Online tv question

[GeneV]

Why are you paying a cable co. to watch local channels in Lake County, IL? You would get all of the local Chicago channels with an antenna and probably more subchannels than you get with cable.

Well we tried various indoor OTA antennas w/o much luck (lots of big trees around here), and don't want to put up an ugly tower on our roof, so....
But with that said, tech does improve fast now, so I'm now reading reviews on the latest OTA antennas out there.

 

[JethroB]

And then there is the new-ish StarLink satellite based service for home internet that is slowly be rolled out. $99 a month. It will be a game changer for many rural folks if all goes as planned. I’m supposed to get mine next month.

 

[Oaktree]

So, I pay $125/mo to direct TV to get the shows that I desire. So TV + Internet = $175/mo (about $6/day)

Im not to proud to say I enjoy a few TV shows from time to time. Certainly worth the $6/month for ME and my family. I wont judge anyone on their TV preferences or lack of wanting TV. But I personally am not gonna live under a rock with no electronic entertainment.

In fact, I could get by without home internet with how good smart phones are now. Sometimes I just prefer sitting at a desktop with a full monitor though. So when comparing these cheaper TV packages through a streaming service....dont forget to include the cost of your internet. Because without it, you wouldnt have TV. But without internet, I still have my TV.

I can remember 30-40 years ago when satellite was all the rave. 100's of channels instead of the local 6 or so. So many people thought it was crazy to PAY for TV. Like who does that...but the benefit was not having to rent VHS movies, AND no commercials. So you could get free tv and deal with commercials....or pay and get rid of them. But now look at where we are...we are paying for TV and STILL have commercials. Who would have thought this 30 years ago.

We don't watch a lot of TV, but it's something to do in the evening. We don't have any subscription channels, but there seems to be plenty of stuff available with the Roku, even if it has commercials.

I don't see how anyone can, or would want to watch tv, surf the internet, etc. on a dinky little cellphone screen. Maybe if you're a Gen Z-er, but I'm in my 70s. Give me a real computer/tv.

When you say satellite tv, are you referring to the days of C-band (ie-10 foot dishes)? I never had one but from people who I know that did there was quite a bit if you knew where to look, including raw feeds of network broadcasts. I'd imagine all that's either gone or encrypted now.

You typically won't see anyone run fiber to rural homes, just too expensive. I know we won't do it as of now and probably never will unless the home owner is willing to pay for the cable to be installed. We don't charge for installation, free modem and $65 a month for 1 gig up and down. Fiber is expensive as is the man hours to put it in the ground. We do have a couple of rural neighborhoods we have done with 10 acre lots but that's about it.

I dunno about that. Fiber is definitely in some rural areas, though to be sure not everywhere. Not buried here, but on the poles with phone lines.
Our cable is fiber except for the "last mile" which is for some reason copper.

Well we tried various indoor OTA antennas w/o much luck (lots of big trees around here), and don't want to put up an ugly tower on our roof, so....
But with that said, tech does improve fast now, so I'm now reading reviews on the latest OTA antennas out there.

I think antenna technology is where it is. If there's no signal, no antenna is going to get anything. The reason you don't need the big antennas for tv anymore is that almost all digital broadcasts are in what used to be the UHF band, at those frequencies you don't need anything that's physically large.

And then there is the new-ish StarLink satellite based service for home internet that is slowly be rolled out. $99 a month. It will be a game changer for many rural folks if all goes as planned. I’m supposed to get mine next month.

IF Starlink becomes more than just a footnote. I read an article on how potential customers are demanding their deposits back due to slow implementation. Just what the world needs, another internet provider with lousy customer service.

 

[BigBlue1]

Starlink is definitely a game changer. We've had it for 9 months now. We've evolved here in our rural property that we purchased in early 2016 through originally a 5 Mb/s DSL provider (which was often 1.5-3), a cellular LTE hotspot giving 8-20 Mb/s, an upgraded hotspot on the same service that would do 40-80, and now Starlink which is 80-250 Mb/s). All of them were solid enough for us to stream video like Netflix or do full time WFH, but things have been much nicer since the upgraded hotspot and finally Starlink. It's like being back in the city now with a super fast connection and no bandwidth limits.

As for Starlink's issues, they have had challenges with chip shortages limiting their dish equipment production and satellite production/deployment in the last year. But they keep moving ahead. All signs are that they are a well-run company with a great service and attention to keeping the quality high. The fact that they are significantly limiting new customer on-boarding to keep service quality high for existing customers in these early phases (they have somewhere around 2,000 of the eventually 13,000 sats deployed so far). If it is available in your rural area where you don't have access to high quality DSL, cable or fiber I strongly recommend that you look into it.

