steelersrule wrote:

I know what you mean. I would GLADLY pay $50/month for 15Mbps download, and 5Mbps Upload. Time Warner Cable charges me $40/month and I get 7Mbps download, with bursts up to 10Mbps, and Upload speeds of .5 Mbps.

And I don't even "AVERAGE" that. My best guess is that I average about 4Mbps-6Mbps download on a regular "streaming basis", due to either their old equipment(wish they would switch to Docsis 3.0), or usage by others on the same line if applicable(I live in a rural area of NW Pennsylvania).

Does your FIOS average/guarantee? your speeds at 15Mbps download, and does it maintain that speed for you on a consistent basis? If so I would LOVE to have FIOS, but don't expect it anytime within the next 10-15 years though

I actually have 2 DSL lines coming in to give me enough for reliable streaming. My local phone company is promising I should finally get fiber sometime next year so relief is coming. Like you I live in a rural area and to make it worse I have a super long driveway meaning I am a good distance from the road.

I guess I can't complain though because I have friends that can only get high speed via satellite with daily caps.

There is this little mom and pop grocery store that I visit occasionally and when they run a credit card you can hear the shared dial-up modem connecting for verification.

steelersrule wrote:

Does your FIOS average/guarantee? your speeds at 15Mbps download, and does it maintain that speed for you on a consistent basis?

In my experience what you pay for is what you get. I started at 10/2 when that was the bottom tier and I got 10/2. Upgraded to 15/5, get 15/5. For a little while I was at 25/10 or something like that, got exactly that. Now, the server on the other end can't always keep up, but with a reliable server it's rock solid. None that stupid/deceptive "speed burst" stuff to screw things up.

This is a great thread to read..and I say this with all sincerity that we are lucky to have an intelligent group of posters here in this forum. Im impressed at the knowledge and the excellent comments Ive read and have learned a great deal reading info here.

First , let me say that a loss of over 100,000 subscribers is significant. If they were at $70-$100 packages thats 7mil plus in revenues. That should concern any business but it may only represent a small piece of their pie and they are in some respects "too big to fail" with niche markets in apartments, condos and inner cities. They may have gained in their wireless area by selling internet subscriptions so they may have made some of that money back. There is no LOCKNAR device ( yes, got that from Heavy Metal) that you can add to your home and instantly reproduce all the things instantly that tv provides. Im sure everybody knew that. But trends indicate that more is coming and I dont think their market share is coming back regardless of the economy. See Hollywood Video/Blockbuster Video after NETFLIX and see Borders after Kindle and Nook. I think more and more TV stations will look to get streaming going to get stuff on your tablet or smartphone and that puts ROKU in the mix as well.

My cable company seems to provide the best unlimited use net service in my area and they said their primary business is Tv so its cheaper ($8) for me to have their lifeline tv with internet than without. I was ready to cancel it ( looks like mpeg crap)and completely cut the cord but not worth paying a total of $8 more just to say Im a cord-cutter. Yes, you heard me right, they will raise my net service up to $8 more for single service. They seemed to have upgraded it for 2011 and I get 16 channels clearly. Now whether you can get good OTA reception like I can at 30 channels or need to get the lifeline only for about $15 usually...either way..if you are going to cord cut( or cord trim)--for financial reasons or whatever...a good first step is to take the local channels out of the mix. I have an indoor uhf/vhf antenna and a digital-to-analog converter and the whole setup cost less than one monthly bill for pay tv. I get channels that neither DIRECTV or COMCAST has as I am pulling in channels from a network from a neighboring county. Good channels that I watch regularly now and that I didnt know existed. I got their program schedules online. You might as well have the networks, local independants and you wont miss anything of national or local significance.

My computer is old too, but it works and just replaced the monitor with a bigger better display and dont mind looking at it to watch HULU free service and also ok watching ESPN3 even though I would rather be watching on the TV set. I bought the ROKU XD and extremely happy with it and look at that as a great value with plenty of free programming that I will watch. Since Ive had it...all they have done is continue to add more and more channels. I dont think its garbage..I like it a lot and believe I will be entertained. Before you do a cord-cut..I would advise you get your other stuff in place and see what you will have so you know exactly how life will be with more money in your bank account .

Now some people out there dont even know what a ROKU is. And some , like I was , probably dont realize the amount of free programming out there that is available. But the word is getting out and the trend can only get bigger. You shouldnt take the 100k number and multiply by 4 and say thats what happens in a year as the numbers should grow exponentially with more options added all the time and people not seeing the value for the money in pay tv. Their (PAY TV)only answer in my opinion is to go to al-a-carte services. I personally dont mind fragmented services since I know Im managing the costs effectively.

