Cable TV Options: I didn't want to cut in on philo's post, so I'm starting a separate one. We have Internet, phone, and TV from Spectrum. It just went up $10/mo to $178. If I drop...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I didn't want to cut in on philo's post, so I'm starting a separate one.

We have Internet, phone, and TV from Spectrum. It just went up $10/mo to $178. If I drop cable TV, how till that affect my ability to get Netflix, Prime, etc? Does that simply come into the house as the Internet connection - and cable TV is a separate feed through the same wire?

If I drop cable TV, my cost for phone and Internet will increase because I'll no longer have the Triple Play, so I'll have to take that into account.

Bob Mevis Loc: Plymouth, Indiana

You get netflix by Wi-Fi. I just downloaded Pluto and it's free.

twowindsbear

Yes you're correct. You'll need a smart TV or the ability to connect your computer to your TV, such as an HDMI connection and cable. Have you looked into a ROKU device? It's reasonably priced and provides HUGE variety if programming both free and paid. Take a look at orbytv.com, too. Good luck.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Yes, Comcast does the same thing, package bundling.
If we drop TV service, internet service goes up...
The cost difference (increase) for internet service must be included.
Be funny if after all the changes, the price winds up about the same.

berchman Loc: South Central PA

jerryc41 wrote:

. If I drop cable TV, how till that affect my ability to get Netflix, Prime, etc? Does that simply come into the house as the Internet connection - and cable TV is a separate feed through the same wire?

I have Comcast (Xfinity) TV and internet. I have never used the TV portion, but my streaming services come over the same wire. I use the Apple TV device for streaming and own my own modem and router.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Bob Mevis wrote:

You get netflix by Wi-Fi. I just downloaded Pluto and it's free.

Were does the WiFi come from?
In some areas, it is provided to all by the local government, but in my neighborhood in comes to households by subscribing to Comcast {Xfinity} cable or to their WiFi service itself.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

twowindsbear wrote:

Yes you're correct. You'll need a smart TV or the ability to connect your computer to your TV, such as an HDMI connection and cable. Have you looked into a ROKU device? It's reasonably priced and provides HUGE variety if programming both free and paid. Take a look at orbytv.com, too. Good luck.

Or you can just subscribe to the cable TV service itself and simply attach the supplied cable box to the cable and then to any TV - but jerryc41 is correct - both 'cable TV' and Internet are carried by the same cable.

twowindsbear

rehess wrote:

Or you can just subscribe to the cable TV service itself and simply attach the supplied cable box to the cable and then to any TV - but jerryc41 is correct - both 'cable TV' and Internet are carried by the same cable.

How in the world does "just subscribe to the cable TV service" solve Jerry's desire to 'cut the cable' and reduce the money that he's paying by dropping cable TV????

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

twowindsbear wrote:

How in the world does "just subscribe to the cable TV service" solve Jerry's desire to 'cut the cable' and reduce the money that he's paying by dropping cable TV????

If Jerry personally doesn’t want to subscribe to the ‘cable TV’, he doesn’t have to, but the signal will still be on the cable. I was just pointing out that it will always be there, and his Internet signal will have to come from somewhere that someone has put it, and unless he lives in a community where it is placed in the “ether” by the civic authorities he will have to pay them - usually that means paying the Cable company or the Phone company.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

We had AT&T (DirecTV) for our cable until recently - then price went from $70 to $141. It was time to become a cable-cutter. I installed Roku devices on our TV's. If you do that, there's a ton of free content, but we went with Youtube TV for $50/mo, which includes all the channels we were used to watching. I figure the break-even time for this change is 3 months.

If you drop your cable TV, is there another internet service provider you can switch to? Centurylink offers to hold the same price for life. BTW, we dropped landline phone service a decade ago, and now use T-Mobile cellular only. $40/mo per line.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

rehess wrote:

If Jerry personally doesn’t want to subscribe to the ‘cable TV’, he doesn’t have to, but the signal will still be on the cable. I was just pointing out that it will always be there, and his Internet signal will have to come from somewhere that someone has put it, and unless he lives in a community where it is placed in the “ether” by the civic authorities he will have to pay them - usually that means paying the Cable company or the Phone company.

Some companies require the use of a box to convert the signals, other than TV frequencies, that are sent to be able to be used by a TV.
Not all signals are necessarily in the TV "viewing" frequencies.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Longshadow wrote:

Some companies require the use of a box to convert the signals, other than TV frequencies, that are sent to be able to be used by a TV.
Not all signals are necessarily in the TV "viewing" frequencies.

Yes I did say "simply attach the supplied cable box to the cable and then to any TV"

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

DWU2 wrote:

We had AT&T (DirecTV) for our cable until rece... (show quote)

We have kept a landline because of "emergency service".

The telephone company has a much more reliable source of electricity than we do {but that was not Jerry's question}.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

rehess wrote:

Yes I did say "simply attach the supplied cable box to the cable and then to any TV"

Some people may infer that they can still get TV signals just by connecting a cable to the TV even though they have only purchased internet service, because it all comes down the same cable.

If I cancel TV, will they come and put traps at the pole/house? That's how they used control pay channels before there were hundreds of channels available.

johngault007 Loc: Florida Panhandle

Cable providers like Comcast and Cox are using modern systems to provision end user set top boxes (cable box), Cable ready TVs, and cable modems.

What does this mean? If for some reason you have a cable running from the junction to your house with an active signal, you won't necessarily get anything from that signal. The providers authorize devices to receive and decode that signal (modern traps)

Now, that signal has a wide enough frequency range to carry all data (television/ethernet) over the same wire, and the device plugged in will decode whatever signal it was designed for.

Also, Wi-fi is not internet, it is a transmission protocol that TCP/IP can run over. So Netflix can uses Wi-fi (802.11x), ethernet, fiber, and whatever other transmission mediums there are.

As for OP, most people cut the cord and only use I ternet from a provider. There are to s of streaming services out there, and you may have to research what service delivers the content you want. It may not be much cheaper if you have multiple services (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Prime, Disney+, etc .)