Rob

 

[mjonesnh]

You typically won't see anyone run fiber to rural homes, just too expensive. I know we won't do it as of now and probably never will unless the home owner is willing to pay for the cable to be installed. We don't charge for installation, free modem and $65 a month for 1 gig up and down. Fiber is expensive as is the man hours to put it in the ground. We do have a couple of rural neighborhoods we have done with 10 acre lots but that's about it. And I think the only reason we did that one is because someone knew someone. I think with T-Mobile and Verizon Home Internet plans things will get better as long as you are fairly close to a tower. That is the least expensive way to do rural internet.

In July our local electric cooperative ran fiber in our area. Attached the fiber cable to the existing electric poles and made the drops from there to the house. My house is semi-rural , about 2 miles from city limits but the whole area is getting fiber. 250mb speed for $50/month. My brother and I own a farm in southern Ky and there is fiber cable buried there in ditch line of roadway ROW. Available through local telephone cooperative. Very rural area several miles from any town.

 

[LD1]

Give it a year or so and they will get around to turning on the fiber. It takes a while for the contractor to run the fiber for your area, and for them to hook up the network.

We had 1mbps dsl at our place.

It was a couple years from the time they ran fiber near our street before they turned it on.

After they did, they ran a special program for existing customers of the 1mbps and 3mbps download speed. They offered us 50mbps for the current price we were paying. No increase as long as we stayed as a customer. Make sure and ask about special promotions for existing customers

There was a 1 time fee of $150 for them to run a new line to the house and upgrade the phone jack. We dumped the dish, put an amplified antennae on the roof to pick up the local stations (20 all together). And used Netflix and prime for streaming. We also got 300 plus internet channels through the Pluto app when we upgraded to a smart TV.

Once covid hit, they bumped us to 100mbps speed for the existing price.

Nope.

The fiber is already on. Not the same company as the dsl. In fact the fiber is through my electric coop.

When they first started this venture they were advertising "affordable" high speed for $70/mo. They have already had two price hikes, and currently sit at $110.

Being the "electric" company...I don't see them offering any special packages

 

[Dftodd]

Nope.

The fiber is already on. Not the same company as the dsl. In fact the fiber is through my electric coop.

When they first started this venture they were advertising "affordable" high speed for $70/mo. They have already had two price hikes, and currently sit at $110.

Being the "electric" company...I don't see them offering any special packages

Yeah, that's rough. Here it was the same company I already had dsl through. So thats how I ended up with the deal.

House next door was a rental. They were paying around $120 for the same speed I was getting for $80.

We just sold up and moved though and switched. We are paying around $120 for tv and internet. Internet was $45 and the TV was the rest. House is a rental, so we can't put an antennae up.

Internet is the basic 50mbps, but when the tech had to come out for some service work and did a speed test, it's closer to 80mbps.

House is a new build so we have fiber plumbed in. We could get a Gig download speed if we wanted to pay for it. But we don't need it. All we do is stream TV and the occasional video. The rest is pay bills and and the occasional work from home on the lap top.

 

[lman]

You typically won't see anyone run fiber to rural homes, just too expensive. I know we won't do it as of now and probably never will unless the home owner is willing to pay for the cable to be installed. We don't charge for installation, free modem and $65 a month for 1 gig up and down. Fiber is expensive as is the man hours to put it in the ground. We do have a couple of rural neighborhoods we have done with 10 acre lots but that's about it. And I think the only reason we did that one is because someone knew someone. I think with T-Mobile and Verizon Home Internet plans things will get better as long as you are fairly close to a tower. That is the least expensive way to do rural internet.

Our local rural electric coop ran fiber down our rural road and I've been connected for about a year. They got some federal assistance to make the connections. I had Centurylink and they also got federal money and updated their equipment down the road about a year before that. The upgrade made by C-link did not improve my dsl and it makes no sense why they upgraded their equipment with no improvements. I guess they had to do something with the money that they got.
I'm very happy with the fiber(120/30) at $79 that we now have.
We dropped DirecTV several years ago when the prices were rising rapidly. We had better things to do with our money.
We now have OTA with TIVO, Netflix and Amazon Prime. I also figured out a way to block the ads on Youtube that makes it much more enjoyable.

 

[techman]

Nope.

The fiber is already on. Not the same company as the dsl. In fact the fiber is through my electric coop.

When they first started this venture they were advertising "affordable" high speed for $70/mo. They have already had two price hikes, and currently sit at $110.

