A friend at work who ask me a while back on how to get free WiFi.I told her to ask her neighbor for the password, lol.But being serious though, if you have good relations with the neighbors and they live close enough, split the bill for the Internet.A must is having a good router. Got a new one a couple of weeks ago and a little over 100ft away, I was still getting over 300mbps.
Cutting the cord... I know this has been asked previously but I am done with Spectrum
- Thread starter JimmyUSC1
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I had internet bundled w/ Directv for $100 a month which I thought was reasonable. That was 2017. Without changing anything on my part it was $190 last year. Have CenturyLink for internet, $50 a month, which currently shows a network speed of 1.2 GBPS but fluctuates, YTTV for $65 so back to what I call reasonable.
Just make sure that the combined households don't exceed whatever data caps the ISP institutes before you get throttled.
Also, if you can run network cable between the locations (bury the line), even better.
Right, it's either UHF, VHF, or both.
I made one cut from aluminum foil (using a fractal/dipole antenna template), glued it to a letter-sized sheet of clear plastic, and attached the ends to a UHF/VHF matching transformer. It's taped flat to a window pane inside my apartment and picks up around 100 channels, including "HD" broadcasts -- I live in a mostly flat area. I recommend attaching the leads of the matching transformer to the aluminum foil using metal tape instead of soldering, which was a ***** to do.
Here's what the template looks like (I have an SVG version of it if anyone's interested).
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I got one of these for $12.
Didn't do anything to it. Hooked it up and just stashed it behind theTV, not even near a window. Got 55 OTA channels in DFW. I figure the Bay Area would be similar.
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Yeah probably. I posted the science project just to show it's not necessary to put an antenna outside (or on the roof) to pick up a decent number of channels. The shape/pattern used for the antenna itself is a big factor I think in how well it works indoors. I wonder if the one inside that unit uses a fractal shape as well.
Probably. It reminded me of those first car satellite antennas attached to a round shaped piece of vinyl I was supposed to attach to the wall. Great template by the way. Now I know what to do with my old hats.
Distance from the broadcast towers plays a role. If you are more than 70km away, you will likely need an attic antenna at minimum, and optimally a rooftop antenna. The aforementioned solutions should work well if you're less than 70km away.
Need some help here. Who do I get to "wire up" my house? Really have no clue what that means from an internet standpoint.
Basically it involves running shielded CAT-6 cable (from a patch panel connected to an ethernet switch in an equipment room) through the ceilings (or between floors) and down into any walls in rooms that need network connections. It's similar work to running electrical wiring, but without the danger. There are companies that do it, including some electricians.
Here's a company I found in your area that appears to do home network wiring (I can't vouch for them, just providing an example): https://grandcentralwiring.com
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Just switched from Sling to YouTube TV. Best decision I ever made.
Cheaper ($65 per month vs. $90 per month with Sling).
Better DVR on YouTube TV (unlimited cloud storage with much better interface/functionality and records several back weeks worth of show episodes along with new episodes in case you've missed something or want to rewatch something when you're bored).
Much better picture quality on YouTube TV (crystal clear vs. slightly fuzzy and blocky with fast action on a lot of channels with Sling).
No more buffering and Roku Sling app crashing on YouTube TV.
Fewer and shorter commercial breaks on most channels with YouTube TV.
All the channels I want to watch (including all locals and a whole lot less worthless foreign language channels...five versus probably fifteen or more and seemingly more being added all the time on Sling).
Can watch ESPN and its affiliated channels like SEC and ACC Networks on more than one device at a time unlike Sling which limits you to one stream at a time on their Orange tier which is where the ESPNs and such are.
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I agree Youtube TV is the best quality streaming service overall, but it was not cheaper for me than Sling (blue+orange = $55). I exercised my right to cancel at any time with Youtube TV to switch to Sling after experiencing 2 extended outages of their service in the Bay Area and lower resolution on several HD sports channels a couple a times, all during the same span of 45 days. I should add that YTTV increased their subscription rate twice within 1 year. When I first signed up it was only $39.95/year.
I may switch back back to YTTV once I get fed up with the number of commercial breaks (some commercials air 3 times within the same break!).
That steel plant site will require one hell of an environmental clean up…….probably not to be completed in my lifetime.
Clemson and Atlanta Brave fan here. I obviously come in peace.
This is my advice (if not already mentioned) for Spectrum Internet. Call them and tell them you want to cancel and you’re not willing to pay almost $100 for Internet. They will transfer you to their retention center. The last thing they want to do is lose business. I did this once when I was supposed to be getting 200mb downstream, but was only getting 100. The guy was so apologetic. Not only did he send out a technician with a newer modem, but he also cut my price by $20. “But wait! There’s more”. Lol. Then, because I had been getting a slower speed than what I was paying for, he also increased me to 400mb and took another $10 off. That was for the first year. Then I would keep the other discount for another year. Long story short, I’ve been paying $67 a month for the 400 downstream speed. He told me after the 2 years to call back in and ask again. The most impressive thing he said to me was this. “We are here to entertain you-not break you.” I was blown away to say the least.
As far as a streaming service goes, we have YoutubeTV. It has unlimited cloud DVR and they just gave me STARZ for an extra $3 per month. The biggest downfall? YoutubeTV is ran by Dish and they lost their agreement for the Fox Regional Networks. No Braves games for me. That part sucks bad. Good luck on getting the most for your money and good luck to the Gamecocks this year. I expect a great game when Clemson faces them.
God bless guys and gals!
