what. I'll help you with your records if you come over and help me with mine, you know, Even Steven. Otherwise, I'm not sure why I should care about your records."
AT&T Rep: "I can go ahead and get this started for you, but could you tell me, did your cable go out? If the service -- "
Me: "I love the service. It's beautiful. I love you, too."
AT&T Rep: ".... Ohhh-kaaay.... We'll go ahead and take care of that for you. Thank you for using AT&T."
Day 1: Morning. We eat static for breakfast. I pull the plugs, from the TV, charger jacks, from the cable box and router. Let sit 5 minutes or more, replug and reboot. No joy: "AT&T Service is not available at this time. Please do the following: Unplug, wait around, and reboot all your crap and repeat 10 times in a row. If that don't work, here's a web address." But ... the internet is out ... how am I supposed to ... ?
Finally find a phone number, and of course the first thing they tell me to do is reboot everything. Said I did all that already, several times. It appears there is simply no signal coming into the house. She runs some remote tests. By now it is about 3pm, and I accept that it may be too late for a service call that day, I understand, fine. They will definitely try to make it before the end of business tomorrow, and understand how important my cable and internet are to me. Oh do they now. Got their nose right up there huh.
Day Two: Wake up, and behold! Internet! Still no cable TV, and finally the guy shows up. He mickey-mouses around for 2 hours, reboots the cable box, and everything works. I ask him what he did besides reboot the box just now and he says he didn't do anything. He's looking at his computer book and says, "Oh! Look! Look!" He hands me the iPad.
Me: "What am I looking at?"
Cable Guy: "See? Someone was here yesterday, outside, working on the lines or something. See?"
Me: "Never knew. I do know that 5 minutes after the cable and internet went out, I received a text message from AT&T telling me they just improved my local cell phone service." He did not think that was funny. Neither did I. It was supposed to be true, and it was.
Okay so everything works. For a day. Then bupkiss again.
Me: "What did you touch!?!?!"
Wife: "Nothing! It was off when I woke up. I already called. They said a service charge may apply this time. I said it most certainly may not until they find out exactly what the problem is, because all this equipment is theirs not ours."
Me: "That's the girl I married. What time are they coming?"
Wife: "Maybe tomorrow, if not by the end of business tomorrow, definitely before the end of the world."
Me: "No cable or internet ... for maybe days? To save our marriage, I think we now need some time apart."
With pens hovering over the divorce papers, they come again, tell me the data port on the street is shot. They fix it. Everything works. Except the DVR functions. Now we can't record anything. I notice I have a garbled poor-quality phone message, something about needing to get into my garage one more time so can someone please wait around all day again?
Their automated phone assistance made me want to stick a gun in my mouth. Nearly impossible to talk to a live person. When you finally get one, they have no record of your problem from past calls. So I figure out a way to fix all this.
Me: "Hi, I'm Ohms Lawbreaker, account number 555-666. I'd like to cancel my cable TV, internet, and cell phone service please. My wife will be cancelling her cell phone service too, but I guess she'll have to do that herself."
AT&T Rep: "Oh, so sorry to blagh blagh! Is there something wrong with the quality of your service? Perhaps we can fix that for you."
Me: "No, no problem."
AT&T Rep: Long lag ... "Sir? If you could tell me the reason -- "
Me: "No reason. Don't think I need a reason not to buy something."
AT&T: "But it would help for our records if -- "
Me: "Ain't that the truth! I'm so disorganized myself. Tell ya what. I'll help you with your records if you come over and help me with mine, you know, Even Steven. Otherwise, I'm not sure why I should care about your records."
AT&T Rep: "I can go ahead and get this started for you, but could you tell me, did your cable go out? If the service -- "
Me: "I love the service. It's beautiful. I love you, too."
AT&T Rep: ".... Ohhh-kaaay.... We'll go ahead and take care of that for you. Thank you for using AT&T."
