Just cut the cable

westender said:
Something like this is where the people from Best Buy are probably worth having them come and set up. There are usually two different bands for wifi and one is better for streaming video than the other but it doesn't broadcast as far or as well so they could tell you. When I set ours up I at the time bought a top of the line router for the basement and later an extender for upstairs particularly for the frequency needed for streaming video. Seems to work well in our house. Have thought about upgrading the router as they seem to keep coming out with better ones.
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I didn't know Best Buy did this. I might have to look into that. We just put our house in Urbandale on the market yesterday afternoon, and we bought a home in Ankeny. I'll have to get a new set up when we get there. Would be nice knowing someone who actually knew what they were doing was setting it up. Thanks for the advice.
 
DP5555 said:
The problem is our modem is in my wife's office in the top level of our house, and my big screen is in my man cave in the basement. My wife is a Graphic Designer so she needs to have a consistent connection. Which means sometimes the quality suffers in the basement. So I think the answer to your question would be it's the WiFi that's flakey, but that's my limited knowledge on the subject. I bought a signal extender on Amazon to see if that would help, but it doesn't do a lot of good.
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Ah yeah, that makes sense. Any chance you can snake it through the furnace ductwork? :)
 
DP5555 said:
I think it goes to show how much they are hurting. They are desperate to keep people. I was 100% ready to cut the cord. I didn't expect them to go that low, but when they did it was a no brainer. Especially with my WIFI. It works great sometimes and then others it's unreliable. That would have pissed me off during a Hawkeye game if streaming were my only option.
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You'll want to make sure your router is fairly current. If a few years old, they will start to drop and will have to be rebooted. Mine was doing this then work purchases new routers for us and no problems since. I think it's a NetGear which our IT has had good luck with lately.
 
Not4cy said:
You got your entire bill for only $56? This includes DVR $10 per month, HD service $10 per month, regional sports fee (which is BS for $7 per month) and $7 additional fee for each TV? If so, that is incredible. Once my 2 year contract ends, I need to do something because I am paying $140 per month without any of the premium movie channels.
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Call them today and tell them you are looking to go to Playstation Vue and could save $101 bucks a month. There is absolutely NO REASON to stay in your contract if saving that much a month. You'd save more in the long run.

You can buy out the rest and be fine. They have absolutely no leverage but to drop the monthly fee. I recently did this and got down to $79. They basically let me set my own price so I just went to my introductory fee when they set me up. They initially came back with $89 or something but I said it still wasn't enough to keep me then said I would if they met my $79 which they did. I may end up just going with the Playstation Vue and buy that contract out anyway in the end. Still would save more in the end. If they ever raise my bill even a friggin' dollar over what they quoted me I'll just say that breaks my contract and voids the rest and try to get out of it that way adding if I have to go that route, they will never see me again.

These cable/satellite companies have sticking it in our back ends for years "Sir, may I have another?", now it's our turn to stick it to them.
 
Not4cy said:
You got your entire bill for only $56? This includes DVR $10 per month, HD service $10 per month, regional sports fee (which is BS for $7 per month) and $7 additional fee for each TV? If so, that is incredible. Once my 2 year contract ends, I need to do something because I am paying $140 per month without any of the premium movie channels.
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You know what? That's a good question. I guess we'll see what my next bill says. I forgot to ask them about the DVR, HD, and regional sports fees. All I know is that she said after taxes and fees it will be $56. We'll see I guess. Wouldn't shock me if they tacked that crap on top of that and claimed ignorance. Probably my fault for not mentioning it.
 
DP5555 said:
I didn't know Best Buy did this. I might have to look into that. We just put our house in Urbandale on the market yesterday afternoon, and we bought a home in Ankeny. I'll have to get a new set up when we get there. Would be nice knowing someone who actually knew what they were doing was setting it up. Thanks for the advice.
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believe their Geek Squad still does this if you buy the router or routers there and they can advise whether an extender might be needed. We have multiple TVS with Rokus and Apple TVs and kids have laptops and ipods and phones, etc., so use is heavy to say the least. We connected tvs through WIFI. Most routers are dual band routers. For streaming you want the 5 Ghz band to connect to the Tvs which handles video better. Again it does not broadcast as far from the wireless router so if connecting via wireless, you may or may not need an extender depending on how close your tv is. When we use computers or ipods we connect to the 2.4 Ghz band.
 
DP5555 said:
I think it goes to show how much they are hurting. They are desperate to keep people. I was 100% ready to cut the cord. I didn't expect them to go that low, but when they did it was a no brainer. Especially with my WIFI. It works great sometimes and then others it's unreliable. That would have pissed me off during a Hawkeye game if streaming were my only option.
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Cox Communication is the absolute worst and they truly don't give a rip....yet anyway. I called (completely unprepared to actually cut the cord and mostly bluffing to see if I could get my absolutely insane cable bill lowered), and they absolutely called my bluff. I am actually embarrassed about how much I pay them for cable, it's truly idiotic, but yet I am not yet ready to cut zee cord.
 
