I'm about to drop Spectrum

Goodie2shoes · ‎04-30-2012

So I've had Spectrum for over 15 years, actually back when it was called Charter and overall I have been satisfied. I received my new bill and it went up $20( almost $200 now!!). I have a land line and spectrum streaming service and last year I changed to the 15 channel lineup (still have my local channels and many others that I really don't watch much) but I dropped the Food network, ESPN and a few other popular channels that I don't watch but I kept my favs like HGTV, E, TBS, TLC, BET and several others.

So I called Spectrum to negotiate a lesser price and they brought the bill down but I think it's still ridiculous ! So I'm looking for a new streaming service and dropping my landline. It's finally happening and my daughter also says I should drop the landline and get a new lower priced streaming service. She likes Hulu.

So my question is does anyone else use another streaming service, what is it and are you happy with the service and price?

brandiwine · ‎03-11-2010

We use YouTube TV and love it. We have almost everything they offer and it costs us $78 a month. It has been extremely reliable unlike Direct TV satellite.

Mom2Dogs · ‎03-09-2010

@Goodie2shoes You have pretty much the same service we do with Spectrum...our bill also went up about $20.00 this month. You'd think with only the 15 channels that we pay for the price would not be that high.

I have not gotten around to calling them to lower the price, hoping to get that done this weekend.

We stream spectrum, no other streaming services....my husband likes to watch baseball, and I am sure I looked for a streaming service that carried the baseball games he wants to see, I might have to look again.

I read an article that the majority of people don't save a lot of money using other streaming services, they have to have a couple different services to get the channels they want. I don't know if that is true or not.

Also, I don't know what internet alone would cost if we dropped the channels from spectrum...add the internet cost to the streaming service (s) I don't know if there is a big savings or not.

kansasbaker · ‎06-08-2012

We use Roku, and subscribe to Hulu..........we are happy with this combo......dropped our landline years ago. Good Luck

SilleeMee · ‎05-22-2016

Around here just the high-speed internet service needed for streaming cost over half of what I pay for my Directv satellite. Then add the cost of all the streaming subscriptions to that, plus the cost of an additional dvr...well it all adds up to about the same for me.

Goodie2shoes · ‎04-30-2012

@ Mom2Dogs wrote:

You have pretty much the same service we do with Spectrum...our bill also went up about $20.00 this month. You'd think with only the 15 channels that we pay for the price would not be that high.

I have not gotten around to calling them to lower the price, hoping to get that done this weekend.

Good luck in reaching a billing rep without waiting for almost 10 mins. I was transfered to another dept on my initial call and she said there was a long hold for billing because many people were calling in about their bill increase.

granddi · ‎03-16-2010

We also have spectrum. Yes, it has become more and more expensive.

Streaming services such as Hulu, YouTubeTV, Roku will change your viewing habits. We got a free 21 day trial of YouTubeTv because of missing programing on ESPN. Unless I am missing something, you cannot channel surf with streaming.

We are "surfers" We like to look at the channel guide. We might see an unexpected movie listing or sports program and jump in. We are big sports fans and might monitor a couple of games back and forth. I might be watching Q and want to check on local weather.

We have streaming for Max, Prime, Netflix, a couple of others.

If Disney can pulll its content from Spectrum then who will be next? How do we know that they will pull this with any other provider? Rumors on some financial sources indicate that Apple is interested in buying ESPN.

With all its warts, I want my cable tv with Disney (espn) content.

Neetgal2 · ‎02-12-2016

We are very happy with Hulu, through Roku. The Comcast bill, to just bring internet into the house just went up $20. If we could get rid of the Verizon land line and put it on Comcast and do direct pay, $30 a month could be saved. We are simply not in agreement! I watch apps, PBS and ABC6. DH watches tons of stuff and subscribes to a few other channels.

AuntG · ‎03-09-2010

I'll pay $200 for phone, internet and cable but I want them to settle with Disney darn soon so we can get our ESPN channels back!

Toppers3 · ‎10-25-2016

Hi @Goodie2shoes ,

I think that it's kind of frustrating that it seems that the different streaming services offer different channels, but none of them seem to offer everything that someone seems to be looking for in a complete package. At least that has been my experience, when looking around at the different services.

We don't have a streaming channel service like YouTube TV or a particular streaming device like a Roku or a Smart TV or a Fire stick, etc., just as an example.

We stream watching off of our computers or my husband likes using his Android phone.

For streaming channels we watch Netflix, and Amazon Prime, and Discovery Plus which is offered through Verizon and the Disney Plus Bundle also offered through our Verizon cell phone service.

Plus, we also watch the free streaming TV/movie channels that are out there, too. For news, I'll check various sources on-line.

We changed to Verizon 5G Home Plus for Wireless Internet service for our home Internet service.

We had AT&T U-Verse DSL for both Internet and home phone which was reliable, but we live in a combination rural-urban area and AT&T fiber optic service has been slow in coming to our particle area, so we decided to opt for the 5G home service since it's now available to us.

It has been reliable and the service is fast, too. It's faster than our DSL service was.

We decided to keep home phone service and we switched to Ooma for our phone service. It's similar to MagicJack phone service, if anyone's familiar with that type of Internet phone service.

Ooma is also wireless and you pay upfront for the wireless unit and can buy it outright and can pay upfront for the once-a-year fees for it, and then pay a small monthly fee for the taxes on it.