Cutting the cord

[mojo84]

How many cordcutters do we have here?

We do not use our home phone at all. Probably going to to shut it off. We have fiber to the house and use VOIP for our business. No we can't port our home phone number to a VOIP system either.

Now comes the tough one, cutting Dish. For the most part, I am fine with fewer cable channels. I only watch a few channels, mostly sports and news. Between the internet, Roku with Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and OTA Antenna we should be able to get by. When football season rolls around, that is when I will feel the most pain. Not sure how I can watch the teams that I enjoy following without cable.

One concern is that I haven't tested the OTA Antenna yet. We live well out in the country and the transmitters for the channels in which I am most interested are 30-70 miles away according to TVFool.com. Not sure what to expect as far as OTA reception.

Any other thoughts or ideas?

[jmra]

The only cord we haven't cut is Uverse which I have primarily for the high speed internet

[jamminbutter]

Only chord running is the 300mbs fiber to the house. We use the Roku with Netflix and Prime for most of our viewing and an OTA for everything else.

[DocV]

Actually, you can port your number to VOIP, or, at least to Google Voice:
[youtube][/youtube]

[thenick_ttu]

When football season rolls around, that is when I will feel the most pain. Not sure how I can watch the teams that I enjoy following without cable.

If you are an NFL fan, you will be able to watch the local game(s) via your local channels. I don't have a good solution if you're wanting to replace Sunday Ticket.

If you are a college fan, I would suggest finding a friend or family member that will give you their username & login, in return for a small monthly fee. You would be paying part of their cable bill. ESPN and Fox Sports 1 both have an app where you can stream live content via your Roku, laptop, etc. You won't be able to watch every game but you'll get a good chunk (in addition to the games on your local channels).

As a last resort, there is a website that live streams sporting events from all across the world (thefirstrow.eu). The video quality is usually decent but nowhere close to HD.

[mojo84]

Thanks for the feedback. I am going to explore those options.

I also had an another idea. I do not really need the actual phone but I do want to keep my home number active. Therefore, based on the video DocV shared, I may investigate just porting my home number to a burner prepaid phone.

Also, it is primarily college football games that I am most interested in seeing.

[PaJ]

I cut the phone line a few years back. I had VOIP service and was only paying $9 per month, but we never used it. I now have high speed internet and DirecTV. I could ALMOST give up DirecTV but am not quite there yet. We watch a lot of DIY/food type channels, and I don't want to miss out on football. Before I got DirecTV, I'd just go sit in a sports bar on Sunday afternoons to see games I couldn't see at home.

My kids have gone completely to Netflix. They rarely watch TV except with us. I may need to reconsider DirecTV and see if I could live without it. We are trying to pay off some bills, and the extra money would be a benefit.

High speed internet is a must with five teens and a wife that works from home. I'm getting away from UVerse and having a new service installed on Friday. I never get anywhere near the speeds I pay for with UVerse, and they always say "it's your computer". (I fully understand degradation of signal, etc., but I pay for 45 mbps and usually get less than 5 mbps even hard wired). I don't know that my new provider will be any better, but they are the only two choices I have.

[C-dub]

Went without a house phone for years, but then the Mrs. wanted one to be able to fax things. That only happens once or twice every few years, but ... whatever. Sometimes it's not worth the battle.

[F350-6]

I'm of no help, but congrats. Way out in the country and fiber to the house don't even belong in the same conversation where I live. My high speed internet option still has to buffer youtube videos, so watching anything longer than 30 seconds online doesn't really work.

I do keep my home phone number just so I have a number to give out to everyone with a loyalty card, warranty registration, credit company, etc. Too many fine print agreements about you agree to let us and our affiliates call you to hand out the cell phone number for me.

[Vol Texan]

We do have a home phone, but only for three purposes:

• We use it as the primary dialer for our alarm system (but the alarm has secondary dialers as well),
• We give it out when signing up for anything that requires a phone number (as if they might telemarket us later).
• My 6-year old knows how to dial 911 from it.

