OT - Direct TV / Cord Cutters

Ozzie_Isaac

I have had DirectTV for over 10 years now.  They have always treated me well.  I am not real happy with AT&T buying them out.  They raised the prices on all my packages and my TV connections.  I also just spent 42 min and 45 sec on the phone to find out when my contract expires (I have none, which is what i thought, but wanted to confirm).

Before AT&T I never waited more than 5 minutes on hold.  This time I had to wait twice for 15 minutes each.  Then I had to wait for another 10 minutes while the "specialist" read me every plan option, deal, and entire channel list included in each deal.  I talk to them at least twice a year to change my premium packages and never had this hard of a sales push.  I was in my car, so didn't mind.

Well, with the way things are headed I plan to cut the cord.  I am going to get an HDTV antenna for local channels, keep my Netflix, sign up for SlingTV, MLBTV.com, and call it good.

Anybody else had luck cutting the cord?

byrne092

I've been thinking about it a lot the past few months and had/have the exact plans that you are talking about. The only thing I can't figure out how to get past is the local sports. Hockey and baseball are on FSMW and I haven't found a way to get that channel. Won't your team be blacked out on MLBTV? The only work around I've read has you cloning your IP to a different area of the country so it doesn't blackout local sports. 

Ozzie_Isaac

byrne092 said:

I've been thinking about it a lot the past few months and had/have the exact plans that you are talking about. The only thing I can't figure out how to get past is the local sports. Hockey and baseball are on FSMW and I haven't found a way to get that channel. Won't your team be blacked out on MLBTV? The only work around I've read has you cloning your IP to a different area of the country so it doesn't blackout local sports. 

Ouch, just read MLBtv blackout restrictions.  That would hurt.  Need to sort that out.

McStew

I cut Direct TV off after 16 years haven't regretted it yet ..... Look into Elements on Amazon 

McStew

http://www.amazon.com/Element-Technologies-ELE-Ti4-Streaming-Player/dp/B00TEEXJQA/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1452035832&sr=1-1&keywords=element+tv

Eggcelsior

byrne092 said:

I've been thinking about it a lot the past few months and had/have the exact plans that you are talking about. The only thing I can't figure out how to get past is the local sports. Hockey and baseball are on FSMW and I haven't found a way to get that channel. Won't your team be blacked out on MLBTV? The only work around I've read has you cloning your IP to a different area of the country so it doesn't blackout local sports. 

This is my issue. Hockey is on Concast(not a typo) Sports Net so would miss 90% of games. College Basketball too.

Acn

Eggcelsior said:

byrne092 said:

I've been thinking about it a lot the past few months and had/have the exact plans that you are talking about. The only thing I can't figure out how to get past is the local sports. Hockey and baseball are on FSMW and I haven't found a way to get that channel. Won't your team be blacked out on MLBTV? The only work around I've read has you cloning your IP to a different area of the country so it doesn't blackout local sports. 

This is my issue. Hockey is on Concast(not a typo) Sports Net so would miss 90% of games. College Basketball too.

And the Caps are actually worth watching this season!

BizGreenEgg

Haven't had a TV subscription for probably close to 7 or 8 years now.  Don't miss it one bit.  We have Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.  My brother in law has a big Dish subscription and lets me use his login to stream ESPN, Pac12 Network, Fox Sports, etc., so that makes the live sports easier.  Big fan of the Chromecast/Amazon Firestick streaming capabilities.

pgprescott

Better make sure you get the MLB so you can admire the Cubs rise to glory.

pgprescott

Seriously, interested if there is a good alternative. I puke every month. This stuff is like crack though, and I'm hooked. Two HD dvrs, three additional HD hookups and a couple slave hookups. Too many channels to mention. Ouch!!

WeberWho

I'm paying for high speed internet and limited cable through comcast. The limited cable package was free the first year and $20 additional a month the 2nd year. It's hard to dump the limited because it's only $20 and we get true tv, discovery, history, A&E, food network, comedy central, and some other bigger networks. Not sure it's worth $240 a year though. We only watch limited cable for background noise or when we can't find something on Netflix/Hulu. If it wasn't for the show Impractical Jokers I would have dropped it already. (My guilty pleasure)

It does suck when cutting the cord when coming to sports. Especially following the local sports teams. I miss watching the MN Twins on tv. But when putting it in perspective, I could buy Minnesota Twins season tickets and have money left over after cutting the cord. How crazy is that? 

stlcharcoal

Never had DirecTV, Dish, or cable in my house and never will.  I'm not paying for TV that has commercials, or that goes to infomercials in the middle of the night.  Screw that.  We had every station at the ambulance base and everyone still brought in their Roku, rented movies, or streamed from their laptops.

I have a HD antenna from a local company (antennasdirect.com), and get about 20-something stations for free.  Then I have AmazonPrime already, and my buddy let's me use his Netflix.  I use that Amazon economy shipping on stuff I don't need, so I have plenty of credits for free movies.  Plus my internet kind of sucks, and if Amazon sees that it buffers more than a few times, they automatically give me my money back.

Monthly cost, $0.00 

U_tarded

Cut it a year ago.  We have Netflix, Amazon prime, HBOgo.  I snaked my mother in laws ESPN login and that's all we roll with.  If we want to watch a series we just buy it on amazon (last season of walking dead was like $20 and episodes are available the next day).  I know some people who have sling tv and like it.  I would get it but with our PS3 and smart tvs they don't have aps for it yet.  I don't want another device (roku, fire tv, Apple TV etc).  I think some devices can be rooted for more content access.

1move

We have a G-box that runs on an android based OS. I probably have over 250 channels and free movies that are on Apple TV at a premium price. We enjoy ours you just need to be a little tech savvy to install all the sources but that's about it

Ozzie_Isaac

pgprescott said:

Better make sure you get the MLB so you can admire the Cubs rise to glory.

