[cwnelson]

I am looking for advice/suggestions.

I have been shuddering every time I pay my monthly Spectrum bill, and since I moved to my current location almost 10 years ago, I have been unhappy with TWC/Spectrum in their pricing, customer service, and the fact that they don't really play nice with Tivo. There is no other cable provider in my area.

Some of the Tivo issues were resolved for a few years, but now that they have dumped cable cards, I am missing a few channels and I pay about twice what I think I should, and before I moved, my cable provider charged less than half of what I pay now, and the CCI Byte wasn't maxed like it is here (for TTG downloads).

I thought about cutting the cord and going with Edge OTA; the last couple of Tivos I have bought (I own a Bolt, Roamio, and Premiere) the salesperson was able to cut me a deal on the box and all-in service (sometimes by transferring my all-in from one box to another, and my Premiere may have just died permanently). Now, Tivo appears to have outsourced their sales and there are no deals to be made aside from their usual promo, and I don't want to go back to a monthly fee. Likewise, Spectrum won't budge on anything, despite the fact that several channels are missing due to no cablecards.

I really don't want to pay so much for cable, especially with functionality slowed by lack of cablecards and the ever-present CCI Byte. Any recommendations or wisdom maybe I haven't thought of?

 

[osu1991]

Try the free trials for the various streaming tv providers and see if any of them satisfy your needs.

YouTubeTV
Philo
SlingTV
FuboTV
Hulu LiveTv
Directv Stream

If an antenna works for locals then perhaps subscribe off and on to the various premium streaming services as wanted/needed for supplemental programming.

Paramount+
Discovery+
Peacock (free and premium)
Netflix
Disney+
HBOmax
Prime
AcornTV
BritBox
Apple+


Free streaming services like PlutoTV and TubiTV also offer a lot of ad supported programming.

 

[Aaron Malloy]

I am looking for advice/suggestions.

I have been shuddering every time I pay my monthly Spectrum bill, and since I moved to my current location almost 10 years ago, I have been unhappy with TWC/Spectrum in their pricing, customer service, and the fact that they don't really play nice with Tivo. There is no other cable provider in my area.

Some of the Tivo issues were resolved for a few years, but now that they have dumped cable cards, I am missing a few channels and I pay about twice what I think I should, and before I moved, my cable provider charged less than half of what I pay now, and the CCI Byte wasn't maxed like it is here (for TTG downloads).

I thought about cutting the cord and going with Edge OTA; the last couple of Tivos I have bought (I own a Bolt, Roamio, and Premiere) the salesperson was able to cut me a deal on the box and all-in service (sometimes by transferring my all-in from one box to another, and my Premiere may have just died permanently). Now, Tivo appears to have outsourced their sales and there are no deals to be made aside from their usual promo, and I don't want to go back to a monthly fee. Likewise, Spectrum won't budge on anything, despite the fact that several channels are missing due to no cablecards.

I really don't want to pay so much for cable, especially with functionality slowed by lack of cablecards and the ever-present CCI Byte. Any recommendations or wisdom maybe I haven't thought of?

You discussed providers and equipment, but you didn't mention content. What do you find yourself watching the most, and can you access that without a cable contract? It's much easier to cut the cord these days, because just about everything can be streamed.

 

[MrDell]

If you are in a good reception area WeaKnees has a renewed Bolt OTA on Amazon for $299.00 with all in service right now. That will give you your locals and you can pick a streaming service such as Philo with the lineup you prefer. With the price you are paying now to your cable company you may even be able to add Netflix or another premium streaming service!

 

[302481]

I am looking for advice/suggestions.

I have been shuddering every time I pay my monthly Spectrum bill, and since I moved to my current location almost 10 years ago, I have been unhappy with TWC/Spectrum in their pricing, customer service, and the fact that they don't really play nice with Tivo. There is no other cable provider in my area.

Some of the Tivo issues were resolved for a few years, but now that they have dumped cable cards, I am missing a few channels and I pay about twice what I think I should, and before I moved, my cable provider charged less than half of what I pay now, and the CCI Byte wasn't maxed like it is here (for TTG downloads).

I thought about cutting the cord and going with Edge OTA; the last couple of Tivos I have bought (I own a Bolt, Roamio, and Premiere) the salesperson was able to cut me a deal on the box and all-in service (sometimes by transferring my all-in from one box to another, and my Premiere may have just died permanently). Now, Tivo appears to have outsourced their sales and there are no deals to be made aside from their usual promo, and I don't want to go back to a monthly fee. Likewise, Spectrum won't budge on anything, despite the fact that several channels are missing due to no cablecards.

I really don't want to pay so much for cable, especially with functionality slowed by lack of cablecards and the ever-present CCI Byte. Any recommendations or wisdom maybe I haven't thought of?

The only way to avoid fees entirely is with OTA plus free streaming services as others have already posted. That includes Pluto, Tubi, Xumo, Roku TV, Sling TV (they have a handful of free channels), PBS app (limited if not a donor), Hoopla, IMDB (pretty decent library of movies). Many of the above are integrated into the Fire TV live guide (my favorite platform for cord cutting), so you get a traditional grid guide showing everything from all those sources. Tubi even has a weather channel. Xumo and Pluto even have a handful of news and sports channels.