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You are a lot more tactful than I am. After awhile every other word has a G a D, and an F or two.
As I sit here and wait, I have a 2nd tab open with a clicked link. The little blue circle is going around and around while I post ... No, wait ... it just locked in and rendered the page. I think it knew I was about to say that AT&T 6mbps DSL is crap.
Oh no, when I actually said it ... there's the little blue circle again.
I have a static DNS of 8.8.8.8 (Google) with 8.8.4.4 as backup and Speedtest.net says I'm downloading at 5.88mbps and uploading at .479mbps, right on the targeted QOS levels. What I really want to know is where the bottleneck occurs! NeoTracePro tells me the bottleneck is at different places in the hop path when I run traces and log transit times. Most of the time all hops show green (under 150ms).
You can't win. When you complain, they blame it on internet traffic congestion, naturally not on their lines. They get good transit times from tech support, too!
Oh no, when I actually said it ... there's the little blue circle again.
I have a static DNS of 8.8.8.8 (Google) with 8.8.4.4 as backup and Speedtest.net says I'm downloading at 5.88mbps and uploading at .479mbps, right on the targeted QOS levels. What I really want to know is where the bottleneck occurs! NeoTracePro tells me the bottleneck is at different places in the hop path when I run traces and log transit times. Most of the time all hops show green (under 150ms).
You can't win. When you complain, they blame it on internet traffic congestion, naturally not on their lines. They get good transit times from tech support, too!
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I'm in one of those county line areas where they stop the high speed fiber lines right before your address. The whole area is upscale, but has old fashioned POTS (plain old telephone service) with DSL internet. I know that fiber runs up the highway a couple of blocks from our subdivision. Still, DSL is all I can get. Cable doesn't run here, so satellite is the only option and that's only economically feasible if you don't want to watch a lot of video.
I thought AT&T was about to place a Vrad box where our telco service connects to the DSLAM. They took out a huge grey box and replaced it with two smaller boxes stacked on top of each other. Still, they say no Uverse and the lady on the AT&T CS line said she lives in a area without Uverse and they won't tell her either. Comcast is up the road in the next town, as is Cox. They both tell me not yet! Shucks.
HD TV works well with 6mbps connections as long as the stream is steady and stays above 3mbps. I watch Amazon TV shows upstairs on the gaming computer and hardly ever get the blue circle of death.
Articles I've read say that Washington screwed it all up when they turned the internet over to Big Telecom. It's common knowledge that these competing companies have unwritten agreements to stay out of each others' markets. It's supposedly why we don't see multiple companies competing, upping the speed, and slashing prices. If you know that your competitor won't come and feed on your customers as long as you don't feed on theirs, nothing really drives you to improve service at a lower cost.
I thought AT&T was about to place a Vrad box where our telco service connects to the DSLAM. They took out a huge grey box and replaced it with two smaller boxes stacked on top of each other. Still, they say no Uverse and the lady on the AT&T CS line said she lives in a area without Uverse and they won't tell her either. Comcast is up the road in the next town, as is Cox. They both tell me not yet! Shucks.
HD TV works well with 6mbps connections as long as the stream is steady and stays above 3mbps. I watch Amazon TV shows upstairs on the gaming computer and hardly ever get the blue circle of death.
Articles I've read say that Washington screwed it all up when they turned the internet over to Big Telecom. It's common knowledge that these competing companies have unwritten agreements to stay out of each others' markets. It's supposedly why we don't see multiple companies competing, upping the speed, and slashing prices. If you know that your competitor won't come and feed on your customers as long as you don't feed on theirs, nothing really drives you to improve service at a lower cost.
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I just upgraded from the Dish Hopper to the Hopper with Sling. We have 3 joeys scattered across the house in addition to the Hopper that feeds the big screen TV in the family room. I assumed that the sling feature from Dish would allow me to access internet TV. Not! They are smart enough to know that I could get anything through the sling that I wanted.
