Biting the bullet and switching to Direct TV. Cable is out of control price-wise

[Disney1fan2002]

We had Direct TV 15 years ago for 5 years and never, ever did we lose the signal, even in a New England blizzard. Sure, the power went out, but the satellite signal never went out.

Verizon is not in my neighborhood for the internet portion of the package, but I am keeping Cox just for the internet, and will have Direct TV for my TV. So excited to be getting NFL Sunday ticket next year! I can watch my Patriots every week without going out to a bar at 1pm, since they are not usually shown in this market in VA.

COX will not go any lower on their pricing, and I am tired of paying over $200/month. Eventually they will realize there is competition out there.

 

[low-key]

I haven't bit the bullet yet, but I will

 

[powellrj]

We had U-verse when it first came out and loved it. The last couple of years not so much so we changed to At&T direct and have been happy with it. I have Netflix, prime and Hulu, but I am still not ready to just stream.

 

[tarheelmjfan]

I would love to go back to Directv. Unfortunately, high speed AT&T internet is still working it's way to our area. When that happens, we're definitely dropping Comcast. The best part of having different companies for TV & internet is they don't both go down at the same time. Comcast is horrible. Ours goes out way too often. When you lose cable, you also lose internet. If having Directv for TV & Comcast for internet wasn't so cost prohibitive, we would have don't that a long time ago.

 

[Captainkidd76]

We have DirecTv. Horrible Interface. Slow response to remotes. Picture no better or worse than cable. They've cleaned up their act when it comes to contracts with networks which they desperately needed to do.

 

[tvguy]

Yikes! $200+ a month? I guess I have to stop complaining about paying $130 a month for Dish.

 

[dakotix]

We cut the cord years ago. We only pay for internet and use Roku to stream Netwflix, Hulu, CBS, etc. If we had cable (or satellite) now, we'd never use it.

 

[indimom]

Wow, 200? Just for the cable? We get cable, internet, a home phone line, and a cell phone bundled for $150.
For us, cable was so much more reliable and cheaper than satellite.

 

[dclpluto]

Yikes! $200+ a month? I guess I have to stop complaining about paying $130 a month for Dish.

They are probably talking about internet also and maybe phone.

 

[luvsJack]

We like Direct just be sure to keep a close look at your bill. It will creep up from the original agreed upon package price. And any time you call them they “gift” you a few free months of premium channels for your trouble. Except at the end of the free period they don’t go away and you have to call to cancel them.

I have our package at the smallest one that fits our wants but ever couple of months I look at the packages to see if anything has changed.

They will renegotiate your package price every year and will usually offer you whatever deal they have going for new customers.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

We just went to PlayStation Vue. Love it!

 

[Meriweather]

We have DISH.....for about 20 years. Lost HBO a couple months ago, so it is now $85
Cox for internet, but not really fond of them, $90

We have Netflix and Prime, but not ready to lose all the shows I love on networks

 

[leebee]

I'm still trying to figure it all out. I am pretty techno-stupid; this all confuses me. I don't have a cell phone, no Netflix or anything like that. We are currently with Time Warner/Spectrum, and will have to go completely over to Spectrum within the next few months. They went over to JUST HD in September, with the promise of a free box for the first year... except every month, I get charged for the box. Spectrum tells me I should be happy as it's billed at a reduced price, to which I responded "So FREE is actually $15??" I went to the local office and the woman there agrees that I shouldn't be paying for the box, she'll take it to her supervisor, and the charge will be deducted- except it NEVER is, never credited, and shows up again the next month. I've been to them 3 times about this and guess what showed up on this month's bill, AGAIN!!! We are at $190 a month for home phone, internet/wifi, and cable. I want to get rid of the cable but don't know what I need or how to go about switching to something else. None of our electronics are "smart" so I can't use apps or anything like that. I guess I need to figure this all out, and fast, because I'm getting pretty annoyed with TWC/Spectrum!

 

[bballmom56]

i dropped Directv about 8 months ago. Originally, they would offer some deals to lower my monthly bill by $10 for 6 months or so. Then I would have to call back after that and beg to see if there were any promotions to reduce the bill. Then it became that the only answer was to reduce our package - great - pay more for less. Then, as LuvsJack said, they would offer one of the "premium" channels like Starz or HBO that we have no interest in, so I decline that.

So I decide to go with YouTube TV. It has more limited options, but so far has been just fine - especially for $35/mo. When I called Directv to cancel, they offered me $500 to stay! I said to the CSR, "You will give me $500 to stay? Since I assume you are offering that to anyone who leaves, that could be a lot of money. Why don't you just take that money and lower the rates, rather than making us call every few months and beg to reduce it?" No answer. I still get emails every two weeks offering me $300 to come back. Nope, I will save over $1000 per year.

 

[sam_gordon]

I'm still trying to figure it all out. I am pretty techno-stupid; this all confuses me. I don't have a cell phone, no Netflix or anything like that. We are currently with Time Warner/Spectrum, and will have to go completely over to Spectrum within the next few months. They went over to JUST HD in September, with the promise of a free box for the first year... except every month, I get charged for the box. Spectrum tells me I should be happy as it's billed at a reduced price, to which I responded "So FREE is actually $15??" I went to the local office and the woman there agrees that I shouldn't be paying for the box, she'll take it to her supervisor, and the charge will be deducted- except it NEVER is, never credited, and shows up again the next month. I've been to them 3 times about this and guess what showed up on this month's bill, AGAIN!!! We are at $190 a month for home phone, internet/wifi, and cable. I want to get rid of the cable but don't know what I need or how to go about switching to something else. None of our electronics are "smart" so I can't use apps or anything like that. I guess I need to figure this all out, and fast, because I'm getting pretty annoyed with TWC/Spectrum!

There are a LOT of options. First, assuming there's not a second cable company in your area, you have the satellite providers, Dish Network and DirecTV. The first difference (IMO) is what channels are at which price levels. Then also know Dish locks their prices in for two years (I'm pretty sure) and Direct is one year.

If you have a good/fast internet, then you can look at streaming. Hulu, YouTubeTV, Playstation Vue, etc.

Oh, and also important is to find out if you can receive your local broadcast signals via antenna.

 

[MochaDrinker]

We just went to PlayStation Vue. Love it!

We're looking at switching from Dish to Vue. Is it easy to use? My dad is a little technologically inept so i worry about that.

 

[stsomewhere]

my husband just found out that our WOW internet, cable and phone was going to $250 a month. He is dropping cable, ( keeping phone and internet) and switching to Playstation VUE. We just did a 5 day free trial. It will be $95 a month for everything.

 

[sam_gordon]

For those of you looking at streaming (YoutubeTV, PlaystationVu, Hulu), double check that your local broadcasters are available. Don't assume. Also, if DVR service is important to you, check for that.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

We're looking at switching from Dish to Vue. Is it easy to use? My dad is a little technologically inept so i worry about that.

I think so. It’s very customizable too for each profile. We have a regular tv type remote for our PS4 we use.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

For those of you looking at streaming (YoutubeTV, PlaystationVu, Hulu), double check that your local broadcasters are available. Don't assume. Also, if DVR service is important to you, check for that.

The PlayStation Vue has MOST of our local channels, but we use a digital antenna for the rest. And it does have DVR too. We only had Hulu and Netflix for the past few years because we couldn’t find a streaming service that had everything we wanted, but the Vue checks most boxes for us.