Not my phone, no, not with the Kickstarter plan. But if you have a landline phone then you can use a 56k modem to connect for free. It will be slow as Christmas but you can do it.
Let's say the Astros get $100 million (very rough number) from ATT Sportsnet. To make up for that, they would need 2 million people to subscribe to MLB.TV for the Astros. I doubt 2 million people would do that.
So, I've looked at this multiple times over the years and what you should do depends on what you, if anything, want to watch. If you want to be able to legally watch any rockets games and you live in an area with competition (Att and Xfinity or other) I have seen buying cable is about the same as or cheaper than the streaming tv services. I just call every 6 months to a year and make sure my bill stays low. When they say no, I just hang up and call again and get a new person. My DirecTV+internet is usually ~$100 When I was ok with less than legal options I had Netflix and ballstreams. If you're like that you can use hehestreams to cover all basketball and cut the cord and come out way cheaper. If you just watch the occasional national game I would go with sling TV.
For Xfinity /AT&T, a portion of the fees is toward renting set top boxes. Your first unit is built into cost, then additional are $10 each. So having 3 boxes (which would be my case) would cost $20 extra a month, on top of whatever fees. What a waste of expense when Rokus and Fire Sticks are so much less over 3 or 4 months. I wish Xfinity or At&t (the non-streaming that includes AT&T Sportsnet) would just give up on the rental fee and go with the streaming device option. I understand they are in it for profits, but It would make them dominate over the others due to their exclusivity with the RSNs and comparable in price
I'm finally in the process of cutting the cord. Well, sorta. Switching from overpriced, low-speed AT&T Uverse where they kept jacking up the prices on me every year to the point I was getting screwed over to currently testing out Spectrum cable and a combination of YouTube TV and Philo. Sadly Philo is really only for 2 channels. I may add CBS All Access to finally start watching the "new" Star Trek series, too. I've also had Amazon Prime for the shipping for years, but get the benefits of Prime Video with that, as well. The YouTube/Philo combo has been a bit clunky to use, but I'll still take it over getting screwed over by AT&T's box rentals and fees on top of fees that add a ton to what you thought would be a cheaper bill. I have a landline "just in case" but am thinking about dropping that as well, or switching to something like Obihai or something, but still debating that. Leaning towards just dropping it altogether. Any of you guys use Obihai/Google Voice or some other VOIP service? I'm trying to staty away from Ooma.
Wow. I have pretty good success with requesting rate reductions and I have stuck with ATT for while but I've heard of others not having success where there is no competition. For frame of reference, I pay $58 for cable and I have no cable box fees. Paying for youtubeTV + Philo + unbundled internet seems like a lot to me. I do agree you will definitely get ripped off if you don't monitor it and whine to them about every quarter.
Yeah, I've unfortunately had them for about 16 years, I think (lol). Ever since I moved into this house. I only have 18 megabit speeds which is fine for me, but they kept jacking up prices. When I called them, they said the fastest I can get in my area is 40-50 megabit speeds. They said they could give me that speed for another $10 a month (lol). They do have gigabit nearby, but just not in my neighborhood. I also am paying for ancient DVR's and the video quality has become pixelated for whatever reason on their tv service. I was paying something like $230-$250/month for this and a landline for emergency use since my cell phone reception wasn't the greatest here (until I switched from AT&T to TMobile). The problem was, there wasn't much in the way of alternatives because I was scared of the reliability of Spectrum cable which was my only other choice. So I switched to Spectrum because I got sick of paying too much. Their introductory rate is something like $44.95 price-locked for 1 year for 200 megabit internet and their cheapest tv package. I decided to go with their 400 megabit internet package for $65 price-locked for 2 years and then Philo and YouTube TV on top of that. Running side-by-side, the Spectrum reliability for the last few weeks have been good and I'm getting about 470 megabit download speeds consistently, so I'll be cancelling the AT&T service in the next week or two.
Switch to Charter Spectrum for $44.95 a month. No contracts. * * - Broadcast fee of $16.95 plus hardware fees not included in offer price False advertising in my book. An asterisk with a paragraph of BS on added fees doesn't make for $44.95.
