The first step was to set up the old PC to be able to stream content from the internet to the TV. Now that everything seems to be working well, it was time to really commit and pull the plug on Direct TV. I made that call about three weeks ago and in a way it felt really liberating to get rid of our Direct TV bill.
Somehow the TV bill had crept up to around $90 a month once all the 12 month promo offers lapsed and they were unwilling to renew at another promo price. The other thing that had been bothering me is how phantom charges kept sneaking their way onto the bill. I had to watch the monthly bill diligently and call them whenever a new feature was added on without having asked for it. They would always adjust the bill but it just seemed to be in poor form to have to monitor the bills that closely - plus, how hard can it be to not mess with an account??
It is always a little surprising to me that cable/internet/phone providers are not willing to negotiate much after an initial 12 month promo price expires. It is more difficult (translates to expensive in the marketing world) to win back a lost customer than to keep a customer or win them over for the first time. At some point I asked what would happen if I disco'd the service and then called back a week later to start it back up as a new customer. They had the foresight to think of that and said I would be a returning customer and not a new customer...sneaky! Well, now they have a lost customer and it feels good!
As for content, we are currently relying on Hulu, Netflix, and the major channels that you can get an HD signal with the HD antenna that look like the old rabbit ears.... Hulu is free and we can get most of the recent shows that we watch (all 3 or 4 of them). Netflix costs $8.99 a month but we were already paying for that for movies and dvd's, so no new bill there.
From what I understand, our ISP (Bresnan) does have a 250 Gig monthly limit on data so it will be interesting to see if we surpass that considering the uptick we anticipate with streaming from Netflix and Hulu going forward.
For now, it is week 3 of the "TV service provider free zone" and all is good in the hood...we have watched more movies as of late which is always good as we had fallen out of the habit of watching new releases and were shamefully out of touch with movies over the last few years. It will probably be a good thing in the long haul considering that I had gotten in the bad habit of turning on the tube because I was not creative enough to find something else to do, so hopefully it will break me of that bad habit.
Somehow the TV bill had crept up to around $90 a month once all the 12 month promo offers lapsed and they were unwilling to renew at another promo price. The other thing that had been bothering me is how phantom charges kept sneaking their way onto the bill. I had to watch the monthly bill diligently and call them whenever a new feature was added on without having asked for it. They would always adjust the bill but it just seemed to be in poor form to have to monitor the bills that closely - plus, how hard can it be to not mess with an account??
It is always a little surprising to me that cable/internet/phone providers are not willing to negotiate much after an initial 12 month promo price expires. It is more difficult (translates to expensive in the marketing world) to win back a lost customer than to keep a customer or win them over for the first time. At some point I asked what would happen if I disco'd the service and then called back a week later to start it back up as a new customer. They had the foresight to think of that and said I would be a returning customer and not a new customer...sneaky! Well, now they have a lost customer and it feels good!
As for content, we are currently relying on Hulu, Netflix, and the major channels that you can get an HD signal with the HD antenna that look like the old rabbit ears.... Hulu is free and we can get most of the recent shows that we watch (all 3 or 4 of them). Netflix costs $8.99 a month but we were already paying for that for movies and dvd's, so no new bill there.
From what I understand, our ISP (Bresnan) does have a 250 Gig monthly limit on data so it will be interesting to see if we surpass that considering the uptick we anticipate with streaming from Netflix and Hulu going forward.
For now, it is week 3 of the "TV service provider free zone" and all is good in the hood...we have watched more movies as of late which is always good as we had fallen out of the habit of watching new releases and were shamefully out of touch with movies over the last few years. It will probably be a good thing in the long haul considering that I had gotten in the bad habit of turning on the tube because I was not creative enough to find something else to do, so hopefully it will break me of that bad habit.
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