Well, from my point of view Spectrum has screwed me and themselves.

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  • flightsimmer

    Master
    Rating - 100%
    6   0   0
    Dec 27, 2008
    3,943
    149
    S.E. Indy
    We got a letter in the mail about 10 days or so back informing us that Spectrum was going all digital on Tuesday, June the 5th. It's now my wife's account since I refused to pay for it anymore. I've been wanting to cut the cord for some time but she has to have her Soaps.

    Anyway, I didn't think much of it since our TV's are all digital ready but what I didn’t realize was we would be required to rent a digital receiver for each tv at $8 a month, that's $48 in our case for 6 tv sets plus our monthly charge of about $115 for a total of roughly $165 which we won't afford. So when the installer came out we told him to forget it and I asked him how many customers had canceled their service so far that day and he said 3 had.

    Now from my point of view it looks like Spectrum has shot themselves in the foot and my wife decided to go with AT&T instead and I noticed several AT&T installer trucks in I our area this week but it will be at least 10 days before they can get to us. Looks like it might be a mass exodus.

    Now for my tv, I'm thinking about going to an antenna on the roof for about $40. What are the rest of you doing?
     

    eldirector

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    10   0   0
    Apr 29, 2009
    14,677
    113
    Brownsburg, IN
    We moved to ATT a year ago for other reasons. My In-laws JUST moved to ATT for exactly this reason. Been a LOT of this going around. I suspect Spectrum will lose a bunch of customers.

    We have 4 TVs on the "cable". Two of them use wireless boxes. The tech didn't want to bother running wire, so gave as those at no charge (supposed to be extra, I think). Work fine.

    ATT has been fine. No issues to speak of. Routine router reboots, but that is pretty normal for today's technology.

    The garage TV has a digital ant. receiver. Works fine for getting some background noise on the weekends. My wife NEEDS the TV, so the rest of the house has a TV visible from any common space, plus the bedroom, and my office (which hasn't been turned on for months, but whatever).
     

    femurphy77

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    30   0   0
    Mar 5, 2009
    20,268
    113
    S.E. of disorder
    We haven't had a TV service in several years. We had one of the pizza box antennas for a year or two but took it down when we started our room addition. We never have put an antenna back up and have just been buying DVDs for a buck or two here or there or catching up on the news via the Internet. We have a 30 ft Tower and a rather large antenna and Rotator that I'm going to put up one of these days and that's how we'll get our TV fix when we have to. Honestly though we don't really miss commercial television offerings and when we go someplace that requires an overnight stay in a hotel we Channel surf until were disgusted with all the commercials and finally turn it off.
     

    churchmouse

    I still care....Really
    Emeritus
    Rating - 100%
    187   0   0
    Dec 7, 2011
    191,809
    152
    Speedway area
    We left AT&T when we got tired of negotiating the rates every 6 months or so. We have been loyal customers with our cells (5) TV/Internet bundle etc for years. The picture was sliding down hill and the sound as well. I suspected the TV but all the others were doing the same thing. My rate went nuts again so we opted for Dish. It is easier on the budget.
    When the installer turned it on the Pic/sound was amazing compared to what we had with AT&T. He said Dish is true 1080 and AT&T was in the 700's and it was obvious. The dish controls are slow.
    Pick your poison.
     

    Haven

    Network Warlord
    Rating - 100%
    3   0   0
    Nov 6, 2016
    3,251
    113
    Camby Area
    You could also check out something like SlingTV, it is a streaming service. Just get internet only, and stream everything.

    Or

    One thing that Comcast did is that with the Roku boxes I don't need a cable box on each TV. I do need one DVR though. Which is fine on the main TV. In my office I just use the Roku and stream everything via the Comcast application. I don't know if Spectrum has that type of app as well.
     

    Leadeye

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    4   0   0
    Jan 19, 2009
    36,690
    113
    .
    There's an old saying that if you double the rates and lose a third of your customers, you are still money ahead.