The sling is only there to allow me to use my phone to contact my Hopper and watch TV on my phone or tablet. What a waste! I'm going to have to buy a Roku or something to watch internet TV. I'll probably just buy a blue ray player to replace my 5 CD/DVD carousel player.
Giving up Dish might be problematic. I'd need Roku hardware everywhere I wanted to watch TV, right? All that would have to have access to my wireless router the way I see it. I'm sold on doing internet TV, but I really don't want to give up Dish until I have an internet connection that will support multiple lines doing lots of stuff at once. I like to watch science shows in the family room at night while my wife watches her DIY and HGTV shows in the bedroom.
The sling is only there to allow me to use my phone to contact my Hopper and watch TV on my phone or tablet. What a waste! I'm going to have to buy a Roku or something to watch internet TV. I'll probably just buy a blue ray player to replace my 5 CD/DVD carousel player.
Giving up Dish might be problematic. I'd need Roku hardware everywhere I wanted to watch TV, right? All that would have to have access to my wireless router the way I see it. I'm sold on doing internet TV, but I really don't want to give up Dish until I have an internet connection that will support multiple lines doing lots of stuff at once. I like to watch science shows in the family room at night while my wife watches her DIY and HGTV shows in the bedroom.
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I wondered about the As Seen on TV USB TV thingy. Does it require a computer to work or would it work with a USB port on my Dish box and allow me to run an app to use it as a tuner that accesses my wireless internet connection?
I had a subscription to PlayOn TV once. It did the job while one of our locals was blacked out on Dish. I scrapped it after we got the network affiliate back.
I had a subscription to PlayOn TV once. It did the job while one of our locals was blacked out on Dish. I scrapped it after we got the network affiliate back.
DaveP, I live out in the middle of nowhere. About 15 years ago this place was a cow pasture, and when the electric fence acts up it often reverts to one.
We have a well for water, no local phone line, the electric coop charged us $2000 to run a line and set poles and transformers.
We've been using DirecTv since about 1997 as it was the only way to watch anything other than over the air broadcasts. DSl isn't an option.
I had a Sprint USB data modem hooked to a travel router for about 5 years and it worked fine until several people wanted to get online at the same time.
Last year I had a dedicated high speed wireless internet provider hook me up. They use the cell towers around here, and there is one about 2 1/2, maybe 3 miles, line of site from my house. Since I paid the electric coop for the poles it wasn't an issue to attach the wireless antenna to get a solid signal.
Compared to the Sprint connection, this service is night and day. I can use my netbook and browse online while I stream shows on my TV over the Android stick.
Are there faster services out there? Yes, but there are none available to me, where I actually live.
One of my co-workers used to continually brag about how awesome his Verizon FIOS service was, but he also complained about his 45 minute one way commute to work everyday.
I live in the middle of no where with cows, bobcat, coyotes and deer for neighbors, but my commute is 5 miles, so I deal with what others might consider lackluster internet connectivity. I'm happy for the peace and quiet, so it's not a bad trade off for me.
We have a well for water, no local phone line, the electric coop charged us $2000 to run a line and set poles and transformers.
We've been using DirecTv since about 1997 as it was the only way to watch anything other than over the air broadcasts. DSl isn't an option.
I had a Sprint USB data modem hooked to a travel router for about 5 years and it worked fine until several people wanted to get online at the same time.
Last year I had a dedicated high speed wireless internet provider hook me up. They use the cell towers around here, and there is one about 2 1/2, maybe 3 miles, line of site from my house. Since I paid the electric coop for the poles it wasn't an issue to attach the wireless antenna to get a solid signal.
Compared to the Sprint connection, this service is night and day. I can use my netbook and browse online while I stream shows on my TV over the Android stick.
Are there faster services out there? Yes, but there are none available to me, where I actually live.
One of my co-workers used to continually brag about how awesome his Verizon FIOS service was, but he also complained about his 45 minute one way commute to work everyday.
