Living without cable: My experience with cutting the cord

[Congnelius]

Mr. Shawn Knight, we have a lot in common. I did pretty much exactly the same thing you did. I'm a big MMA and football fan (NFL) so I do miss having Spike TV for Bellator. I even cancelled my UFC Pass after the first month for the exact same reason - most of what I want to watch live is blacked out or delayed to the a point where I don't care anymore. It's so not worth it when I already know what happened. I wind up catching highlights instead of the actual fights.

Finally, I totally agree with you on the Sling TV single stream limit. It's gotta go. Occasionally I will want to watch something when I'm away from home on Sling TV (some March Madness games, for example), and I'll wind up kicking my girlfriend off of what she's watching back at home. It's the biggest drawback to Sling TV in my opinion.

Overall though, no way I would ever go back to paying $50+ for hundreds of channels I never watch.

 

[singjai]

Great piece, Shawn.

I cut the cord years ago and replaced cable with OTA (46 digital channels with an un-amplified antenna) and a streaming service. The big differences: no cable bills, and I'm falling behind watching different shows than before. The unintended bonus: some amazing "stuff" to be seen on secondary broadcast channels.

 

[amstech]

Plus, let's be real, who here is going to subscribe to the Internet just to watch TV over it?.

I would have to say a lot, especially in areas where there are limited options, like Upstate NY where I live.
With all the major networks allowing streaming of their shows/content online(and more to come) plus what other online services offer I can see many people just getting internet to watch their shows, me and my lady included.
I got to be honest I am quite shocked you would say something like that after writing this article!

 

[Mike R]

I too have cut the cord periodically. Right now we have a very low cost cable TV package. It has no sports channels, but has HBO. With the HBO Now app coming out, we could still access this on my AppleTV. Any savings I get from cutting the cord, will likely go towards data usage overages. I am holding off on upgrading the video quality with Netflix due to the fact that I am hitting my limits every month now... We have 3 people streaming stuff at the same time, so it is pretty easy to go through my allotment each month.

 

[Shawn Knight]

Plus, let's be real, who here is going to subscribe to the Internet just to watch TV over it?.

I would have to say a lot, especially in areas where there are limited options, like Upstate NY where I live.
With all the major networks allowing streaming of their shows/content online(and more to come) plus what other online services offer I can see many people just getting internet to watch their shows, me and my lady included.
I got to be honest I am quite shocked you would say something like that after writing this article!

This being a tech site for enthusiasts, the demographic is one that I assume would see paying for Internet as being almost a necessity right up there with the electric and water bill. But you're right, not every single person falls into this category and for those that would pay an ISP for the Internet just to watch TV over it, it wouldn't be cheaper and you're better off sticking with an antenna or a traditional cable bundle. Then again, I also left out those whose living situation provides free Internet access (college campus, part of a home owners association bundle, etc.). Drill deep enough and there are tons of variants

 

[CortyDK]

I'm from Denmark. Like you we also have cable providers with bundled offers giving you many channels you don't watch / don't want.

We cut the cord on december 31st 2014. We now have an antenna recieving the 6 free-to-air channels from our national radio and tv broadcaster, and a free-to-air regional channel.

We subscribe to NFL GamePass streaming subscription to be able to watch the entire season.

That's it. No more - no less. I don't miss anything - I have no need for Netflix or any other services. My old vinyl record player has seen its revival and we hear a lot more music and relaxes a lot more in the evening with the tv shut off.

And best of all - we save around $700 (3.000 DKR) every year.

 

[kiwijohn]

I live in Australia. STAN has just arrived and Netflix is to follow with a streaming service RSN. As I understand it I will still need an internet connection and, probably, unlimited download allowance, in order to use these services. Monthly subscriptions vary with the volume of full-speed download permitted without throttling to 64kbs.
So how am I going to be better off if I cancel my current ISP account? Foxtel operates here but I doubt the streaming services will be able to use their bandwidth. Specifically, how do I manage emails and access the many web sites I now subscribe to?

 

[xXxZxXx]

I used to be a cord cutter until Cable companies started giving data allowance and making you buy more to use the internet you already pay for monthly. So the cost of savings from cutting cable to streaming is lost when it'll cost me $60 just for 50 mb internet with 350 gb data allowance then $10 for purchasing every 75gb over that if I purchase it before I go over otherwise they'll charge $10 for every 50gb. Last month with netflix and youtube some amazon prime and regular web browsin and social media on 4 smartphones I used almost a whole 867 gb of data luckily this was my second warning and they don't charge overages till third time going over so now I'm paying $60 for internet cost + $30 to bring my data allowance from 350gb to 575gb. Then comes the taxes makes it a little over $100. And now I have to stream everything in 480p and not full HD due to data consumption. Then comes the cost of what ever streaming services I want and with 8 people in the household the big three you mention would be more likely. And that would be like $130-$140. My last cable company and current offer. My current internet 50 mb / 350 gb data allowance, unlimit local and long distance home phone, 1 Tivo DVR plus 2 tivo minis with 0-70 the basic channels then an extra 100 channels with HD channels for the same cost as just internet and usage costs plus the streaming costs. So this doesn't apply to everybody in which cord cutting is a benefit. But apparently their is people out their that ain't suffering from the same data allowances as me.