Being the "electric" company...I don't see them offering any special packages

That is an outrageous price. My cable internet is only $60 for 150 meg, and we are rural.

paul

 

[CADplans]

Dish network has been reliable and has plenty of selection, including the local channels. The only problem I have is when the dish fills up with snow. A broom takes care of that. The cost isn’t bad if you don’t sign up for the mega channel packages. And it is available anywhere on earth.

Dish is not as available to the East Coast, as it is to New Mexico,,
For the East Coast, the "AIM" is just above the horizon,,
For New Mexico, your AIM should be closer to straight up.
Many of my neighbors can not get Dish,, because of a few trees.

By 2023, I will drop Dish, because of a tree in the way,, the tree has been growing.
Repeated calls to DISH has not resulted in a relocation of the dish receiver,,
I currently get signal loss when the leaves are on the trees,, so, I figure I got 1 season left,,,

 

[CADplans]

Nope.

The fiber is already on. Not the same company as the dsl. In fact the fiber is through my electric coop.

When they first started this venture they were advertising "affordable" high speed for $70/mo. They have already had two price hikes, and currently sit at $110.

Being the "electric" company...I don't see them offering any special packages

That is an outrageous price. My cable internet is only $60 for 150 meg, and we are rural.

paul

We are about as rural as it gets on the East Coast,,
10 miles from the nearest grocery store.
The pole that has the fiber optic box for distribution to us has only 5 connections
One run is over 600 feet, one over 1,000 feet, my run is 1,400 feet.
The other two are about 400-500 feet.
That is typical for the connection boxes for our entire road.
(Our 1,400 feet run was the longest, we had to wait a couple extra months for that long of a piece of glass to be available. Shortages, and low supply because of COVID is what we were told.)

We switched from the phone company DSL, to the electric company glass cable all the way to the bedroom that has the wireless router, no copper.

We have had it only a few months,
and have heard that the phone company will be offering competitive fiber optic to us as a competitive service to the electric company.

So, we will have two different glass to the house offerings before 2023, and we are pretty rural.

 

[jyoutz]

Dish is not as available to the East Coast, as it is to New Mexico,,
For the East Coast, the "AIM" is just above the horizon,,
For New Mexico, your AIM should be closer to straight up.
Many of my neighbors can not get Dish,, because of a few trees.

By 2023, I will drop Dish, because of a tree in the way,, the tree has been growing.
Repeated calls to DISH has not resulted in a relocation of the dish receiver,,
I currently get signal loss when the leaves are on the trees,, so, I figure I got 1 season left,,,

I had them relocate my dish from the roof to a pole in the ground in my chosen location. Makes it easier to clean the snow out in winter.

 

[CADplans]

I had them relocate my dish from the roof to a pole in the ground in my chosen location. Makes it easier to clean the snow out in winter.

That would be worse for us,, more tree obstructions low to the ground.
I think I will need a 30 foot pole with the dish at the top,,
so that the dish can "see" over the trees,,

 

[Oaktree]

Starlink is definitely a game changer.

I wouldn't say that, more of an evolution and an exponentially higher amount of "space junk" to accomplish it. Pricey too.

That is an outrageous price. My cable internet is only $60 for 150 meg, and we are rural.

Thing is, you're stuck with what's available where you live. I don't know why some rural areas seem to have better service/prices than others. I'm paying Spectrum $125/mo for a internet/tv/landline bundle, don't have a bill handy for the breakdown, but the internet portion is ~$65. They claim 100 meg, reality is about half that. Still more than fast enough for anything we need.

A few posters have mentioned the electric company as their internet provider. Seems like it would make sense, at least around here they're the ones who own the poles, no need for the red tape to lease space on someone else's so theoretically they could provide the same service for less. Nothing our's (Eversource) offers though.

Dish is not as available to the East Coast, as it is to New Mexico,,
For the East Coast, the "AIM" is just above the horizon,,
For New Mexico, your AIM should be closer to straight up.
Many of my neighbors can not get Dish,, because of a few trees.

Yeah, try living in northern New England, we're a good 800 mi NE of you. Before cable came thru many of our neighbors had it, and finding a place to mount the dish with a good view could be a challenge.

 

[BigBlue1]

I wouldn't say that, more of an evolution and an exponentially higher amount of "space junk" to accomplish it. Pricey too.

Thing is, you're stuck with what's available where you live. I don't know why some rural areas seem to have better service/prices than others. I'm paying Spectrum $125/mo for a internet/tv/landline bundle, don't have a bill handy for the breakdown, but the internet portion is ~$65. They claim 100 meg, reality is about half that. Still more than fast enough for anything we need.