This is my advice (if not already mentioned) for Spectrum Internet. Call them and tell them you want to cancel and you’re not willing to pay almost $100 for Internet. They will transfer you to their retention center. The last thing they want to do is lose business. I did this once when I was supposed to be getting 200mb downstream, but was only getting 100. The guy was so apologetic. Not only did he send out a technician with a newer modem, but he also cut my price by $20. “But wait! There’s more”. Lol. Then, because I had been getting a slower speed than what I was paying for, he also increased me to 400mb and took another $10 off. That was for the first year. Then I would keep the other discount for another year. Long story short, I’ve been paying $67 a month for the 400 downstream speed. He told me after the 2 years to call back in and ask again. The most impressive thing he said to me was this. “We are here to entertain you-not break you.” I was blown away to say the least.
As far as a streaming service goes, we have YoutubeTV. It has unlimited cloud DVR and they just gave me STARZ for an extra $3 per month. The biggest downfall? YoutubeTV is ran by Dish and they lost their agreement for the Fox Regional Networks. No Braves games for me. That part sucks bad. Good luck on getting the most for your money and good luck to the Gamecocks this year. I expect a great game when Clemson faces them.
God bless guys and gals!
It means you run network cabling throughout your house, and desktop PCs, printers, and streaming devices are connected to your cable modem by such cables. These days, cat6 cabling seems to be popular. I ran cat5e throughout mine years ago.
Are you actually paying YouTube TV for local channels you can watch with an antenna over the air for free?
Thanks for sharing that tale. I hope you'll be able to keep it up and Spectrum won't put the brakes on it.
Currently, I expect great games whenever USC and Clemson meet in all sports except womens basketball and softball.
It sure will. From 1991 Until 2004, I was in that plant (Georgetown Steel) once a month. Filthy. I was also at International Paper a few times a month. Miss eating Pizza right there at Tony’s. Great pizza, cold beer.
Good AC wifi (probably a mesh setup like google nest wifi for a decent sized house) would do what you need without running wires. I use ubiquiti equipment but it is a little more complicated to configure as it is primarily for commercial customers. My wifi tests return around 300 mbit which is plenty for 4k streaming.
The recommendation was to literally wire the house, not install mesh wifi routers (installing a mesh network is easiest solution for full coverage of a house, but not what was being suggested).
Part of the subscription cost of YTTV is the rebroadcast of the local OTA channels. Those can literally be picked up with an OTA antenna connected to the TV (Roku TVs allow you to access OTA channels via an internal app with its own channel guide). It does seem redundant to include those in YTTV.
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I know they can. But when I had cable I was paying for locals, when I had satellite I was paying for locals, and could watch locals without having to change the source. I was just pointing out that it's no different than cable or satellite.
I went without cable or satellite my last 6 months in Texas. That's when I bought the $12 antenna and got 55 ota channels. One benefit an antenna will bring are the secondary channels being broadcast that normally are not included.
I went without cable or satellite my last 6 months in Texas. That's when I bought the $12 antenna and got 55 ota channels. One benefit an antenna will bring are the secondary channels being broadcast that normally are not included.
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I agree Youtube TV is the best quality streaming service overall, but it was not cheaper for me than Sling (blue+orange = $55). I exercised my right to cancel at any time with Youtube TV to switch to Sling after experiencing 2 extended outages of their service in the Bay Area and lower resolution on several HD sports channels a couple a times, all during the same span of 45 days. I should add that YTTV increased their subscription rate twice within 1 year. When I first signed up it was only $39.95/year.
I may switch back back to YTTV once I get fed up with the number of commercial breaks (some commercials air 3 times within the same break!).
On Sling I had the Orange and Blue tiers along with the Total TV add-on and my bill was just over $90 per month.
Pretty sure most of the Braves games are on Bally Sports. And I can use Kodi to watch all the Braves games and any other MLB games I want... along with any other pro/college game I want...all for the low low one time cost of free.
Tried an antenna and couldn't get all the locals for some reason. Could get CBS, FOX and SCETV but couldn't get NBC or ABC. And yes I was using a high quality indoor UHF/VHF digital antenna and I moved it to every possible spot I could.
And the locals are part of YTTV's base package so I'm not paying extra for them.
Which was in response to atlcock saying ditch the wifi for streaming. Hardwiring is not necessary for good streaming.
I was a Spectrum customer for 20+ years. I had 400 mbs internet and standard TV. They went from about $150/mo to $219/mo when promotions ended. Come August my bill would have been $255/mo. I had intermittent TV and internet problems which Spectrum couldn't or wouldn't fix after multiple attempts. So I dumped them a couple of weeks ago. The Spectrum people I returned the cable boxes and modem to acted like they didn't care I was cutting the cord.
Now I have basic YouTube TV and 300 mps AT&T internet for $120/mo total. We get all local and ESPN channels. So far so good. Internet speed tests show greater than 300 mps download and upload speed typically. Sometimes speeds drop and TV buffers but not a big deal at this point. I'm happy so far.
Now I have basic YouTube TV and 300 mps AT&T internet for $120/mo total. We get all local and ESPN channels. So far so good. Internet speed tests show greater than 300 mps download and upload speed typically. Sometimes speeds drop and TV buffers but not a big deal at this point. I'm happy so far.
I'm paying $105 per month for the base YouTube TV plan and 200 Mbps internet through Spectrum. I've been told that I can contact Spectrum and somehow get them to bump me up to 400 Mbps internet for no extra cost but I haven't tried it yet as I'm skeptical and not 100% sure exactly how to get them to do it.
To me, one of the many benefits of "cutting the cord" is not having to call the cable company about anything other than an ETA for when internet service will be restored (on the rare occasion there's a service outage). I never cared to play the game of trying to re-subscribe under a new promotion or contacting their "customer retention" people to get a new deal, every time the current promotion ends. It's a dumb game for a legacy service model. Pay for the package you want, when you want it!
