Bridges
Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA
For those of you who have done away with cable services: How do you get your signal? Do you continue with your present cable company and only buy the internet service? Do you rent their router or buy your own? Do you get a dish and download internet service? If you buy a router, what brand and size do you get? Is there anything I need to know like filters etc.
Thanking you in advance for anyone who responds.
Find out how much your internet service may go up if you remove TV service.
With my provider, I get a discount on each individual prices for getting both.
If I remove TV, my internet cost will go up.
I own my own cable modem and router. Not sure what models, I know the router is a Linksys.
We bought a modern, $50.00 antenna (plasticky curved thing), get major networks, Fox, PBS, ION, MeTV etc., more channels than we need...
Bridges wrote:
For those of you who have done away with cable services: How do you get your signal? Do you continue with your present cable company and only buy the internet service? Do you rent their router or buy your own? Do you get a dish and download internet service? If you buy a router, what brand and size do you get? Is there anything I need to know like filters etc.
Thanking you in advance for anyone who responds.
_______________________
In my own case in a WI central Village, internet had only two choices until cell phone towers were built. I chose to not watch TV anymore (rotary ant. in attic getting UHF and VHF in three cities--Mad-city, Milwaukee and GreenB)--so only bought internet---first from phone company which was poor service, then from cable as the only other service, at $30/mo from Charter. Bought my own modem, router, and wifi as separate units. Over the years they have tried to get me to jump to a package of each at $45/mo as a bargain.---i.e. TV, internet, and voice over. I refuse to bite and my internet remains at $30. But barely a day goes by without a solicitation for adding TV. I am quite content without any TV--even my old "through the air" TV. But cable has its drawbacks and periods of slowdowns and even periods there is no connection at all. But then $30./mo IS attractive. Charter now gives out free modems and routers I am told---even at base-price users like myself. It is their current policy for all customers. If you have your own modem---you inform them of the router number and they connect to it.----ew
TriX
Loc: Raleigh, NC
I kept my cable company (Spectrum) as an internet provider and for internet phone, bought my own modem (motorola surfboard) and use a pair of Linksys Gbit WiFi routers hardwired to the modem - one at each end of the house. For streaming services, I use UTube TV and Hulu, Netflix and HBO max as premium streaming services. I have a UHF yagi in the attic as backup for over the air local channels when my internet access is down.
I highly recommend Linksys/Cisco routers for their reliability and excellent phone support. If it was available at my house (they’re close), I would use Google Gbit Fibre for an ISP. Whether you prefer to use a streaming service that provides local channels or use an antenna has pros and cons, but if you decide to go the antenna route, you need to plot the location of the transmitting towers for your local channels. If they’re in roughly the same direction, then a fixed passive UHF yagi is an excellent solution, but if they’re in different directions, I’d suggest an omnidirectional amplified antenna. In either case, I’d mount it in the attic, away from metallic objects (including AC wiring) if possible, and feed it with high quality RG-6 coax of the shortest distance possible.
I have never had cable in my house - lived here for over 20 years. I have a rooftop style antenna in my attic, pointed at South Mountain (I live outside Phoenix) and get more channels than I could watch, 80+ in fact. I get the big three and PBS, lots of sub channels, and watch too much. If you live near a city of medium to larger size, visit antennaweb.org, buy an antenna type they spec and watch. High Def too.
Bridges wrote:
For those of you who have done away with cable services: How do you get your signal? Do you continue with your present cable company and only buy the internet service? Do you rent their router or buy your own? Do you get a dish and download internet service? If you buy a router, what brand and size do you get? Is there anything I need to know like filters etc.
Thanking you in advance for anyone who responds.
I cut the TV portion and kept just the internet. Subscribed to Sling and purchased their box. It puts local OTA programming and internet streaming in one place. Sling provides cloud DVR as an option. Then I installed ROKU
as a portal between all the services and OTA channels to the TV. This puts everthing in one easy to navigate system. I have my own router and modem. Modem is Arris SB6183 Surfboard and router is Asus RT N666. The Sling box can operate either as wireless or hardwired to the router. I am very happy with this setup. Very reliable and stable. There are lots of different ways to do this but it all depends on what programming you want to see.
Cut the cable several years ago. Went with YouTube TV which was inferior to Xfinity,. When YouTube raised their price dramatically, I then returned to Xfinity as a new customer..at a much lower initial cost.
