Advice re: broadband/ bundle providers

[DianeV]

Originally Posted by pjoseph2

For TV we have Netflix/Roku/Amazon. Costs ~ $10 a month. Been cable free for almost a decade, and loving it.

How does that work?

[xtalman]

Originally Posted by DianeV

How does that work?

The $10/month does not include the cost of internet. You cancel all your services except broadband.

You buy a Roku Player for a one-time price of $50-$100. This allows you to stream video over the internet from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, and various other services.

You subscribe to the Netflix service for about $10/month, and get a nice selection of movies (but usually not new releases).

From Amazon you get VOD (video on demand), where you can get a lot of new releases for about $4/movie. Or if you have the Amazon Prime service (about $80/year), you have access to another catalog of movies.

If you buy an antenna and hook it up to your TV, you'll get a lot of local channels for free.

You can also supplement your movie watching with the Redbox kiosks for about $1/movie. Cheaper than Amazon, but less convenient because you have to physically pick up and return the discs.

I cut my U-verse bill by about $60/month by doing these steps.

[DianeV]

That sounds interesting — and $60 a month is a chunk.

So you basically "rent" and download the moves over the Internet?

[Trainwreck20]

Lots of networks place their episodes on their web sites, too, so you can download them from there for free. I believe they lag a few weeks behind the original broadcast. You may have to watch out for bandwidth limits if you do a lot of TV/movie watching.

[xtalman]

Originally Posted by DianeV

That sounds interesting — and $60 a month is a chunk.

So you basically "rent" and download the moves over the Internet?

It depends. You can either "rent" a movie for a few bucks, or you can subscribe to a monthly service that gives you access to a catalog of movies (Netflix). With Netflix you pay about $10/month to watch as many movies from their catalog as you want. Netflix typically does not have the latest releases on streaming, if that is important to you.

[Willsson]

Hulu has two offerings, Hulu is free with som older stuff and some current TV a few days after broadcast. Hulu Plus is more movies and is a monthly fee.

You can get a planet load of programming at IceFilms (TV and movies) for 10Euros a month (or less for 3 months or 6 or 12). I've watched complete seasons non-stop of some TV programs. It's like a reeeaaaaal loooonnng movie.

There's other sources of programming, sometimes live sports, sometimes the video quality is reduced. If you want to follow up on that come back to the forum when ready. Takes a little practice to get a handle but a good way to go.

You can get TimeWarner internet for 30 bucks 10 megs down, plenty for Roku. I've had that going and streaming UTube at the same time on PC with no troubles.

[WoodyTX]

For what it's worth, I had U-Verse about a year ago. The customer service was much better than Time-Warner's, with far less hold time, and more competent techs when you get through.

On the other hand, I also worked with AT&T cell phones at work. The customer service is the worst in the business, period.

In other words, don't confuse AT&T cell with AT&T U-verse when it comes to customer service; it's a completely different experience. (At least it was about a year ago; your mileage may vary, etc.)

[infoseeker2010]

Originally Posted by DianeV

infoseeker, I know this is an older thread, but wanted to ask: did you have the same level of Internet account from both? That is, did you have a slow Uverse account, and a faster TW account, or ...?

Hi Diane,

Sorry for the late reply. Just got email reminder of awaiting response. (I didn't knw CD had that capability)

Anyways, coming to your question, yes I had similar internet accounts in both TWC and UVerse. 12MBPS. But TWC seemed quite faster.

I switched back to UVerse few months back since they were giving good promotions and now I don't feel the Internet speed difference. I talked to UVerse technician out of curiosity, he said the increased speed could be because of latest/upgraded fiber optics cable since our community is new development.

[DianeV]

Ah, okay. Thanks for the information.