I love Cubs fans.  Always positive  Granted they picked up all the Cards free agents.

Chubbs

Funny. DirecTV was nightmare for me. Changed to ATT Uverse and been way better. We have Apple TV and Netflix. Need to determine what we are going to do. $150 a month is steep for what we watch

Ozzie_Isaac

So it turns out, if I move to Arizona then I can watch all my Cardinals games on MLB.tv.  Might be a little extreme, but that is another ding against Illinois.

ryantt

I went years without tv service in the house then the boss wanted to get it to watch the Ohio state games.  Well that was a year ago and truth be told I'm never home always working and she still watches Hulu Netflix and Amazon more than anything else.  So in all honesty once you adjust to not having the service it's no biggie.  

as what kind of box to get, lots of options out there.  I have a few friends who have those chrome boxes and seem to love them. 

SGH

I guess I'm the odd man out here. I have DirecTv and have been with them since the day they started. At one time to get all of the channels such as HBO, Showtime, etc, etc, you had to subscribe to Direc for all regular channels and USSB (United States Satellite Broadcasting) for the premium ones. I have Apple TV and Amazon Prime as well. Growing up we were lucky to pick up one clear channel with a antenna. We thought that we hit the lottery if a second came in by some miricale. I guess never having it for 30 or so years of my life makes me really appreciate it now that I do. As such, I'm not looking to cut the cord. I'm hoping that they keep coming up with more channels and services for me to subscribe to. I'm fixing to upgrade to the new Apple TV the next trip that I make to town. To me, DirecTv is akin to electricity. Now that I have it, I don't want to go back. For my part, there will be no cord cutting. 

NPHuskerFL

We have AT&T & DirecTV (still 2 separate entities here out in the sticks). Only have DSL available. And FWIW the DSL is average at best. The DirecTV is great. Guess I'm glad the merger didn't change our rates or plans. 

FarmerTom

Ozzie_Isaac, your opinion of and experience with DirecTv is way better than mine.  We live way out in the sticks and they are our only option for local college basketball.  Many years ago, we became one of the first in our area to get DirectTv.  It cost us around $1000.00 to get it installed.  Yep, that's right, what they give away today, we paid that huge sum to get.  Couple of years ago I called wanting to get a new receiver so we could get HD and wanted pricing they advertised on TV and the internet.  They would send us a HD receiver but our same plan would cost more per month.  Forget what they advertised, we were an existing customer and weren't eligible.  HD would be $10 more a month but it was "free".  But if we didn't want HD, it was$10 less per month.  I ask you, how is it free if not taking it costs $10/month less?  I went round and round,  several calls, guess they had our caller ID cause it got to where I always got a supervisor.  I wanted it turned off and told them so, but wife wanted it cause our son was still at home then and he liked History, NGC, etc.   We get 30-40 HD channels for free off of our antenna.  If it weren't for sports, I would shove that GD receiver so far up someones a$$, it would require a team of surgeons to remove it.   

JRWhitee

I have had directv for life too, I have to have the NFL package, and hockey!

kirkiver

cut the cord a year ago, we have quite a few HD OTA channels in our area, so we put up an antenna, bought a TIVO OTA for a DVR, it records 4 channels at once, programming for it is $14.95 a month, it also streams amazon, Netflix, and hulu. we already had the streaming services, so dropping a $140 bill for a $14.95 bill was easy... don't regret it at all, can't ever see myself going back. 

SkinnyV

After Monday the national championship I drop to Comcast limited basic with Internet and HBO for about $70 a month. Considering Internet is $50 I get clear locals and HBO for $20. I have 3 lifetime tivos so dvr is covered with Netflix on all devices. Perfect.

texaswig

We have dish. 2 big dvr boxes and 3 small boxes. We have all the channels but HBO, showtime, Cinemax  I get those from my brother in law by roku and chromecast. We also have Hulu,netflix. I like the dish but could live without it.she loves tons of tv its pretty much her only vise. So if that's what she wants... that's what she gets. 

tarheelmatt

Have you called them, Jamie?  I called and they dropped my bill considerably and upgraded equipment and threw in a bunch of stuff (NFL Sunday Ticket Premium and others). 

Ozzie_Isaac

@tarheelmatt I called today to make sure I wasn't on a contract.  After 42minutes I had other things to do, so didn't ask for anything.  Just made sure I could cancel.  Maybe I will call again.

If I could stream Fox Sports Midwest I would cancel today.

saluki2007

During spring and summer I drop my cable and bring it back in the winter. Look into getting a Raspberry Pi and using Kodi. Free movies and TV from all over the world streaming. 

blasting

Got rid of DirecTV about 8 years ago and haven't missed it.  I download (torrents) all the movies and tv shows I want for free & have no commercials.

Sports nuts would need a plan b though, as it seems these are never put up as a torrent - never had a problem finding any other show though.

tarheelmatt

Ozzie_Isaac said:

@tarheelmatt I called today to make sure I wasn't on a contract.  After 42minutes I had other things to do, so didn't ask for anything.  Just made sure I could cancel.  Maybe I will call again.

If I could stream Fox Sports Midwest I would cancel today.

Try them back.  Ask for customer retention off the bat.  Tell them what you want to do and see what they'll do.  Don't take the first offer.  Ask them after first offer "is that the best you can do?".  I shaved about $40-45 off my bill and got all the goodies I noted before.  

pgprescott

@Ozzie_Isaac. Like @tarheelmatt said, must be customer retention. The regular reps will do nothing for you. Also a trick to avoid the long wait is to start cussing. Sounds funny, but they have recognition software that immediately sends you to a person. I promise.