I currently have DIRECTV and I have beaten them up bad and got huge monetary discounts and they have almost laid a guilt trip on me for all the offers. I like NCAA basketball and definately want to see the upcoming package for march madness . But in April, they are history.

I will miss Boardwalk Empire,have to buy The Walking Dead series at Amazon VOD, Discovery ID , ESPNs and FOX Sports, TNT and some other tier channel niche programming..but its just not worth the price. I can use that money to buy a real TV!

"I will miss Boardwalk Empire,have to buy The Walking Dead series at Amazon VOD, Discovery ID , ESPNs and FOX Sports, TNT"

UTorrent & EZTV take care of BW and the WD for us.

mommom wrote:

"I will miss Boardwalk Empire,have to buy The Walking Dead series at Amazon VOD, Discovery ID , ESPNs and FOX Sports, TNT"

UTorrent & EZTV take care of BW and the WD for us.

Maybe so, but I think part of cord cutting, IMO, is doing so in a way that stays above board. TWD is on Amazon VOD in HD for $14. Is that really so unaffordable if you're not paying for cable/satellite? BE will be on disc soon, so a Netflix disc plan can take care of that. The first case allowed you to get episodes the day after they premiered, while BE is getting the typical HBO treatment (delay, delay!) for non-subscribers. So we have to wait a few extra months, there's plenty else to watch!

FWIW, I used to be a daily visitor of that ol' .it site you mentioned. 10-15 shows a week at my peak. But then I lived in an apartment all last year where I couldn't connect to BT seeders. Hulu worked fine though, so I just got away from torrenting. With Roku now, I haven't felt a need to return.

As far as torrents go,I think everyone has there own tolerance.Thats up to the individual.The shows that I downloaded were all from channels that I had a subscription for at the time.I just didnt want them on the DVR because of grandkids.I dont have that any longer so I am not sure how that will play out.I think I am ok with any that are network tv that can be seen over the air somewhere in the US,or seen on the website of the channel or on HULU,etc.But now I have Pcs hooked up to the tvs so I may not need to think about it.

Thanks for the advice. I know there are torrents out there..and I guess you can find anything. A friend referred me to a site and I got to see the first runs ( while still at the boxoffice) of Machete and Piranaha. Within a month I had a malware virus requiring 2 trips to the geek store. That was more than I wanted to spend and decided I didnt need it that bad.

I mention this to people about cord cutting and I usually get this "deer in the headlights" look. One mom at my work said it would cause a family feud. Another I laugh at now that said they have to see Sons of Anarchy and she would go crazy( not her kids) if couldnt see Nick Jr. while MOMMOM 's post shows she got her daughter to find it herself .

The experiments written online are almost comical. Check these:

1) A guy on CNET writes a cord-cutting diary and gets punked out by his dad for not having the NBA game and eventially has to go back to pay TV for a non-negotiable loss of Lifetime movie channel from his spouse. ( answer: dad and him go to the sports bar and give mommy the money saved to go buy new shoes.Why did you experiment first before cutting?)
2) 4 Families are sent the current streaming devices and asked to try them for a month and see how they work. They get them and hook them up and wonder where are all the local channels. ( answer: like I said , some people have no clue)
3) A mom decides to take her family back to a Thoreau-esqe existance and cut all the technology. The youngest daughter moves out so she can have facebook and the rest of the kids show they can do it. Mentioned later was the fact that she bribed the kids to do this and maybe they hoped for a reality show or something.( answer: yes, wont that be fun telling people at the water cooler how much you charged your grandson for landing on your PARK PLACE hotel.)

I did find Walking Dead on an OVG location( poor copy--just checking since I still have pay TV)--but could have bought the whole 6 episodes for $10 on VOD.On Boardwalk--spending the monthly fee just to see it live seems to me like overspending. Its the price of owning the whole thing on DVD.

Espn is supposed to be doing a deal with XBOX, maybe Amazon will do a deal with HBO because both of those will have online-type experiences soon. Just seems to me its getting easier to find what you want. The good thing about this forum is that we have mutiple people looking .

mommom wrote:

As far as torrents go,I think everyone has there own tolerance.Thats up to the individual.The shows that I downloaded were all from channels that I had a subscription for at the time.I just didnt want them on the DVR because of grandkids.I dont have that any longer so I am not sure how that will play out.I think I am ok with any that are network tv that can be seen over the air somewhere in the US,or seen on the website of the channel or on HULU,etc.But now I have Pcs hooked up to the tvs so I may not need to think about it.