 

[iamdaduck]

My personal nirvana of cord cutting

- Main TV hardware-
channelmaster dvr + with a couple terrabyte hdd - I can record two shows at once and have a normal programming guide. I pick up all the major local networks and rarely ever have any signal issues with the mohu curve 50. It is also simple and easy for the wife to use. I also have a roku 3 hooked up.

- My other 3 tv's in the house are hooked up with two older roku2's, that I plan to eventually replace, and a chromecast that I hate.

- Paid content- I guess you can include prime but I had it before I ever cut the cord and would have it after. I currently pay for hulu plus and netflix as well. I also have been a giant fan of the slingtv service that I pay for $20 a month. The channels they picked in their base package are most of what I actually missed on the cable packages I used to subscribe to. Frankly, I have actually considered cancelling netflix lately as amazon keeps me relatively happy and overlaps netflix a lot.

When I had tv bundled with comcast internet my bills were getting to be well over $120 a month. I now spend $78 a month for all tv and internet combined and there is nothing I really miss not having. I may end up spending a few bucks a month more when curiosity stream launches a roku app. For those not familiar, it was created by the founder of the discovery channel and looks to be more like what the discovery channel used to be like before the reality show craze went nuts.

For me, if the choice was my current setup versus a cable package, I would choose my own setup right now even if the price was the same.

 

[ypsylon]

I was intrigued by the title but after couple lines I realized it's not about living without network but about TV. Well to be honest I'm much more ahead of you as I don't need any on-line service. I cannot grasp why Netflix-like is so popular. It's *****ic 100%. Used. Never going back. I don't waste my time on TV or Netflix & clones.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Great Article, Shawn. This article not only describes what it's like to live without cable, but incredibly helpful to those looking to supplement the services they would miss from "cutting the cord"

Definitely an amazing article, I concur!

 

[TitoBXNY]

Great article. I was paying a fortune to verizon. We had 2 HD boxes and 5 regular boxes in each bedroom. We had HBO, Showtime and other premium channels. My bill was $265-400 a month depending on what we watched. Boxing, UFC etc. I finally told my wife and kids that we had to make a drastic change. We could no longer keep flushing money down the toilet. I took 5 boxes back and canceled HBO and Showtime. I picked up 3 ROKU boxes and an amazon Fire one. While I do miss boxing on HBO and Showtime I can still watch AMC. My wife is in love with HULU+ and NETFLIX and we are discovering great new shows. I don't wish Love and Hip Hop on anyone, but I still sit through it with my lady. My son is watching all the anime in the world and my daughter loves last man on earth. I can't tell you enough how happy I am that I cut most of it. The next step is to take the 2 boxes back and be free of cable once and for all. Trying to convince my mom that we don't need a phone line since we all have Smartphones. We are on Fio's current Triple Play plan which is still overpriced. We also picked up two DTV antennas at Best Buy for nearly 60 over the air channels.

 

[NatalieEGH]

I would like to describe my cutting the cord, though for me, it was more adding features as I have not used cable television in 18 years except when my goddaughter was living with me.

I have a house antenna. It cost $300 with installation. I get 27 stations of which I routinely watch 6-10 (old tv shows and old movies). Virtually all my watching is not when the show is on though. I have my antenna running into my computer with a Hauppauge 2255 dual tv tuner. I then use Windows Media Center to record up 2 two shows at once. I watch them at me leisure. I have the recordings going to 4 disk drives on a hd docking station using a USB connection. It gives me 16TB of storage. At present about 1/4 is full. I tend to record and keep entire series that I like. (16 TB at max recording resolution is about 12,000 hours of hd TV). I also am a subscriber to Netflix and use HULU (basic).

I am a big fan on animation and have life time subscriptions to 2 different anime online sites (one is almost all dubbed into English, the other is a MUCH larger selection but all in original language and uses subtitles) that cost me I think $100 total.

The only channels that I would purchase/subscribe to if there were available for individual purchase/subscription are BBC, Boomerang, Cartoon Network, CSpan, CSpan2, History, History International, SyFy, and Smithsonian. I would also subscribe if available to a classical music/opera channel (local station changed format to Christian preaching a few years ago) and a channel with plays like Shakespeare, Chekov, Euripides, Wilde, ...).

To be honest, I find very little of American television I like. When I did have cable, I watched the channels listed above almost exclusively.