Cable TV - Cord Cutting for Seniors

 Well, this really is for anyone, it’s just that people of my demographic, “Boomers,” may find this more useful than younger generations who grew up with high technology.

First, getting rid of cable is a bit of a misnomer. What you are doing is getting rid of the television (TV) and possibly landline telephone subscriptions. You will still need a high speed internet connection.

Rather than tell you why you should do it, I’ll tell you why I and how did it, and some of the pluses and minuses from my perspective.

Why I did it: To save money. I save $100 a month over what I was paying. That’s $1,200 a year. Since I am mostly retired my income is not what it once was so saving money has been more of a focus than it was in the past.

How I did it: Research. Plan. Execution. Having sold systems for years I am aware of some of the potential gotchas.

What research? Infrastructure and desires.

• I had recently had my router start misbehaving so I needed to get a new one. What I wanted was one that would cover my house and deliver a higher level bandwidth to handle streaming. The distance to the most remote TV locations in my house is about 40’ or 12.2 meters. The router I chose is a #Linksys Max-Stream AC1750 MU-MIMO gigabit router. It supports 4K HDTV and has worked well.
• My next concern was replacing the stations we watch on Time-Warner with a service from another company. To this I created a spreadsheet with competitors across the top of the columns and the channels offered on the rows. In column “A” I put a “1” in it if it is a channel we watch. Then for each channel and each service I marked that service carried that channel with a “Yes”, “No”, or “$” if it was available for an additional fee (see image below).

• Then by putting a “1” in column “A” and turning on filters I can see which service addressed my needs the most (see below).

• So based on the above, #Hulu was the best option. The two channels I potentially lost were Comedy Central and PBS. As a quick aside, PBS is offered typically as an app, or OPTV (Old People Television, AKA OTA more on that later).
• So now it was time for filling in the final missing piece of the TV puzzle. My TV’s are older models so some type of device would be necessary to communicate with the router. Cabling was not a desired option because of cost, ugliness, and flexibility. So the devices had to be wireless. While I have used Intel’s Compute Stick for my DealerCast product I was concerned by it’s performance and price relative to #Roku and Amazon’s #Firestick. I chose the Firestick and have been generally happy with it’s performance. The set up and operation are fairly simple and intuitive (at least it was for me). If you're a #Microsoft Windows user the Compute Stick will turn your TV into a PC and you can view Hulu (or the service of your choice) in your browser. I do this with one of my TV's; but, using an Intel NUC.
• I also decided to buy a new TV a TCL 4K Roku enabled that works well with out the need for an external device. My only issue with it is that if you aren’t in front of it the image deteriorates with an increased angle. So for groups watching sporting events it’s not the best.
• There are two other options we also employ - “OTA” (Over The Air) and #Chromecast. OTA is what all boomers grew up on … TV with “rabbit ears”. We changed a couple of our TV’s to OTA when Time-Warner upgraded their signal and we had to make a decision to rewire our house or not. We chose not to three locations. For those we had to get digital converters and they only get the local channels, PBS, and some wacky channels (Ion, public access…). Chromecast works surprisingly well to view Hulu on where you can use your cellphone or tablet as the remote control for the TV which is cool.

Well, the research was done, then all I had to do was plan for the switch and execute it; but, there was one other obstacle – the telephone. It’s only $10 a month and who uses a landline these days. Well, our parents and the people we know who are parents age...and my wife uses it as her primary business line. Plus, we’ve had that number since 1985, probably longer than some of you have been alive. The question is, “Do we need it?” In our case, we decided, “Yes.” What can you do about that? Well, here’s what we did. It did involve some jumping through hoops.

I’ve used #GoogleVoice for my business number for years for free with an #Obihai device. It works well for the technically oriented (AKA me, my wife hates it). You can’t simply transfer a landline to GoogleVoice so here are the hoops. You have to buy some stuff. What I bought was the cheapest #Tracphone device and one months service, and an Obihai Obi200. For all three for under $100 (phone $8, service $25, and #Obi200 $50). The GoogleVoice service is free, so the ROI is about 9 months; but, more importantly it made the move away from cable more viable as all we are buying is internet now.

Here’s one issue with the cable business. I live in Austin, Texas and Google had announced Google Fiber coming to Austin on April 9, 2013. I had hoped I would have been able to sign up for it years ago. It is still not an option where I live. Our TV airs commercials for Grande, AT&T and other options to replace Time-Warner (Spectrum); but, they either aren’t in my area or don’t offer a competitive solution. You may be thinking, “Well you probably live on Austin’s outskirts...” That’s not the case (think MOPAC/2222 area).

The other thing that will likely change with a change in provider is your email address. I’ve had my “austin.rr.com” email address for over 25 years; but, over the last 5 years I’ve added more generic Yahoo, Outlook and Gmail accounts to prepare for the potential change.

After making executing my plan and moving away from cable TV and bundled service phone what are the pros and cons.

Pros -

• Currently save over $100 a month, so we can spend that savings on other things.
• We actually have more choices of stuff to watch and where to watch it (on phones, tablets, anywhere we can get internet … at least in the US, I’ve have tried watching it outside the US).
• We can receive Text messages on our GoogleVoice line, and review messages on a PC, phone or tablet.
• The promise of increased flexibility and options for the future when it comes to internet providers.

Cons -

• We don’t get Comedy Central anymore. I wind up watching the stuff I like a day or so later on YouTube.
• My wife is technically challenged and misses the simplicity of turning the TV on and changing channels with the remote. With our set up you can do this on some of our TV’s; but, it’s not as simple (as the old learned behavior is second nature). On the TV’s that have #Playstation’s attached to them you can’t change the TV input on the remote. So, you actually have to get out of your resting place to physically change the input … the horror (hopefully you heard this in the voice of Marlon Brandon from Apocalypse Now).
• Buffering does occur periodically, and it is annoying … not $100 a month annoying though.
• Sometimes one of the devices won’t work correctly, so having multiple options (Firestick, Chromecast, or OTA) has resolved this for us.

So, what’s the net/net? I’m glad I did it and would do it again.