Everything on cable is available online, but I will say, when I cut out the news networks after the 2016 election, my life improved greatly.
Everything on cable is available online, but I will say, when I cut out the news networks after the 2016 election, my life improved greatly.
Correct. I have a 27" 5K iMac sitting right beside a Dell 27" 1080P as a second monitor. The difference is stark. That 1080P looks like a 1970 vintage TV screen in comparison.
That said I'm not crazy about getting a 4K TV just yet. I cut the cord quite a while back and am using YoutubeTV and Cox which has a 1TB limit on all their data plans which is actually pretty generous and I'm still using most of it each month with no 4K hardware. 4K is going to really run the data rates up when it becomes prevalent and that's where the service providers revenue will come from eventually.
I'm perfectly happy with the OTA digital resolution, whatever it is, as it's better than Cox HD cable and it's free. All providers are going to have to up their data limits to compare with Cox's and give various tiers for data purchases and rollover data options like with cell service. To make the only jump Cox offers which is unlimited it's $49.95 extra per month which doesn't make sense when one is just going over 1TB by a little ways. There will have to be a more pricing tiers from everyone eventually. If not, I'll drop my speed, quit streaming altogether and go to a low entry level data plan for email and such and just use OTA for TV.
I dropped cable to save money and it appears that they will eventually just try to make it all back on internet data as more and more switch to streaming. It'll all just be connection speed and data from the providers at some point. Who knows Blockbuster might make a comeback!
Correct. I have a 27" 5K iMac sitting right beside a Dell 27" 1080P as a second monitor. The difference is stark. That 1080P looks like a 1970 vintage TV screen in comparison.
That said I'm not crazy about getting a 4K TV just yet. I cut the cord quite a while back and am using YoutubeTV and Cox which has a 1TB limit on all their data plans which is actually pretty generous and I'm still using most of it each month with no 4K hardware. 4K is going to really run the data rates up when it becomes prevalent and that's where the service providers revenue will come from eventually.
I'm perfectly happy with the OTA digital resolution, whatever it is, as it's better than Cox HD cable and it's free. All providers are going to have to up their data limits to compare with Cox's and give various tiers for data purchases and rollover data options like with cell service. To make the only jump Cox offers which is unlimited it's $49.95 extra per month which doesn't make sense when one is just going over 1TB by a little ways. There will have to be a more pricing tiers from everyone eventually. If not, I'll drop my speed, quit streaming altogether and go to a low entry level data plan for email and such and just use OTA for TV.
I dropped cable to save money and it appears that they will eventually just try to make it all back on internet data as more and more switch to streaming. It'll all just be connection speed and data from the providers at some point. Who knows Blockbuster might make a comeback!
I can explain that pretty easily. I will preface with I'm not a fan of the data caps, but they are needed. Each channel in the spectrum has a limited amount of data due to frequency size and current technology. Without getting too technical it stands at around 30 Mbit/sec per channel max on docsis 3.0. Docsis 3.1 allows for more, which is why with just 33 channels it can hit a gigabit. But, each node has a max bandwidth as well, and the network has not grown as fast as the technology has increased the speed. Cox saw this happening several years ago and started plans for a node + 0 approach but completely revamping the network takes time and money. Anyone who thinks cox could deploy the amount of fiber needed to make all areas node + 0 honestly has no clue about how cable infrastructure works. Right now they are mitigating how bandwidth is used with switch digital video channels but they can only do that with certain channels. They are starting to use IP tv, which if they could switch all tv to that would save a lot of bandwidth, but it requires a certain cox rented gateway, which a lot of people (myself included) do not want to use.
So, unless they develop a quicker way to deploy more fiber throughout the city, they have to do bandwidth management. Part of that is discouraging bandwidth hogs. Before the caps hit (and even before we had gigabit speeds over coax) there would be at least 5-10 people per node who were downloading over 3 TBytes of data a month. With as much use that we see today just one of those is enough to lower speeds for everyone.
It sucks, yes. But bandwidth is a finite resource.
It comes down to the law of supply and demand.
I'd settle for Cox extending their service up our way about a mile from a huge sub-division that they provide services to . . .
Or ATT. I'd take something better than our current U-verse connection now. Then I wouldn't have any concerns about possibly cutting the cord.
We are in the same boat. Live in OKC but no internet except Hughes etc which are about the same as dialup. Have Direct and hate the price but the wife has to have her lifetime shows
Maybe streaming will reach the rural communities when Elon fires up Starlink...
I have to agree with you on the news, watching too much of it is bad in many ways.
I've been looking at dropping DirecTV for several years, but haven't convinced the wife. However, adding decent rural internet and Hulu will cost about the same as we are currently paying Dtv per month. I need to add the internet service, so keeping Dtv would increase cost about $70/month unless I drop a satellite package that we are grandfathered in. Maybe the demand options with wifi in the house will make dtv keepable. All I know for certain is since AT&T acquired Dtv I hate dealing with them.
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