It's that time of year when there's a pretty big drive to try to compete with people who have cut the cord. I used this to my advantage by calling my local TV provider and asking what they have that could compete against Hulu. They went through a few of the normal tactics which included how they offer better service (questionable) and their up time versus Hulu (negligible). I eventually said that I was a customer of their ISP side of the business for years and that I didn't want to take on an additional expense. After about 20 minutes on the phone, I received a discount on my internet, a streaming device (New Roku), and some premium streaming channels at a pretty deep discount. One of the things to point out is to ask a lot about the contractual obligations of this agreement. The one I'm with doesn't have a contract so I can cancel it after a predetermined amount of time. What's important is that you don't get into something where you're stuck for a couple years and then out of nowhere they raise your bill and you're not able to do anything about it. Good luck!
Here , the most we get is cash rebates which is essentially a discount or maybe one or two months free and for me that is good enough even though of course I'd love to receive more things like streaming devices. I've recently also just switched to getting individual channels instead of buying a pack because I think I've been wasting a bit too much on a lot of channels i never watch. This way I get to save up and spend that money on channels that actually matter to me but the downside is that I did have to give up a lot of others that were mildly entertaining.
When we moved to his house (that we bought on mortgage) the only cable provider is Sky Cable so we had no choice. Now that we are thinking of cutting off it service, there was that fine print that says we have to pay a disconnection fee of 2,000 pesos (about $50). Isn't that unfair to us considering that we have been a dutiful customer since 2001? But anyway, our plan is to change cable provider and not to go streaming because the internet access in the Philippines is not conducive to streaming yet.
I just had this conversation yet again with my provider two days ago. Yesterday they arrived and swapped out my modem/router, because in their attempt to placate me, they increased my internet speed, and gave me a $3/month discount, as if $3 is going to make me happy. My old router/modem couldn't handle the higher internet speed. I'm planning to keep the internet, obviously, regardless of what I do with the television service, so I figured the new modem/router would be helpful, since I might soon be streaming all of my television shows and movies. I'm not happy with their stance on the televised content, though, so will be looking at cutting back on my programming or terminating that portion of my services at some point.
We use the cable company's Internet service, but we do not have cable television. We use a digital antenna in order to receive the local broadcasting stations, such as ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and PBS, and then we use our cable Internet to stream Netflix and Youtube. The combination of the free broadcasting from the digital antenna and the streaming of online content gets us just about everything we like to watch, including current-season television shows, local news, sports, and movies. It's great to hear a success story about calling to negotiate your monthly bill on your service. I have heard some success stories about people calling their service providers for better deals. Unfortunately the cable provider for our Internet service is notorious for not giving customers who call any discounts, even when customers threaten to cancel. Even so, it doesn't hurt to try. You never know if you can get a discount until you try!
We are just going through that yet again, with Comcast. It was around Chrisstmas when they increased my cable bill for the month, and I spent two days grumbling with them, and they finally put me on another special that was cheaper. However, here we are in February, and now it is back up again, and even higher this time ! ! I AM FURIOUS ! ! I don't watch television, except for when the weather is bad (tornado threats), or there is something going on in the news. My husband watches some of the programs carried by the local stations, and he loves to watch Fox News. In order to get Fox News, we have to subscribe to one of the higher-priced packages and pay for bunches (hundreds?) of channels that we NEVER watch. So.......new plan. For $30, I can get one of the HD antennas (thank you Amazon) that will pick up any station within 80 miles of here. Once @preacherbob50 puts it up, then he can watch all of the local channels all that he wants and no more paying for it. I will still have to have Internet, and I am checking the options on providers to see if we should keep Comcast for that, or change to something cheaper.
I'm thinking I might try hooking up one of my old antennas I used last time I cut the cable, and see how many stations I can pick up using that. Technology has changed and improved a lot since I used them, because it's been probably 5 years or so since I purchased them, but it might be worth it. Like you, I need the weather information available in emergencies, since I live in a hurricane zone. I also only really watch a handful of channels, yet have to pay for hundreds that I don't watch and don't care to have. I don't really care about the news stations the way @preacherbob50 does, but my favorites such as HGTV, DIY Network, and Hallmark, are in high demand, so the cable companies can use them as carrots to reel us in and charge us higher rates. I mainly record shows and watch them on my DVR, so I don't think I'll have much of a problem adjusting to using a service such as Hulu, if I can ever come up with the funds to purchase a few rokus and perhaps an antenna or two.
We have an older Apple TV that we have had for several years, and we use that for channels like Netflix and Hulu+. Since it no longer can update with YouTube, we have started checking out the other alternatives to Apple TV. The new ones are much more expensive, and start at about $150. What we are considering instead is one of the Amazon Fire Sticks. They do almost as much as the more expensive Fire TV's do, and they are only $39, and cheaper when Amazon has them on sale. Since we have Amazon Prime, and sometime watch Amazon Videos, this's would be a better choice for u, because we don't have that feature on the Apple TV. I am not sure how much Roku cost; but the reports on them seem to be pretty good, too. We only have one television since there are just the two of us, and even then, we watch alsmot everything on our iPads ; so only one of the Fire Sticks would be all we needed.
