What annoys me about where I am is that us being such a small population works against us in a major way. The market being so small means that there're no options, the cable provider we use is the sole provider, a monopoly and I think they've become very, very complacent and arrogant over the years, as they know we'll always go back to them. They charge us extortionate fees, which they hike without fail every single year. What's more, there's what they call the 'access fee', which basically means you pay more to be able to record, pause, rewind etc! That we refuse to pay because that facility should already be a part the device. Also, they have two versions of the most expensive package (the premium package); one HD and a lesser quality version! I've never seen greed of that magnitude, and if I had the choice, I'd kick them to the curb and boycott them for life LOL
@morgoodie If you have a laptop and an HDMI cable (and TV with HDMI input), you can probably 'throw' <--I don't know the technical term your picture from the laptop to the television. I've done it in the past, so I know it's possible. You do it by opening Netflix up to the movie page on your laptop, plugging the HDMI cord into the HDMI 'out' on the laptop, and into the HDMI 'in' on the TV, and change the input setting on the television, if it doesn't do that automatically. I streamed downstairs on Netflix via my blu-ray player. I haven't had Netflix in a while, and recently re-subscribed, with the intention of cutting the cable. That television is the furthest away from the router, which is upstairs. When I had Comcast, it would constantly buffer and stall, and it was very frustrating. The picture did stall several times during the movie, but the sound didn't cut out, so I guess that's an improvement. I'll have to try hooking the Roku up to that TV at some point, to see if it's due to the blu-ray being old, or whether it's the actual connection. I'm paying $60/month for internet (I noticed it'd gone up when I just paid the bill, it used to be $40), and I shouldn't be having this issue. That cost will go up when/if I cut the cord, another $20+/month, so stalling and cutting out will not be tolerated, and I might have to switch providers, but my only other option is Comcast, which as I said, was definitely poorer quality. I've read that Comcast has upgraded their systems, and some seem very happy, but I'd really like to not have to go that route.
@Diane Lane...stalling and buffering is part of our problem with our internet at the moment. That's why in the end we decided to go back to cable, especially because my poor husband just couldn't stream a quality picture via the internet. We're very unhappy with the service we receive, given the quality, or should that be lack thereof!? We've started exploring alternative options, and yesterday we spoke to an Orange agent. We're interested in this wireless modem that we can take everywhere, that doesn't need a landline and is 4G. The only problem? It's limited to 20 gig, beyond which the quality will drop to something I can't get my head around. The monthly fee is reasonable and apparently, even if we exhaust the 20 gig, we don't pay anything over and above that. We're frustrated as we can't get our heads around what 20 gig really mean. We use the internet a lot, and download a lot too. Clearly we need to do some more research before we dive straight in **sigh**
I totally understand that, which is why I believe unlimited is the way to go. You could probably chart your usage for a month or so, to see how many movies and TV shows you watch, how many music downloads (if any), etc., and then look around to see how much data that would consist of, before cutting the cord. I know at one point here i tried something like that, it was a broadband streaming stick (just for internet, no apps, this was years back), and the speeds were below what I used to have with dial up, so obviously that didn't work for me. It's frustrating to have these issues in 2016.
We have an Apple TV, and we can also "throw" anything from the ipad to the television screen, and it doe it without having to be connected. It is called "Airplay", but it only works when you have the Apple TV and another Apple device such as the iPad or an iPhone. We use Comcast, and except for the cost going up incessantly, and have to call and try to deal with some other-country service rep; Comcast Xfinity actually work pretty well. We have timess when service has issues, of course, or it is just really slow to connect with a webpage; but I think that almost any cable company iss going to experience outages. One problem that I have with changing providers for internet is that I use that for an email address, and then I woud have to change the email address everywhere that I use it.
Thanks, Diane I suppose we could do that. We're starting to look around and weighing our options because the current provider we're using is not quite cutting it. I only like it from the standpoint that it's unlimited. We too had one of those internet sticks, the dongle and it's actually not very cost effective at all! -and not even that good. The credit goes so fast it's ridiculous!! We're looking at 4G, with very little if any buffering and also unlimited internet. I'm confident we'll eventually find something worth our money
What I don't like is how a lot of the TV channels seem to expect you to have a TV provider if you want to watch online. If I wanted to sign up with a provider, I'd just watch it on the TV. I mean, I could even see them charging an access fee or something for watching online. It would still be better than having to have cable or satellite, which I refuse to do any longer. Just charge a set - and reasonable - fee. It would be a better deal than cable, because you could pay only to watch what you like, instead of pay a lot of money for very little decent programming. I guess I'll just stick with Netflix for now. I can't beat the value.