Fair enough. I've done that a few times, mainly when I was going to be on a train between college and home (for 4+ hours) in recent years. I don't see it being a big deal either, as long as you're paying for the channel (on cable) or can get it OTA, on Hulu or the channel's site. Oh, and don't be a Nielsen household! Even though Hulu isn't quite as instant as BT (at its best), I don't mind watching a couple ads to have the reliable quality. On the other hand, when certain networks pull these 30-day delays...

Having done this 2 months ago, I must admit, sending $70 less every month to cox is great. What I have found is that instead of using the TV for background noise, I need to think about what I want to watch. Between over the air local channels and what I can get via Roku, I not sure I'm missing much. Its made me question the convenience argument, could it be that its not a matter of convenience, but laziness? I still stand by my conviction that this is the year, cable cutting becomes a viable alternative, and not just for geeks either.

Lets not forget the rumor that Amazon will be rolling out a netflix like service soon.

I am looking forward to the Amazon streaming,even if there are only a few shows that are not on NF free is good.I have free Amazon Prime with the moms program.Just have to make some purchases every so often for the grandkids,baby showers,etc.

tekpedia wrote:

Having done this 2 months ago, I must admit, sending $70 less every month to cox is great. What I have found is that instead of using the TV for background noise, I need to think about what I want to watch. Between over the air local channels and what I can get via Roku, I not sure I'm missing much. Its made me question the convenience argument, could it be that its not a matter of convenience, but laziness? I still stand by my conviction that this is the year, cable cutting becomes a viable alternative, and not just for geeks either.

Lets not forget the rumor that Amazon will be rolling out a netflix like service soon.

I don't think it is laziness it is just not on most people's radar. There are people out there that pride themselves on living without electricity and water too but for most of us we are content with our current lifestyle including pay tv.

What I do not understand is why a cord cutter would want anyone else to cut the cord. Unless you don't watch any of them, there is no answer for what happens to the content produced on cable channels. They won't keep coming to netflix or out on DVD if people like me stop paying for them. As it is, I have cut my premium channels so one less person is paying to keep shows like Dexter and Weeds coming. The SyFy network had to cancel Stargate Universe and Caprica because it does not have enough money to maintain too many shows at one time unless they have a really strong following. What happens to Eureka and Warehouse 13 if there is a mass exodus from cable? Not to mention that the internet infrastructure cannot handle a massive number of cable refugees yet. Personally I hope the growth for streaming remains manageable and does not get out of control because I have enough headaches with it as it is and many of my favorite shows are not on network TV.

As far as torrents go,I think everyone has there own tolerance.Thats up to the individual.The shows that I downloaded were all from channels that I had a subscription for at the time.I just didnt want them on the DVR because of grandkids.I dont have that any longer so I am not sure how that will play out

I am not going to go on an ethical thing here - it isn't the place for it. However, unless you are using super private trackers - your ip is out there for anyone to capture and you will get caught one day, especially on current content. Think about it, all HBO has to do is download the torrent at the same time as you and capture all the IP's that are out there for the torrent and then contact your internet provider. Seen it done, so it does happen.

robertm wrote:

What I do not understand is why a cord cutter would want anyone else to cut the cord. Unless you don't watch any of them, there is no answer for what happens to the content produced on cable channels.

Sure there is: they'll find a different revenue model. Evolution in the ways people are entertained has happened a lot over the past few thousand years, but somehow people muddle along.

Certainly if everyone abandoned cable for streaming, our programming options would explode. On the other hand, the cash cow of cable and satellite tv is making up much of the revenue that drives development of new programming, so we can expect costs to access content via streaming to increase. (We may one day see first run HBO series on Netflix, but not at $8 a month.)

Certainly if everyone abandoned cable for streaming, our programming options would explode. On the other hand, the cash cow of cable and satellite tv is making up much of the revenue that drives development of new programming, so we can expect costs to access content via streaming to increase. (We may one day see first run HBO series on Netflix, but not at $8 a month.)

I know I would gladly pay for quality content, ala carte, opposed to my big honkin' cable bill where I really only watch 10 of the 100 channels of crap. If those channels were available right now on amazon vod, I would seriously consider cutting the cord (they aren't though, so no go).

Our household devours TV - but we really do stick to the same areas, and we don't have any premium channels. $90 a month is getting to be ridiculous.