So it is possible to get quite a bit of content for free.

I was a Charter/Spectrum subscriber on and off since its inception. But the final straws were the local broadcast fee and my internet going up to $80/month. I now get internet through T-mobile for $50 and my old cable channels through Youtube TV for $55 which is far less than off-promo Spectrum prices and has no cable card or Tivo issues to deal with. If it were just me, I'd be perfectly happy dropping YTTV and relying on OTA and the other free options above.

 

[jmiller50]

I agree with pretty much everything folks here have said. As was pointed out, the first step is identifying what channels/content is important to you.

I cut the cord back in May. I live by myself and could no longer justify $220/month for cable. I had been working towards dumping cable for a couple years. Picked up a 4 channel Roamio OTA in 2016. Mostly used it offload some of the scheduling issues I had with my 2 channel Premiere that had the cable. I've had a Plex media server set up for a few years and when they added the DVR capability, I got a 4 tuner HDHomerun. That has worked out well. If you're going to do OTA make sure you get a good antenna. I had one of those cheap Mohu flat antennas. It worked ok but a lot of channels didn't come in well. Spent some money on a decent antenna and things improved quite a bit.

I've had Amazon Prime and Netflix for years, so more content there. I subscribe to Philo for Science, History, AMC programming.

I also tried out HBOMax with WatchTvEverywhere while I still had cable and liked what they provide. Its so much more than just HBO. HBO, Cinemax, Adult Swim, stuff from TNT, etc. Its really a Warner Media portal. My cable company was charging me $17/mo for just HBO. For $15/month, HBOMax gives me access to way more stuff.

If you have Prime, keep an eye on their channel deals. I got 2 months of Acorn TV for $.99/mo back in June, so I've been binging lots of Brit shows off that. I'm also lucky that there is a Washington DC PBS station (WETA UK) that broadcast mostly Brit shows.

I figured I'd lose all content on the Premiere that had cable, but whats funny is that there is still video signal coming into it. It is still able to pick up most of the channels between 1-100.

Also, don't discount locast.org. If you are in a rural/hilly area where OTA doesn't work well, give it a try. They are in almost 40 markets now. And if you are not in one of the marketing areas they support, there a some ways to spoof your location to one of the areas they support.

Good luck in cutting the cord!

 

[cwnelson]

You discussed providers and equipment, but you didn't mention content. What do you find yourself watching the most, and can you access that without a cable contract? It's much easier to cut the cord these days, because just about everything can be streamed.

Good question. Mostly what I watch on cable is sports, especially college football and pro baseball. Pro baseball is hard to stream without cable because of a contract dispute with Bally Sports (used to be Fox Sports networks). ESPN networks and Bally will cover most of what I want to watch sportswise, maybe Fox Sports 1 as well. Other than that I watch mostly TCM and A&E with a few other networks tossed in from time to time that I can live without. I was going to go to the ten-network plus local channels route with Spectrum but of course half the networks I wanted were not in that package.

I stream Netflix and Disney+ already.

 

[cwnelson]

If you are in a good reception area WeaKnees has a renewed Bolt OTA on Amazon for $299.00 with all in service right now. That will give you your locals and you can pick a streaming service such as Philo with the lineup you prefer. With the price you are paying now to your cable company you may even be able to add Netflix or another premium streaming service!

I am in a very rural area, so I'd love some advice on how to know how strong the signal is without having to purchase an antenna. If the population of an area matters with going OTA, then I'm probably out of luck in this area.

 

[cwnelson]

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I'm not trying to cut fees completely, but I pay $185 for cable and internet and the cable doesn't give me every channel I pay for. I do have Netflix and Disney plus Prime. It seems my location may not be great for OTA. I may just try to talk to someone in retention at Spectrum (which apparently you only reach on the phone by selecting the terminate service option). I just don't understand why the prices are so high with cord-cutting happening so much. Maybe they stay afloat by overcharging hangers-on and people with limited options or little knowledge of streaming. My dad also lives in a rural area, but he pays about the same for cable as I do but with 5 mbps internet (yes, that is not a typo). The minimum here in the middle of nowhere is 200.

 

[osu1991]

I am in a very rural area, so I'd love some advice on how to know how strong the signal is without having to purchase an antenna. If the population of an area matters with going OTA, then I'm probably out of luck in this area.

RabbitEars.Info

Plug your address into rabbitears search and it will give you a good idea of what is receivable over the air for that location.

 

[jmiller50]

I am in a very rural area, so I'd love some advice on how to know how strong the signal is without having to purchase an antenna. If the population of an area matters with going OTA, then I'm probably out of luck in this area.

I will again suggest checking out locast.org. I do not know where you are located, but there are ways to fake out where you are located, whether it is a plugin or vpn. My sister is up in Harrisburg PA, and she is stuck between the Philly marketing area and the Pittsburgh marketing area. She has tried OTA with antennas and it is just too hilly there to get any signal. One of these days she will try my suggestions, lol.

If you find locast works for you, you can add a DVR capability with stremium.com. Aside from the DVR service, they also are a live stream aggregator, which is kind of handy. Definitely worth checking out.

 

[cwnelson]

Thanks for the advice!