There is a phone attached to it (for the 911 purpose above only), but the ringer is on silent.

Effectively, we're cut from that cord, but it is there as a lifeline only.

[Taypo]

Can't remember how many years its been since I had a hard line phone...maybe 10?

I enjoy the end of day channel surfing entirely too much to ever ditch my Fios cable, though.

[SewTexas]

We've cut the cord, been without for several years. We have Netflix and Amazon Prime, we also have Acorn TV, it's a British TV channel. One app that I looked at for a bit was Plex, I think that's what it's called....let me see if I can find it....yes, Plex, take a look at Plex.tv, see if it's an option for your sports stuff. we just set it aside for now.

[NotRPB]

well out in the country and the transmitters for the channels in which I am most interested are 30-70 miles away according to TVFool.com.

Don't believe Tvfool.com


my ota, in burnet tx gets San Antonio channels 4.1, 4.2, 5.1.5.2, 12.1, 12.2, 29.1, 29.2, 35.1, 35.2, 41.1, thru 41.5, 60.1 thru 60.5 and Fredericksburg 2.1, 2.2 and

mostly I watch waco temple killeen, kcen 6.1 thru 6,5 kwtx 10.1 10,2, kxxv25.1, 25.3, 44.1, 44,2, 44.3 then also there's the Liberal Stations from Austin and their subchannels 7.1, 7.2, 24.1, 24.2, 24.3 , 36.1, 36.2

mornings i watch victoria sometimes on 25 or 19
when a high pressure summer mornings i watch Houston channels 2, 11, 13, 26 (same frequency as kxxv channel 26) 39 (same frequency as when weather is freaky i watch corpus christi channel 10 or shreveport lousiana/arklatex stations.

Using largest antennacraft antenna on 5 foot tripod with 10 foot 1-1/5" EMT conduit as mast, channelmaster rotator with infrared remote control (stores 99 positions), winegard preamp, roof peak is 15 foot off the ground, the 10' EMT plus 5' rotor mast puts antenna about 25 feet above ground.

I used 6 feet RG6U from antenna to mast mounted preamp part, then RG11u cable wire 50 feet to get into the house , then go to RG6 inside the house to 4 TVs and 2 computers each with dual tv tuner cards to use as DVRs

if you want highest gain preamp or rotator model numbers ask I'll try to dig up the boxes stored somewhere because i set up two sets on my roof, in case someone wanted to watch San Antonio while I watch waco temple killeen (some mlb games black out in certai cities or something, my uncle watches mlb)

I'm close to austin, don't care for their programming except last week they added 36.2 COZI which i was watching in Waco on 6.2 and on San Antonio Station 60.3

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way out in country ... limited internet so i haven't tried internet tv much. mostly ota

finally got 3 mb/sec cable and magicjack on 5 cordless phones throught the house. it works :)

magicjack app on cell phone and i use taco bell or doctor office/ retaurant wi-fi for calls when i have a wifi signal away from home to use my "home number" and contacts list numbers
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oh i installed FTA Free To Air satellite ku band (a couple hundred odd, i mean real odd channels) a few years back, then got the larger C band dish (maybe 600 channels, harder to aim, bigger dish, more expensive, not worth messing with except if need a hobby) and put it in front of the ku band, neither are hooked up right now, i'll re-hook up them one day, they are more a play with it hobby like listening to shortwave radio etc, than TV... there's a movie station in Kuwait with english movies and arabic subtitles ... japanese stations with cartoons in japanese, but amusing hobby

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uncle in the other room has Dish for MLB, spends most of the day watching stiff on antenna until baseball comes on

[Jumping Frog]

I had UVerse for years.

Then I dropped it and switched to Comcast Xfinity about 5-6 months ago. My download speed are literally 20x faster with Xfinity. Never switching back to UVerse.