That's why I just got the Internet from Spectrum. I only pay the price + tax. I don't get tv/phone from them. Fees and set-top box monthly fees made it "not as good" (but still better than what I was paying). You also use your own router behind their gateway/modem and you "save" another $5 or $10 a month. Plus you won't be tied to them for anything but Internet. Their DVR/non-existent whole-house solution sucked anyway. Now if you'd rather get the Internet, TV, Phone, etc. from one place or have no other choice but to do so, you may get fee'ed to death just like by pretty much every other company.
I've got their Internet, too. I pay $70 a month for 200 Mbps. The last time I called them...they said there wasn't a lesser plan as I don't need 200 and would be fine with 100. If I get their cable, then the Internet drops down to $44.95 with their cable at $44.95 (cough)...for a year and then regular rates after that. I pay $93 for basic DirecTV package now. I'm about to get rid of it as nothing new is coming to TV anyway. I can make do with an antenna. I thought about getting the Charter cable, though, for the Internet price drop. I know I would pay less than I'm paying now for DirecTV. I do like the DirecTV DVRs, though, but don't really need them given shows go to streaming.
Yeah, this is why sometimes the only way to get something cheaper or better is to switch. I'm hoping AT&T or someone else that comes to this area in 2 years will be offering deals because I know, just like everybody else, when my 2-year lock-up on the price is complete, Spectrum will jack up the price. The existing customers are the ones who usually get shafted. Just like I gave AT&T a chance to get me something better or a reasonably-priced plan, I'll do the same with Spectrum or just switch. I don't really need anything more than the 18-20 Mbits I was getting, to be honest, and only got the 400 instead of the 200 megabit plan because the $65 was locked in for 2 years, and I know they weren't going to give me better deals during that period. And of course, they'll jack up the price on the 200 megabit after a year. I'm getting to the point I may just give up tv.
Tonight the Rockets are playing on TNT, I never thought I'd be this concerned about blackouts but I've been missing a few Astros games because of it. I have YouTube TV and really hope this is not the case. Does anyone know if this will be blacked out due to simulcast on AT&T Sportsnet?
If any of you are/were thinking about getting Philo, their price for new subscribers is about to go up by $5/month. Existing subscribers keep the same rate, but they won't get the new extended DVR functionality (can store programming for up to a year). https://blog.philo.com/posts/package-and-price-changes
Disney raises price on ad-free Disney+ 38% to $10.99 as part of new pricing structure for streaming services Disney+ will no ads is increasing $3 per month to $10.99. Disney+ with ads will be $7.99 per month. A bundle of Disney+ and Hulu, both with ads, will be $9.99 per month.
I tossed them after their **** with Gina Carano. Not supporting a company that polarizes the woke mob.
Remember when cutting the cord was done to save money. Now that money is just distributed to multiple carriers. With that said, I really like everything Direct TV is offering now, it's on demand with almost every channel. The only thing is you have to do is watch commercials, which is a small price to pay and that's not everything on demand.
Charter/Spectrum has a $20 streaming package available via their streaming app that I think doesn’t include locals. Anyone use that? I believe YouTubeTV is around $55 with local channels. I’m still on DirecTV with two DVRs (non-Genie) on the basic package at $100. I wonder if I can’t get a deal if I call up to quit? Only minus is they would probably put me on a 2 year contract.
Google the best competing offer in your area. There is always a good new customer deal somewhere. Call and tell DirecTV you'd like to lower your bill because you see better offers available They will ask what you watch. Tell them what you watch and they will try to get you on a lower package. If they can't, they will say that's the best they can do. Ask them if there's any specials available for a loyal customer. Otherwise you may be forced to leave. They will send you to the retention team who will offer you a discount to stay. Repeat every 6-12 months depending on the discount time length. I knew this would happen. The production costs of Disney+ are just too high for them to make the margins they want without raising rates. The plan always seemed to be to create an environment where people feel like they have to have disney+ because of how all the marvel stuff connects and anyone who consumes all their star wars stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up at the same price point as Netflix.
