Need Help Breaking Free of the Monopoly

[Yoder]

The monopoly being Comcast/Xfinity. Seems a bit much to be paying over $150 for a lot of crap television and a non-necessary phone line. Consequently, we are looking at breaking our relationship with Comcast and moving on. Moving where, is where we are at somewhat of an impasse.

What we have: we are paying Comcast for a landline, a cable TV bundle (not even a good bundle), and high-speed Internet.

What we want: high-speed Internet, access to movies, and selected television programs.

Some real problems: due to our geographic location--we live at an altitude of 7200 ft, have a 14,110 ft mountain and her associated foothills to the west, a high-security military installation a few miles north, NORAD a few miles south, and a house nestled at the base of a hog-back to the east that leaves us with severe limitations to wireless communications. The landline sucks! 90% of the calls are junk, and almost all cell phones crash-and-burn in the area except Samsung Galaxies and Apple iPhone's.

After doing a considerable amount of research I have been able to draw a couple of conclusions. First, I will stick with the Comcast Internet since it is by far the best performer around here. Hence, the Internet problem is solved. Second, it seems like I need to invest in a new Apple phone to replace the piece of crap LG that I currently own. No problems here, since an iPhone 6 will be just the ticket to control my Macmini music server and provide numerous services for my just purchased 27" iMac Retina 5K  (32 Gb RAM, 1 Tb fusion, 4GHZ Quad-core i7, and AMD Radeon R9 M295X with 4GB graphics. What a beautiful machine.)

So, the only real need right now if to fill the visual entertainment mode. We have Netflix, which I love, but feel that we could expand upon it. The problem is that I am not really sure where to begin. I realize that finding live sports (guess I will have to travel around town trying out the local stouts in search of the big game), and news will be difficult. But...what is out there for free or close to free that offers good visual programming, and quality streaming? My goal is to keep out monthly cost under $50 (may be a lot of viewing.)

Anyway, I would be grateful for any "television/movie viewing" recommendations that any of you may have.

[RayP]

Your situation is similar to mine. I too am thinking of getting rid of the TV part of the Comcast package since I only watch an hour or two a week of broadcast TV and most of my TV viewing is Netflix DVDs. I don't do the streaming Netflix since the selection of Netflix DVDs is better.

I am about to investigate Acorn.tv for their selection of streaming British videos http://acorn.tv/browse/browseall

We also have a cell phone reception problem and use a Verizon land-line. By the way, iPhones do just as badly at my house as my android LG for cell phone reception. Get somebody who has an iPhone to test it at your house before you shell out the $$.

ray

[Paul Birkeland]

Have you tried putting up a TV antenna?

[Paul Joppa]

We gave up television 20 years ago; it took all of 10 days to discover we didn't really CARE what happened on Cheers this week. We watch DVDs of stuff we are actually interested in - we can get them from the library (our branch is 8 blocks away). Lots more time to spend with each other, or build electronics, or make art - all much more fun than watching drivel on TV.

[Horatio]

Have you considered extending the flexibility of your Netflix account by utilising a cheap VPN to allow you to view the various international flavours of Netflix programming. This can significantly increase the volume and variety of programming available to you under your standard subscription.

You may also find that the VPN then let's you access local content from regional / local country tv stations.

Bill

[RayP]

In my case, there is a hill between my house and the TV broadcast stations and I had a large external antenna on a tall pole along with a rotator and an in-line amplifier. It was adequate when the broadcasts were analogue and I could get decent reception on 5 channels and spotty reception on a further five. The TV stations reduced their power output when they moved to digital and I could only get 2 channels.

By chance a tree wiped out the antenna and pole when it fell over during hurricane Sandy. Since Comcast was in the process of bringing cable to our remote community, I did not bother to replace the antenna and I got used to not watching broadcast TV. I get my news from various web sites and don't bother with the talking heads of broadcast TV.

Sport is another matter. I am finding as I get older that I am losing interest in it, particularly as there are so many commercials.

ray

[Mordicai]

I'm in the mountains East of San Diego. My only option for internet is Satellite, and my only option for TV in Satellite. I really want to get rid of the TV service. My only interest is sports and a good movie. The rest is garbage. The thing is I too am losing my interest in sports. It just getting sooo boring . The problem is I can't stream movies on the net as I have a 10gb cap on the service. I may just chuck Direct TV and subscribe to Netflix and lots more books. I can build a lot of stuff for $100 a month!

[Doc B.]

Once our kids moved out I took great pleasure in getting rid of cable TV. The great thing about the internet is that most of the good shows can be found somewhere - Without Commercials!

We have Netflix streaming thru an oppo, and there is a Mac mini running thru the Oppo for youtube (which is actually a decent archive for more obscure video), Vimeo and, most importantly, Amazon streaming. It's all second rate compared to bluray, so we usually rent the recent movie releases on Bluray from Redbox.

The setup runs for just one TV show or movie, maybe four nights a week. We find that's plenty of entertainment as we suck the Internet tit at work all day long like almost everyone else.

We have decent cell reception at home so we dispensed with the land line a while ago. At work we have Internet and phone bundled in our cable package.

[Yoder]

Regarding the TV antennae, I do not even want to go down that road without addressing a full lightening rod installation. We have had lightening discharges hit the house three times in 15 years. The only phones my friends have been able to use with no issue here is the iPhone and Galaxy...not sure why, but I have seen it first hand.

I have both Netflix streaming and DVD, and utilize the library for DVDs. I wasn't aware of the programming available on YouTube, but the rate of technological change nothing really surprises me now.

I look forward to the free time PJ mentions and the hobbies that can be pursued in place of avoiding the ads. Not a big sports fan (except for when the SF Giants are winning), so no loss there. I do like to keep current with the world news to a limited degree (too depressing to watch too much of it.) PBS and Al Jazera America offer some news spots, but the actual "breaking news" programs seem harder to find. Any recommendations here?

[Doc B.]

Scoop Nisker used to say, "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own."

[Natural Sound]

I cut the cord more than a decade ago. The only thing I miss is Monday Night Football which used to be available via a rooftop antenna on NBC.

One of the things I do to augment my TV programming is run a Free To Air satellite dish system. My wife and I are PBS junkies. One of the satellites (AMC-21 @125W Ku) has 17 channels of PBS programming. Some are permanent and some are feeds. There is a lot of unencrypted signals across the Clark Belt for you to grab and watch. If you want to learn more go to http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/forums/free-to-air-fta-discussion.24/

Between TV I get on my rooftop antenna, FTA satellite, Netflix and Amazon Prime I can usually find something to watch.

Oh yeah, FTA satellite has raw news feeds too!

To see what is available go to the following links. NOTE: Ku band requires a minimum dish size of 90cm (around 3') C-Band requires an 8' dish or larger.
http://www.global-cm.net/MPEGlistKuBandUS.pdf
And
http://www.global-cm.net/MPEGlistCBandUS.pdf

[STURMJ]

A lady I work with makes a routine of arguing with Comcast.  It is pretty amazing the deals she ends up with, reduced pricing plus sports-movie packages.  But then you have to figure that your going to have to go though the negotiations again after a while.

[Yoder]

Welp, I shall pull the plug on cable TV this weekend. I just cannot justify the exorbitant costs for such poor entertainment. Well, I guess if I was an ancient astronauts freak then I may feel less inclined to quit cable.

I was pretty impressed with the "Free To Air satellite dish systems." I have heard a bit about it but not much, and the price of entry is rather low. Being a few miles north of NORAD may provide some interesting feeds...Saint Nick tracking and the like.