MelroseHawkins said:
You'll want to make sure your router is fairly current. If a few years old, they will start to drop and will have to be rebooted. Mine was doing this then work purchases new routers for us and no problems since. I think it's a NetGear which our IT has had good luck with lately.
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I agree with this one. I have the netgear nighthawk. It cost me a load but it has video priority traffic and more than one band. Since I installed it my speeds are as fast as hooking up to an ethernet cable. I've got Mediacom extreme at 100mB down...when I do speedtest over the wifi I consistently pull 100-120 Mb...the router prioritizes video. I ahve never had video lag or reduce quality when streaming...I have PSN vue for service and I LOVE IT
 
Ozhawk said:
I agree with this one. I have the netgear nighthawk. It cost me a load but it has video priority traffic and more than one band. Since I installed it my speeds are as fast as hooking up to an ethernet cable. I've got Mediacom extreme at 100mB down...when I do speedtest over the wifi I consistently pull 100-120 Mb...the router prioritizes video. I ahve never had video lag or reduce quality when streaming...I have PSN vue for service and I LOVE IT
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Good to know as that will be my setup. Good to know you like the Vue. Thanks. I'm going to do the trial period in the next couple weeks. I will upgrade my internet service first. The savings are there to upgrade if not paying an extra $93 a month for satellite or cable. Get two bonuses out of the deal.
 
HawkeyeWalker said:
Cox Communication is the absolute worst and they truly don't give a rip....yet anyway. I called (completely unprepared to actually cut the cord and mostly bluffing to see if I could get my absolutely insane cable bill lowered), and they absolutely called my bluff. I am actually embarrassed about how much I pay them for cable, it's truly idiotic, but yet I am not yet ready to cut zee cord.
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Fess up. What do you pay? My DTV bill hit $140 then I started to bitch.

We're all adults, ............. allegedly!
 
MelroseHawkins said:
Fess up. What do you pay? My DTV bill hit $140 then I started to bitch.

We're all adults, ............. allegedly!
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My Direct TV was up to 110 before I cut... They offered down to 79 but it just wasn't worth it... and couldnt agree more on here at work way to much
 
DP5555 said:
You know what's funny?

I called DirectTv a couple weeks ago and canceled. I said I want to cancel a week from today (so the next Wednesday). I thought I'd give myself a week to get something else lined up like Playstation Vue. I explained to them why I was canceling and everything. My cancellation was scheduled for the next Wednesday.

Well the day after I called and canceled a Customer Care Specialist with DirectTV called me and asked what they could do to keep me. I said "I don't know. You tell me what you can do for me. I want the same channels I have now (Choice Xtra) and I want it to be as cheap as it's going to be if I cut the cord. If you can give me that I'll consider staying".

Long story short.... She gave me the Choice Xtra package for what's going to be $56 a month (with tax and fees). She threw in free NFL Sunday Ticket, HBO, and she's sending me a $200 prepaid gift card. All of this AND I didn't have to sign another contract. I didn't have to extend my contract either. I have a year left.

I thought I scored a sweet deal.
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My wife has called multiple times in the past and they usually just throw us a $20 off bone or two. This deal you got is incredible though. I think we're going to go down that road this summer before NFL season starts up.

A directv rep we talked to a year or so ago told us that you should never pay for sunday ticket 2 years in a row. If you pay full price one year you should get it for free the next. YMMV though Im sure
 
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HawkeyeWalker said:
Last month was $177 for cable.
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Ouch!

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mopkins said:
My wife has called multiple times in the past and they usually just throw us a $20 off bone or two. This deal you got is incredible though. I think we're going to go down that road this summer before NFL season starts up.

A directv rep we talked to a year or so ago told us that you should never pay for sunday ticket 2 years in a row. If you pay full price one year you should get it for free the next. YMMV though Im sure
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Dumb luck I guess. I should go buy a lottery ticket. Been pretty lucky lately I guess. We just put our house on the market on Tuesday. We had 7 showings Tuesday and 2 offers that night. Stalled until Wednesday night so more people could get in for showings. Ended up accepting an offer that was 8000 above list price. Crazy market right now.
 
DP5555 said:
Dumb luck I guess. I should go buy a lottery ticket. Been pretty lucky lately I guess. We just put our house on the market on Tuesday. We had 7 showings Tuesday and 2 offers that night. Stalled until Wednesday night so more people could get in for showings. Ended up accepting an offer that was 8000 above list price. Crazy market right now.
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Congrats!

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has anyone tried playstation vue? Seems like the channels are a great deal price wise. I wonder how well the streaming works.
 
Win5002 said:
has anyone tried playstation vue? Seems like the channels are a great deal price wise. I wonder how well the streaming works.
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I started a thread on Playstation Vue as they seem to have the best streaming options (all sports needed) and most similar to my current satellite subscription. That seems to be the bomb at the moment and many on here have reported using Vue and liking it. I'm doing the trial prob in the next week or two.
 
I just canceled DTV after 10 years. They didn't try to offer me any deals, although I told them I was done and wasn't interested in any offers.
 
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