Been doing the Youtube/Netflix/Amazon thing for the better part of a decade by this point. Family had satellite/cable when growing up and seeing the bills for those when I only watched maybe two or three TV series just put me off of ever buying TV service as an adult.
What service? We cut TV out of our lives over a decade ago and can't imagine having it. Just garbage. Moved recently and would like to get internet again maybe. I have always used cable, but dont want to pay $60+ for internet/tv. They ought to offer JUST internet, cut the TV, and lower the price.
I'm 3 years+ into cord cutting at this point. I've tried every service out when I was detoxing from "cable" and none of them ticked the boxes for programming. These days pairing something like Discovery+ (6.99/mo) and Philo ($20/mo) would probably cover most of the programming on cable while cutting the fluff from the lineups. The key to picking the right package of channels is to figure out the root owner of programming you're interested in. If you like a lot of NBC/CBS/ABC/FOX then Hulu is where you should be. If you want pseudo reality shows then Discovery+ covers most of that. If you want well rounded Philo / Sling cover that. Sports are always a $$$$ grubber due to their contracts they have with providers and typically make up 33-50% of your video bill with traditional providers. If you're interested in only one sport like NHL/NFL then there are options for that these days along with movies like HBO Max / Starz and so on for 8-15/mo. @CastlBravo if you don't want video you just tell your provider you don't. They can't hold internet hostage w/o video. If they are then find someone else for your IP transport. Starlink is coming out of beta soon and will run $50-$100/mo but you can take it anywhere you want.. While for $100/mo you won't get gigabit speeds you'll be fine for streaming @ 100-200mbps.
Since we have a camper, and travel off grid alot of the time, and have a cottage in the woods, I am very interested in starlink. I am hoping they will come up with an in vehicle version as well. That way we can just link to the jeep and connect as needed from anywhere. Plus, my nav system and entertainment will be connected all the time.
It might be awhile before you see this sort of thing being "mobile" though Tesla is planning on launching another 1K sats in the near future. They're also talking about newer tech to allow the sats to interlink with each other instead of bouncing signals back to base stations to speed things up. 100mbs is what they're touting with the hope to hit 10gbps down the road in the next few years as they advance things. If they can break that 1gbps barrier they'll be putting traditional providers out of business. It's kind of pitiful when you think of the infrastructure in place being allowed to degrade like telcos not upgrading their lines to fiber when they already have the conduit in place or could easily pull it into place using the existing copper pathways. I live in a metro area and they advertise fiber but the location only sees DSL like speeds when searching for service. Why would I pay $50/mo for 25mbps when the cable co offer gbps for $100/mo w/ tax? As technology progresses legacy providers will fall by the wayside. Competition might heat up if they revamp their leadership in time to catch onto the newer options coming to market. Hughes/Viasat both offer sat internet but, latency is 2-3 seconds which won't let you do anything real time like voip/video and they charge way too much. Cell hot spots are okay to an extent other than the crappy data plans / prices / limitations. When it comes to video though it's all bits and bytes anyway when it's transmitted.... ATSC 3 will provide better backhauls for the IP traffic to hit your antenna and provide service. There have been some talks about providing ISP services over the same towers as TV potentially knocking out another gap in supplying internet everywhere. WISP's are another option with an antenna p-2-p connection and those are getting beefier in bandwidth as they start teaming up with other backhaul providers to provide faster speeds, As long as you have an IP connection to the internet you can get the content you desire although it won't be traditional as flipping channels or using a DVR but, it's still there and not difficult to get.
Hell, if starlink can provide 250mbps they will gain LOTS of customers. I am sick of the traditional providers gouging their customers for subpar services. Same goes for telco's here with their mobile services. We pay insane prices here.
A little FYI for the hockey fans out there. If your TV has a browser, or you have a streaming box that you can mirror to, goto nhl66.ir. Every NHL game is shown live there. Free NHL tv package.