I live in the middle of no where with cows, bobcat, coyotes and deer for neighbors, but my commute is 5 miles, so I deal with what others might consider lackluster internet connectivity. I'm happy for the peace and quiet, so it's not a bad trade off for me.
You are a perfect candidate for satellite or cell wireless internet. I'm actually not out in the boonies, but I'm on the edge of two counties about 10 miles from downtown. There's a brand new upscale mall a mile away and it's 2 miles to I-75. There are plenty of retail businesses and restaurants at the next exit and more traffic than I wanted to see when I moved out here 16 years ago. Urban sprawl has reached the northern county line and spilled into the next. Fiber just hasn't made it yet.
I'll keep my DSL until FIOS or Uverse hits the area. It's not a speed demon but it's fast enough for HD when it's operating as advertised. I get 4G here and it tests out to be 21mbps, but at $10/GB it's more expensive than my 150GB limit on DSL that's included in my contract. I usually consume 12 to 16 GB per month. That would be over $300 on Verizon Wireless.
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Right now my fiance and I have no TV, and cable is so expensive (and usually terrible) that we just have the internet and Netflix. I tried Hulu for a few weeks, and really didn't like it. Only a few episodes of each show, and some of the shows they listed weren't even available to watch. Add to that the advertisements (half the reason I hate TV) and it just seems a bit ridiculous. I really wish there were a better option, but I'm not paying $40+/month to watch 2 or 3 TV shows I *kind of* like.
If you have one of those flat screen TVs with wireless or wired internet access built in (some have the keyboard on the back of the remote) or a Blueray player with the same, you could use one of those $10 As Seen on TV USB adapters to put all the stations within access of your easy chair. All you need is a wireless connection to do that. It's just links to readily accessible internet web pages for the networks and other sources for content, but it puts all of it together in clickable format for $10, so it's convenience you are paying for.
Then, you'd have to buy a digital antenna for local stations if you are out of range without it.
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So coincidentally.... last night my fiance received a gift in the mail from my parents (her birthday is the 19th)... a brand new TV, along with a Google Chromecast... We set it up last night and it really is a neat device.
The Chromecast is $35 (one time purchase, no subscription) that streams video to your TV from the internet. Netflix, Hulu, and whatever else. Just plug it into the TV (one HDMI plug and one USB plug), download the app from Google and away you go. It's not perfect (a bit of lag, and a slight connection problem here and there, as there is with any wifi device), but all in all a very neat setup. It connects to your wifi network, and your computer/phone/tablet is simply a "remote" of sorts... the TV/Chromecast streams from the internet, so it doesn't eat up the battery in your phone/laptop. If you've got lots of people using the internet at the same time, the quality can be less than ideal, but otherwise it's great quality... really surprising in fact.
Basically, it's a really easy way to get any online TV subscriptions you already have, onto the big screen. I suggest anyone that doesn't want to pay for cable at least check it out. There are other devices like it, but for $35, why not give it a shot?
The Chromecast is $35 (one time purchase, no subscription) that streams video to your TV from the internet. Netflix, Hulu, and whatever else. Just plug it into the TV (one HDMI plug and one USB plug), download the app from Google and away you go. It's not perfect (a bit of lag, and a slight connection problem here and there, as there is with any wifi device), but all in all a very neat setup. It connects to your wifi network, and your computer/phone/tablet is simply a "remote" of sorts... the TV/Chromecast streams from the internet, so it doesn't eat up the battery in your phone/laptop. If you've got lots of people using the internet at the same time, the quality can be less than ideal, but otherwise it's great quality... really surprising in fact.
Basically, it's a really easy way to get any online TV subscriptions you already have, onto the big screen. I suggest anyone that doesn't want to pay for cable at least check it out. There are other devices like it, but for $35, why not give it a shot?
