Canceled DirectTV

[Tia]

Canceled our DirectTV after 9 years so now exploring ROKU and Netflix, just could not see paying over $100/month anymore (They offered to come down to $70, still too much ). Watching Popcorn now with the movie ''The Dutchess'' , takes a bit to find something but lots less $.

 

[vacationhopeful]

I have gone thru the cut the CableTV bill down process, also.

Right now my home CableTV (Comcast) is down to $73 (that includes my internet service).

I have a older tenant totally refusing to pay ANY RENT increase as she is on a fixed income and barely getting by. But is paying Comcast over $200 per month.

 

[Tia]

Over $200/mo is craziness for something that is not a basic necessity , but then there is no shortage of poor choices people make sometimes when you look around..... imho.

 

[bogey21]

I am cheap about most things but have no problem paying Direct TV $91 per month. I get everything I want, particularly wall to wall sports. Every now and then I lose it for 5 minutes or so when there is thunder and lightening but otherwise it has been 100% reliable for over 5 years now.

George

 

[jehb2]

We cut the cord almost a year ago. We have Roku, Sling, and Tablo. With Sling I still get the cable channels I use to watch. We pay an extra $5 each for ESPN package and Disney package. The antenna is the shape & size of an 8x10 piece of paper is taped to the wall and gets us a ton of broadcast channels I didn't know we had access to. I still have Amazon Prime which gives me a ton of movies and TV series.

Bottom line: my TV watching experience is so much better for a fraction of the price with no contracts and no evil customer service.

 

[mjm1]

We have considered cutting the cord from DirectTV as well, but haven't. For those who have done so from cable or satellite, do you have a device to record shows? I understand it is possible, but haven't looked into the process and related costs. Thanks

Mike

 

[presley]

We got rid of Directv for a couple years. We just used Netflix, Prime and I sampled Hulu, but didn't continue with it. I decided to get Directv again. When my 2 year contract is up, I'll probably drop it again for a while until I am eligible for a new sign up special again.

 

[dioxide45]

We are currently in a contract with DirecTV because of an equipment upgrade about a year ago. I tell you, the offers to get discounts are pretty slim. We have been DirecTV customers for 15 years. I called the other day and there were no discounts available unless we signed up for automatic withdrawal. We just downgraded our package two levels to save $25 a month. So our cost will be closer to $90 now instead of the $115 that it was.

I have found that when you are out of contract, they will make better offers if you call and ask for them. We have never threatened to cancel.

 

[laura1957]

We have considered cutting the cord from DirectTV as well, but haven't. For those who have done so from cable or satellite, do you have a device to record shows? I understand it is possible, but haven't looked into the process and related costs. Thanks

Mike

https://squareup.com/market/DroidTVBundle

We have both the bundle - my husband has this attached to his large screw vizio tv, and the tablet - which came in very handy on our trip last week to Mexico. My husband watched his downloaded shows the entire flight. I also have the app on my kindle HDX, which I used on the flights

There is no sports or news, kids programming movies -but we can download most primetime current shows (including previous seasons) and many older shows (i am currently watching Magnum PI and Early Edition)

There is a free trial available - http://mydroidtv.com/

I have nothing at all to do with these products/the app except bro g a very happy long-time me customer. They also have the BEST customer service via their Facebook page....

 

[ronparise]

Over $200/mo is craziness for something that is not a basic necessity , but then there is no shortage of poor choices people make sometimes when you look around..... imho.

If I was old and on a limited income I would be careful about where I spend my money too,but I would call the tv and internet and phone, necessities. I can see where $200 a month for all my entertainment , and news and my social life is not too much> I would get rid of my car, and all those associated expenses and my land line phone, before Id give up the TV and internet.

With the internet I can do all my shopping and communication from home and not even have to pay for public transportation, much less the car. If the $200 was too much Id cut my food budget before Id cut Comcast, That or maybe find another apartment or take in a roommate. Maybe full time timeshare would work

I looked at cutting the cable, and using the internet only for my entertainment, but those various services all cost money.. netflix, amazon, hulu, hbo etc are all paid subscription services and together they can add up to a lot, I didnt see a big savings, and as long as I can afford it, I want to see Scandal and Madam Secretary as soon as they air the first time.

By the way the new season of "House of Cards" is now available on netflix

 

[vacationhopeful]

If I was old .....

She was born in 1948. She is 67 til May.

She is NOT OLD ... my 90yo aunt who lives alone is OLD.

 

[Sandy VDH]

If I can't get my Cable (comcast) to offer deal when my contract is up, I'll drop all but my internet. I don't think I have even turned on the TV in the last week anyway. Seems like a waste.

I have Amazon Prime, and I always add another source for streaming content as needed.

I have been reading a lot lately anyway. Not so much TV.

 

[dioxide45]

She was born in 1948. She is 67 til May.

She is NOT OLD ... my 90yo aunt who lives alone is OLD.

My wifes grandmother wasn't old either when she retired. Her main source of entertainment was television. Sadly, she only had over the air television. No paid subscription for her. But imagine all of the stuff she could have watched if she had it. She had no internet and also had no drivers license. Some people have different priorities I suppose.

One option that you have is to raise the tenants rent and they can move if they don't like it. Then you can find another tenant that is willing to pay the higher rent.

 

[vacationhopeful]

....
One option that you have is to raise the tenants rent and they can move if they don't like it. Then you can find another tenant that is willing to pay the higher rent.