    Always follow the money
     

    Mr Evilwrench

    Quantum Mechanic
    Emeritus
    Rating - 0%
    0   0   0
    Aug 18, 2011
    11,560
    63
    Carmel
    I told my mom not to get AT&T Uverse when she was presented the choice, and she's had nothing but trouble; the phone goes MIA, the two TVs go various ways stupid, the internet could have a link through two guys with semaphore flags. Until we got it worked out, she'd have to spend a couple hours on the phone monthly to get pay-per-view or HBO items removed from her bill because as she'd been channel surfing and landed on one of those things for a few seconds and they considered it a view. But this is the woman that won't change cell service to unlimited/unlimited for $25 a month from her few minutes a week on a flip phone for $20. She just doesn't listen to me.

    I picked up the spectrum box and I'll connect it if the analog really goes away. They've been promising it would for so long. My problem with them is I've been getting billed for years now for an old digital box that I'd returned to them. I haven't been able to convince them that I don't have it, and they wanted it back, but I can't give it back to them any more than I already have, so since they lost it they're punishing me for their incompetence. I had a tech over for a modem problem and he had one of these boxes, but I didn't even let him in the house with it, so now they're billing me for the replacement one I don't have, instead of the original one I didn't have. This goes back to bright house, though.

    I have only two TVs, and watch only one. When I get to wanting to watch the second one, I'll put in HDMI splitters and remote extenders so that I can piggy back one TV on the other. The only disadvantage is they both have to be on the same channel, but there's still only the one of me to watch them.
     

    1911ly

    Grandmaster
    Site Supporter
    Rating - 100%
    6   0   0
    Dec 11, 2011
    13,419
    83
    South Bend
    Around here most everyone has issues with ATT. The phone lines are probably to old. I pony up for Comcast. My speed is 100mbps or better. I know I am over paying. But unless the power goes down the cable is always working. The issues I have are from tree branches landing on lines.Other then price I have no issues. I do call them every 6 months and threaten to go to dish and they always drop the bill and or add more channels. My CS experience has been pretty good with them.
     

    churchmouse

    I still care....Really
    Emeritus
    Rating - 100%
    187   0   0
    Dec 7, 2011
    191,809
    152
    Speedway area
    Around here most everyone has issues with ATT. The phone lines are probably to old. I pony up for Comcast. My speed is 100mbps or better. I know I am over paying. But unless the power goes down the cable is always working. The issues I have are from tree branches landing on lines.Other then price I have no issues. I do call them every 6 months and threaten to go to dish and they always drop the bill and or add more channels. My CS experience has been pretty good with them.

    I think our internet is with AT&T still as they actually own Dish. They came through last summer and put the Fiber Optic cable in.
     

    AngryRooster

    Master
    Rating - 100%
    18   0   0
    Apr 27, 2008
    4,591
    119
    Outside the coup
    Things are changing right now for us. We currently have Direct TV, been a customer since 2009. I'm tired of negotiating the bill back down, tired of junk equipment, tired of seeing the rates we pay vs the rates for new customers, tired of the BS channel selection, etc. I wanted to add El Rey network to our package. We're on the lowest package they offer. They told me it's not offered by itself and the only way to get it is to change our package. They said it would go from the $55 ($76 after all the crap add ons) package to the $100 package. "So would you like me to do that for you now sir?" NO *&$^#@ING WAY!!! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!?!?

    This past week I started looking at different options, they are very limited in our location. The only source for TV is satellite. No cable where we're at. The only internet we can get is dial up, satellite, or a small company that does a wireless service from the radio tower (that's what we have, very expensive for what it is).