A few posters have mentioned the electric company as their internet provider. Seems like it would make sense, at least around here they're the ones who own the poles, no need for the red tape to lease space on someone else's so theoretically they could provide the same service for less. Nothing our's (Eversource) offers though.

Yeah, try living in northern New England, we're a good 800 mi NE of you. Before cable came thru many of our neighbors had it, and finding a place to mount the dish with a good view could be a challenge.

LOL!!

You dismiss Starlink as not being a game changer because of your (apparent) angst about Earth's orbital environment and then go on and offer a bunch of reasons why Starlink is, indeed, a game changer.

"Thing is, you're stuck with what's available where you live."

Exactly. Starlink provides high quality, very fast, unlimited data volume ISP capability anywhere on the globe, including all those places where other types of ISPs (cable, DSL/phone, fiber, LTE, etc) are not available.

"Pricey too."

How many other ISPs of any infrastructure/medium offer a $99/mo plan with unlimited data volume and 120-250 Mb/s speed? I'll wait while you compile that monstrously large list (/sarcasm) showing how expensive Starlink is compared to others.

Your worries (founded or not) about satellite congestion are irrelevant to the fact that Starlink is an amazing offering for people who have not had good Internet access previously. Your dislike for the company doesn't change the facts of the situation.

 

[JD 4520]

Apologies if something here is repeated. The future of TV is streaming. We are in a long transition from “cable” to streaming. Streaming is over IP or easier stated high speed internet (HSD) connection. Today, HSD really only needs to be 100mg to get really good and reliable service for a typical family- that honestly may be overstated. So, if you have a good, newer Smart TV and good HSD, you can get anything you want to watch at reasonable prices. The reason being is you won’t generally have to pay for a 300 channel package that you only watch 7 channels on.
If you have the newer Smart TV and good HSD, begin your own transition to streaming services. Try a number of services like YouTube TV and others. You will eventually have access to any package and not limited at all to the local provider, only the HSD service. Within 10 years, cable as we have known it should be phased out.
BTW, I have 1G service, just because I can get it, but do I use or need more than 100mg, nope, not at all. Happy to try to answer more questions along this line.

 

[lman]

Apologies if something here is repeated. The future of TV is streaming. We are in a long transition from “cable” to streaming. Streaming is over IP or easier stated high speed internet (HSD) connection. Today, HSD really only needs to be 100mg to get really good and reliable service for a typical family- that honestly may be overstated. So, if you have a good, newer Smart TV and good HSD, you can get anything you want to watch at reasonable prices. The reason being is you won’t generally have to pay for a 300 channel package that you only watch 7 channels on.
If you have the newer Smart TV and good HSD, begin your own transition to streaming services. Try a number of services like YouTube TV and others. You will eventually have access to any package and not limited at all to the local provider, only the HSD service. Within 10 years, cable as we have known it should be phased out.
BTW, I have 1G service, just because I can get it, but do I use or need more than 100mg, nope, not at all. Happy to try to answer more questions along this line.

Never had cable. It's not available in rural areas around here.

 

[fiddlearound]

Apologies if something here is repeated. The future of TV is streaming. We are in a long transition from “cable” to streaming. Streaming is over IP or easier stated high speed internet (HSD) connection. Today, HSD really only needs to be 100mg to get really good and reliable service for a typical family- that honestly may be overstated. So, if you have a good, newer Smart TV and good HSD, you can get anything you want to watch at reasonable prices. The reason being is you won’t generally have to pay for a 300 channel package that you only watch 7 channels on.
If you have the newer Smart TV and good HSD, begin your own transition to streaming services. Try a number of services like YouTube TV and others. You will eventually have access to any package and not limited at all to the local provider, only the HSD service. Within 10 years, cable as we have known it should be phased out.
BTW, I have 1G service, just because I can get it, but do I use or need more than 100mg, nope, not at all. Happy to try to answer more questions along this line.

What is the solution when your internet speed is only 5mg down?

 

[mrmikey]

What is the solution when your internet speed is only 5mg down?

FM Radio?. Sorry I couldn't resist .
My daughter's sometimes is that slow or slower with her "blazing fast" LTE service that she pays $100 a month for and that's pretty much what she resorted to. They're supposed to have fibre February of this year so she's hoping, you don't realize how much you depend on the 'net 'till you don't have it.............Mike

 

[JD 4520]

Never had cable. It's not available in rural areas around here.

You really aren’t missing much. Cable and TV in general is overrated! My family did not have a TV until I was out of the house and off to college. We have it now but are very selective in watching it.

I built a good part of my career in the fiber and telecom industry and thus the background, knowledge and opinions about cable tv.