And now that winter is almost over ... that is the plan. She was sent a RENT increase 2 months ago ... she had refused to pay it ... because she has limited income while refusing to provide proof of hardship (income) to me.

Plus, her other son gave her a used van in the last 2-3 months. She could get a job --- Walmart hires greeters, for instance.

 

[bnoble]

particularly wall to wall sports

This is what has kept us tethered. There are a few streaming/unbundled options, but for our viewing patterns they don't really measure up.

 

[dougp26364]

Cable has become far to expensive with far to many junk channels. My personal belief is they'll eventually need to consider offering ala carte pricing or go the way of the horse and buggy manufacturers. I refuse to pay for 300 channels when there's maybe 10 that we watch. I don't need 15 Spanish speaking only channels, 20 religious broadcast channels, 12 home shopping channels, all those 24 hour news channels, the political channels and could care less about VH1 and MTV et....... Let me subscribe to ONLY the channels I want and maybe we'll talk. Until then, I'm happy with the very basic service and Wifi service. I do pay a little extra for a land line but only because I can give it out as a contact number when signing up for stuff or making a reservation. That line sends 10 to 20 robo calls to the Nomorobo dead end number daily and keeps them off my cell phone. When Nomorobo becomes available for our cell phone carrier, I'll likely get rid of the land line as well.

 

[vacationhopeful]

....... Until then, I'm happy with the very basic service and Wifi service. I do pay a little extra for a land line ...

I cut my 3 landline multiple 3 years ago ... did Ooma with porting 2 of my phone numbers. Do like that Voice Messages being sent to my internet account ... as my smart phone shows me the number who called and can play the VM back.

And I cut my CableTV to a version of painful lack of many channels I used to just waste time watching. Makes me into a TV junkie when staying at a timeshare.

 

[Passepartout]

I'm learning.... We have full cable/broadband at home, and in the second home, nothing but fairly limited over-the-air TV & internet from tethered phone. Last week, I put in cable internet. So now we're learning to use the cable broadband and Amazon Fire TV along with OTA TV.

I think what I miss most is the lack of a 'TV Guide' to tell what's on and on what channel. I guess I'm just not used to this brave new world of being able to watch nearly everything nearly anytime.

Entertainment freedom just has too many choices.

Jim

 

[Elan]

This is what has kept us tethered. There are a few streaming/unbundled options, but for our viewing patterns they don't really measure up.

Yeah, if it weren't for sports, nixing DirecTV would be easy. Then again, if it weren't for sports, nixing all TV would be pretty easy.

I watch games on my phone or tablet quite often because even the most extensive sports packages don't cover everything.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[WinniWoman]

If it weren't for Football and Fox News Channel my husband would probably agree to get rid of Directv. We use Roku as well, with a subscription to The Blaze Network (which Directv does not carry) and Amazon Prime. Occasionally we do like a pay per view movie shown on Directv.

Our Directv package is an old basic one- $49.99 per month. Our landline and DSL internet is with Frontier and runs about $73 per month.

 

[bnoble]

I watch games on my phone or tablet quite often because even the most extensive sports packages don't cover everything.

What don't you get over your package? I think the only things I don't get via UVerse and stream instead are a few fringe Big Ten things (some hockey games, etc.) but you have to be a cable/satellite subscriber or buy a la carte to get those.

 

[DeniseM]

We have ATT Uverse: landline, TV, and WIFI, but the price has gotten to be ridiculous. My contract is up, and I need to figure out what to do instead.

I will probably ditch the land line - which mostly gets calls from scammers, but I need good wifi, and we do like sports, and some other things on TV.

 

[Bucky]

We are currently in a contract with DirecTV because of an equipment upgrade about a year ago. I tell you, the offers to get discounts are pretty slim. We have been DirecTV customers for 15 years. I called the other day and there were no discounts available unless we signed up for automatic withdrawal. We just downgraded our package two levels to save $25 a month. So our cost will be closer to $90 now instead of the $115 that it was.

I have found that when you are out of contract, they will make better offers if you call and ask for them. We have never threatened to cancel.

We have gone back and forth between Directv and DISH for years now. Directv by far is more willing to entertain discounts. You don't really have to be ready to cancel to get these, even while on contract. I called a couple of weeks ago to complain about the recent price increase while I was still under promotional pricing, only to find I wasn't under promotional pricing, and was still given another $25 per mo off for 12 months. I never threatened to cancel. I just explained that I needed to cut the amount I was paying somehow. The first idea they came up with was cutting the package we had. I explained that wouldn't work because my wife wanted the Hallmark Movie Channel. Then they wanted to try it a different way and I told them that wouldn't work because I needed the Golf Channel. They finally started to come up with more monthly incentives.

We also have Amazon Prime. Love Harry Bosch and the Amazon Prime Now service is great.

Cut the landline a few years ago. Thought it was kind of stupid to pay for it while also paying for cell service so we just ported our old line line number to our cell. Keeping the Do Not Disturb feature turned on eliminates the robo calls.

 

[Elan]

What don't you get over your package? I think the only things I don't get via UVerse and stream instead are a few fringe Big Ten things (some hockey games, etc.) but you have to be a cable/satellite subscriber or buy a la carte to get those.

Some college stuff (I stream from WatchESPN and CampusInsiders). It might now be on one of the extended sports packages, but it wasn't when I last looked.

 

[ronparise]

I use comcast at home for TV Internet and phone. The phone is just for a fax line that I think I used once last year

But I have dish on my boat because they have a month to month plan. I pay when I need it and cancel when I don't.