Goodbye to DirecTV

[Akula]

I turned in my D* boxes yesterday, the dish is now just a decoration.

I was getting tired of the continued price increases for something I didn't even use that much- while we had a lot of channels we didn't watch much, some I did, so we kept a high tier package. Price was hitting $227/mo... and that was just insane. Thing is, I wanted to be able to watch baseball if we actually got a season this year (looks like we will), and as of yet there's been no streaming only option for in market teams. Had that been available, I might have done this a year ago.

I found out Spectrum had a 15 channel "TV Choice" option- for $15/mo for one year (and $30/mo for the second year), I could get Bally's Sports Midwest and some other channels we like. And since I hadn't tweaked my Spectrum package lately (we get internet and landline through them), our bill actually went DOWN by $40/mo there.

I also subscribed to Paramount+, Discovery+, and upgraded our Disney+ to include ESPN+ and Hulu ad free. So I'm right now saving over $200/mo, with more stuff available to watch on our schedule.

 

[Towen7]

Smart

 

[jomari]

im trying to get this done, actually this was supposed to be done last two months ago. such is life.

any tips with the stuff you have to turn in akula?

if i recall right, i just have to bring it to our ups store around here.

lemme figure this out after our vacation. congratulations!

 

[Deacon]

You still have a land line? I didn't even get a cell phone until a few years ago and the first thing I did was drop the land line.

 

[Batman]

I had pretty much the same game plan when I ditched Dish years ago. while much cheaper those streaming services are slowly creeping up. And they add up too. I was an early adopter of the first iteration of DirecTV Stream and it’s probably gone up $20-25/mo since first subscribing.

 

[Akula]

im trying to get this done, actually this was supposed to be done last two months ago. such is life.

any tips with the stuff you have to turn in akula?

if i recall right, i just have to bring it to our ups store around here.

lemme figure this out after our vacation. congratulations!

On the day service terminates, you'll get an email with instructions and a bar code. I took the boxes, network adapters, and power supplies, tossed all that in a box, and took it to a UPS Store (FedEx Office will also work). They will scan it in and give you a sheet of paper confirming it... keep that piece of paper.

You still have a land line? I didn't even get a cell phone until a few years ago and the first thing I did was drop the land line.

We occasionally have to fax stuff. Cost of the line is negligible. Ours doesn't even ring in, it goes straight to voicemail.

 

[walls]

We put an antenna on the roof and actually get about 40 high def channels and the have Discovery+, Netflix and Hulu. Oh also prime because my wife has an Amazon problem. Lol

Best thing we ever did was ditch Directv, it’s a ripoff.

 

[jomari]

On the day service terminates, you'll get an email with instructions and a bar code. I took the boxes, network adapters, and power supplies, tossed all that in a box, and took it to a UPS Store (FedEx Office will also work). They will scan it in and give you a sheet of paper confirming it... keep that piece of paper.


We occasionally have to fax stuff. Cost of the line is negligible. Ours doesn't even ring in, it goes straight to voicemail.

Thanks!

i think we still have our landline because my mom in law believes that its a great secondary phone line. if SHTF kinda situation happens, we still have a landline to call someone, even if we dont remember the full number.

 

[Towen7]

We occasionally have to fax stuff.

Really ?!?!

 

[Towen7]

Thanks!

i think we still have our landline because my mom in law believes that its a great secondary phone line. if SHTF kinda situation happens, we still have a landline to call someone, even if we dont remember the full number.

I‘ve seen that numbers. The percentage of active landlines that get literally zero use … for years … is actually kind of comical.

It’s actually a problem for the telco as they have to maintain the POTS networks that cost more than they generae. And that calculation gets less and less favorable by the day as that network get gets less and less use. That’s why they’re pushing for regulatory approval to convert analog lines to VOIP.

 

[mcad64]

You still have a land line? I didn't even get a cell phone until a few years ago and the first thing I did was drop the land line.

My kids keep asking why we still have a landline. It's how I let all the spammers and donation seekers contact me. Also, the land line was a throw in when we upgraded our tv and internet package.
Edit: Just read Towens post. Our land line is VOIP.

 

[Botch]

I‘ve seen the numbers. The percentage of active landlines that get literally zero use … for years … is actually kind of comical.

It’s actually a problem for the telco as they have to maintain the POTS networks that cost more than they generate. And that calculation gets less and less favorable by the day as that network get gets less and less use. That’s why they’re pushing for regulatory approval to convert analog lines to VOIP.

Thanks for that info. A question: if Russia (or China, NK, or some kid in a basement) manages to disrupt the entire Internetz, do those "POTS" networks still work?
(I don't have a land line anymore, but have transferred my old phone number to a VOIP account; it only costs me $5.99 tax/3 months or so, so I haven't eliminated it yet)

 

[Towen7]

Thanks for that info. A question: if Russia (or China, NK, or some kid in a basement) manages to disrupt the entire Internetz, do those "POTS" networks still work?
(I don't have a land line anymore, but have transferred my old phone number to a VOIP account; it only costs me $5.99 tax/3 months or so, so I haven't eliminated it yet)

The short answer is … no, not really. While the physical connection to the local switch doesn’t rely on the Internet, the inter-office connections and routing/switching systems can.

 

[walls]

We have two separate landlines coming into our home, we did a lot of our company work from the home office so one was tied directly to the company phone number and one is specifically for the fax machine.
Sold the company six years ago, we probably could get rid of those lines. Lol

 

[mzpro5]

I have a cell and a VOIP.

 

[jomari]

its also the same number i use when i have to cold call people about their extended car warranties and what a great promotion i have going on right now.

 

[Akula]

Really ?!?!

Yeah, believe it or not. Sometimes the wife will have work stuff she has to fax- can't always attach stuff to an email for whatever reason.

 

[zod]

Yeah, believe it or not. Sometimes the wife will have work stuff she has to fax- can't always attach stuff to an email for whatever reason.

My regular doctor had to fax an EKG to my hip surgeon pre-op recently. I can't give up DirecTv until we can get fiber in the hood. Spectrum isn't cutting it for streaming in prime time. Single points of failure are single points of failure.

 

[Akula]

My regular doctor had to fax an EKG to my hip surgeon pre-op recently. I can't give up DirecTv until we can get fiber in the hood. Spectrum isn't cutting it for streaming in prime time. Single points of failure are single points of failure.

I don't think we'll ever see fiber down our street. Just not going to happen. But Spectrum is actually quite good where we are. I get something like 325Mb download speeds- not even close to what folks with fiber get, but more than enough to stream 4K to multiple TVs at once.

 

[zod]

I have hope for fiber due to expansion just to the north of us. Spectrum inherited our cable plant from Time-Warner which did a poor job of provisioning and we appear to have an upstream bottleneck. Speed tests say I have enough of everything, I just don't have it all of the time.