Thanks everybody, sorry it took me a while to get around to reading and Liking your posts, kinda got lost and spaced out around here. 
Our WII connects to our wireless router and lets us go to the internet and reach whatever we want to see. It's cumbersome, but effective when there are network TV blackouts on DISH (which has only happened once or twice in years). The WII remote is shaky across a 20 foot room. I have Amazon Prime and that opens up lots of viewing opportunities. I use Amazon upstairs to watch TV on my exercise bike. Right now, I'm almost to the end of Star Trek Season 1 in HD.
We've got Amazon Prime too. We're not big movie people though, so paying $2-3 for a movie we probably won't finish doesn't make much sense... I tried Hulu for a while, but really did not care for it. Ads, limited episodes of each show, and some of the shows they listed weren't actually available. You could click on it and it would say "sorry, we don't have this. Tough luck" in not so many words. Why advertise it when you don't have it?
Speaking of Hulu/AP/Netflix... are there any other options?
The problem with Netflix is that they really don't have any new (even new-ish) episodes available.
Hulu has lots of ads, and unlike Netflix, they ONLY have the new episodes. There seem to be a lot of gaps in between the two.
Amazon Prime is good, but it's mostly movies and you still have to pay...
What else is out there besides good ol' fashioned illegal downloading?
The problem with Netflix is that they really don't have any new (even new-ish) episodes available.
Hulu has lots of ads, and unlike Netflix, they ONLY have the new episodes. There seem to be a lot of gaps in between the two.
Amazon Prime is good, but it's mostly movies and you still have to pay...
What else is out there besides good ol' fashioned illegal downloading?
Amazon Prime came as a free trial with my Kindle fire a few years ago. I renewed it because it came with free 2 day shipping for orders from Amazon. Between my watching old TV series while I do my workout and free shipping for things I order, I have kept it active. I've also downloaded a number of free Kindle books under that program.
It's funny, we have a Dish Joey upstairs in the room with the treadmill and the Total Gym, but I put my exercise bike in an adjoining room where my gaming computer is. I watch the Dish programming if I'm in one room and the computer monitor in the other. If I did a two TV wiring job I could watch Dish or the computer in both. Since I have HDMI as well as a digital monitor output on the computer I could hang a flat screen on the wall and switch between both in either room.
I just stick with my Roku 3, PC(for streaming/downloading from...sources), and HD OTA.
I was reading ahead to see if someone mentioned this. We've used Chromecast for a few months now, streaming content from Netflix, and really, so far, not as much as a hiccup in performance. No buffering, except for maybe about 4 seconds at the start. YouTube works great too, I watch a lot of instrument tutorials and it's so much better on a 42" screen. My only criticism is the limited amount of apps. They've been saying they're developing more, but I'm waiting still. What I would like is to be able to stream my browser content to the TV. But from my iPad. To do that you need the Chrome browser, and Google keeps telling me my platform doesn't support this just yet, check back later...right.
But, as you said, for $35 you just can't go wrong with this device!
I don't know about that. They've really stepped up their game with their own productions. We've recently watched whole seasons of Lilyhammer, Orange Is The New Black, Hemlock Grove and we're in the middle of season one of House of Cards. And a few days ago they released the entire second season of HOC at one time. So far I'm a bit amazed that their production quality, writing, etc., to me, seems on a par with HBO, Showtime and the others. I do agree tho, that they need to speed up their migration to the streaming model. Why are so many new-run products on disc only? You would think the streaming would be more profitable for them. All in all tho, I'm loving the Chromecast.
(Just an aside. I hate to admit this, but I guess I must own up to it. Back around 2005 or so I remember reading how Netflix was looking to transition to a streaming model. At that time if I remember right, Netflix shares were about $26. I told a family member that they would do well by buying some stock and just holding, streaming was going to be a game changer. Other things in life intervened and I never ended up buying any myself. At the market close on Friday the 14th Netflix (NFLX) was $435.51...)
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