We have gotten rid of Dish. In the last 5 years, we have saved at least $7,200. I spent $60.00 for an antenna. Now we no longer get 124 channels of sales pitches or send me money preacher demands, but we do get 22 channels of programs we do watch. Think how many nice dinners my wife and I have enjoyed out with $120 per month instead of giving the money to Dish.
Bridges wrote:
For those of you who have done away with cable services: How do you get your signal? Do you continue with your present cable company and only buy the internet service? Do you rent their router or buy your own? Do you get a dish and download internet service? If you buy a router, what brand and size do you get? Is there anything I need to know like filters etc.
Thanking you in advance for anyone who responds.
I dropped my TV service from COX Cable years ago but maintained the internet service. My bill dropped from about $250/month to about $80/month. I switched TV service to DirecTV which I like much better than the old cable system.
Bridges wrote:
For those of you who have done away with cable services: How do you get your signal? Do you continue with your present cable company and only buy the internet service? Do you rent their router or buy your own? Do you get a dish and download internet service? If you buy a router, what brand and size do you get? Is there anything I need to know like filters etc.
Thanking you in advance for anyone who responds.
Buy and install an Antenna. Will get you maybe 100 stations including the Majors CRS, NBC etc.
Then get a modem from T-Mobile which gives me internet and TV streaming. Also use a mesh router which distributes the signal all over the house.
Cost - Antenna $40 (RCA fron Home Depot)
T-Mobile modem - Free from T- mobile with a $50/month service fee
Thats it.
Smudgey
Loc: Ohio, Calif, Now Arizona
Laramie wrote:
I have never had cable in my house - lived here for over 20 years. I have a rooftop style antenna in my attic, pointed at South Mountain (I live outside Phoenix) and get more channels than I could watch, 80+ in fact. I get the big three and PBS, lots of sub channels, and watch too much. If you live near a city of medium to larger size, visit antennaweb.org, buy an antenna type they spec and watch. High Def too.
I live in the same area and also have an antenna in the atic and I get more tha 80+ stations as well.
Bridges wrote:
For those of you who have done away with cable services: How do you get your signal? Do you continue with your present cable company and only buy the internet service? Do you rent their router or buy your own? Do you get a dish and download internet service? If you buy a router, what brand and size do you get? Is there anything I need to know like filters etc.
Thanking you in advance for anyone who responds.
We have Gigabit Fiber Optic cable from CenturyLink. We stream over that. Plus we get 29 digital over the air channels on our "in the attic" antenna.
Cut cable a couple of years ago. Now getting local stations over the air and using a Tablo DVR. Also getting TV from the internet service and cheap subscriptions to Paramount+ and Peacock which play NBC and CBS shows on demand. Subscription costs $10 each per month for no ad connection. Only $5/month if you want to sit through TV ads.
Tablo has a TV guide type service for about $97 per year allowing easy scheduled recording.
As to Router, I have several and a mesh network which allows excellent coverage on all floors of a 2500 sq foot colonial house including outdoors in the yard. Got the mesh router package from Amazon for about $230. Cable company supplies modem for internet connection. Cutting cable TV saves about $100/month here in Maryland.
TriX wrote:
I kept my cable company (Spectrum) as an internet provider and for internet phone, bought my own modem (motorola surfboard) and use a pair of Linksys Gbit WiFi routers hardwired to the modem - one at each end of the house. For streaming services, I use UTube TV and Hulu, Netflix and HBO max as premium streaming services. I have a UHF yagi in the attic as backup for over the air local channels when my internet access is down.
I highly recommend Linksys/Cisco routers for their reliability and excellent phone support. If it was available at my house (they’re close), I would use Google Gbit Fibre for an ISP. Whether you prefer to use a streaming service that provides local channels or use an antenna has pros and cons, but if you decide to go the antenna route, you need to plot the location of the transmitting towers for your local channels. If they’re in roughly the same direction, then a fixed passive UHF yagi is an excellent solution, but if they’re in different directions, I’d suggest an omnidirectional amplified antenna. In either case, I’d mount it in the attic, away from metallic objects (including AC wiring) if possible, and feed it with high quality RG-6 coax of the shortest distance possible.
I kept my cable company (Spectrum) as an internet ... (
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