    I have Amazon prime and was watching shows on the computer with no lag, same with youtube as long as I keep it off 1080p and run 720p. Our Fire TV gen 1 box got bricked after the latest updates so I bought a $29 Roku Express and hooked it up. No problems streaming Amazon or any of the other free services. I looked into Sling TV but they can't get us our local channels and we like Fox 59 news. Found Direct TV Now, they have the locals. 60 channels for $10 a month for 3 months, then $35 a month. Thought that it was worth checking out. Love it. The picture is better at 720p than our DTV service was at supposedly 1080p.

    The DTV Now is very new, like less than a month. I'll be calling DTV on Monday and suspending our service for the next 3 months and giving things a trial run. During those 3 months our cost will be $30 vs the $225 it would have been with DTV proper.

    I thought our internet might not be up to it, but it seems to be doing fine. Our speeds are 10 Mbps down / 5 Mbps up ($90 a month). Went back to wally world and bought a second Roku for upstairs the day after I hooked up the first one. Between the DTV Now, Amazon Prime, and all the other channels that are free on the Roku we have all we need. Netflix need not apply.
     

    1911ly

    Grandmaster
    Site Supporter
    Rating - 100%
    6   0   0
    Dec 11, 2011
    13,419
    83
    South Bend
    I have had dish before at other places I lived. Even back in the C band days. It's not an option here. I have to many trees to put the dish anywhere reasonable. I hate paying so much, but I get an insane amount of channels and the wifi is really fast. TBH I could probably to away with the TV and I haven't used that ph line in 7-8 years. But they don't offer a plan that just gets Wifi and TV. So in the future I am going to look for other TV on line options. But for the moment I am stuck with Comcast for the reliability.
     

    croy

    Master
    Rating - 100%
    24   0   0
    Apr 22, 2012
    1,875
    48
    Indiana
    I had AT&T Uverse. They were ok. Switched to Directv. I was told my bill would be X amount for the first year and go up like $30 the 2nd year. It doubled to over $200 a month. I had Directv now it would freeze all the time + no DVR. I switched to sling. I borrowed my inlaws log in for directv now for something on ABC and no lag + they recently added a DVR. So I currently have directv now.
     

    wtburnette

    WT(aF)
    Site Supporter
    Rating - 100%
    44   0   0
    Nov 11, 2013
    26,859
    113
    SW side of Indy
    Had Comcast for 6 years and finally got tired of having to constantly call and adjust things to get good rates. AT&T rolled through here last summer and installed fiber, so I switched about 6 months ago. Now have gigabit fiber internet service and just stream the TV I want to watch via Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime. I have an antenna hooked up to the downstairs TV to get local stations, but we never use it. We don't get to watch some things as soon as they're out, but we don't really care. If we get tired of waiting for something we can always buy the season on Amazon. We still save ~$40 per month over the last cable bill and the picture quality is much better, plus my internet speeds are quite a bit faster.
     

    Hoosierdood

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    8   0   0
    Nov 2, 2010
    5,360
    149
    North of you
    Spectrum allows you to to use their Streaming app on either Samsung TV's or a Roku device. Get rid of all your cable boxes (or just keep 1 for DVR service) and use Roku on all the other TV's. Just make sure your network is strong enough with a decent router to use the streaming app. Thats what I did with Spectrum. I pay about $105/month for cable and internet.
     

    moosehead

    Sharpshooter
    Rating - 100%
    23   0   0
    Mar 11, 2013
    356
    18
    Indianapolis
    At our last house Brighthouse (Now Spectrum) was the only internet I could get outside of dial-up. I signed up with them in 2010, and cancelled in 2017 when we moved. In that entire period of time, I had less than 12 outages.
    I've had Comcast since the move. For the first 6 months I had at least 4 outages per day, and the worst was 64 in a single day. I have had no fewer than 4 technicians to my house, 3 of them replacing my service drop. 2 of them gave me their work cell phone number and told me to call the next time we got disconnected. It stopped the day I called in and got in touch with Customer Retention, and inquired if I would be able to break my contract without a penalty.
    I haven't had AT&T for a long time.
     
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