Cutting The Cable

[BobKamman]

I really don't like our local cable company (Cox, "The Used Car People").  I got particularly enraged with them last month when they told my client, confined to a bed in a nursing home, that he had to visit the office to stop service to the house he just sold.  So I asked around for advice, and several people told me they are using 5G Home Internet.  I didn't realize those phone signals were so strong and steady. But last week my Verizon receiver was delivered to home (it has its own phone number!) and so far it has been working well. Faster than the cable, actually. Even with a couple house guests watching videos and playing online games.  

But Verizon is not available at my office, which is in the center of the largest capital city in the country.  The only service available is AT&T, for which you can find hundreds of negative reviews online.  Most of those, though, involve mobile phone or fiber-optic cable installation.  (AT&T is the network for Consumer Cellular, which ropes in a lot of AARP adherents.)  They don't require a contract, so I ordered their service, and the box will be delivered next week. 

The monthly difference in cost, both at home and at the office, is nearly $100.  

Meanwhile, I am concerned about what to do for a backup.  But this afternoon, I figured out how to tether my office desktop to my Verizon phone.  The speed isn't that great, but it works.  (It's allowing me to send this.)

Is anyone else using 5G for home and/or office Internet service, rather than cable?  I don't subscribe to any of those channels that the cable companies like to bundle.  But even if I wanted one, most of them are available on an individual basis.  Or I could borrow a password.  That's legal, right?

[Strongsilence-CPA]

Thanks for sharing. I'm glad you shared your question.

I use Cox and recently upgraded to that high-end internet Cox offers.  It is mostly better than the standard.

I don't have a tip for you, but I would like to ask about tethering. Since I'm not tech savvy and I don't enjoy learning it, would you say more about tethering?  Does this then allow you to work remotely and can you use the tax software on your phone?

But this afternoon, I figured out how to tether my office desktop to my Verizon phone.  The speed isn't that great, but it works.  (It's allowing me to send this.)

[qbteachmt]

I had a client with about 80 customers, it's a neighborhood that sits at on the slopes of TV Mountain. That's the official geographic name. That's also its function. Yet, they could not get good wireless internet (we have ISPs in the valley floor for this), being in the dips of those hills (no line of sight) below the antennas. No cable to the neighborhood, either. Those whose houses I've been in have a Verizon tethering box that connects 5g cell to internet the same way your phone can pick up data (4g it was labeled LTE), something like this:

https://www.verizon.com/internet-devices/

For the TV part, I just cut $100 from Spectrum starting this month, and have one more level of change to make in Nov. The streaming landscape is changing more significantly than ever.

Charter-Optimum-Spectrum and I have a long fight history. "Oh, you don't get the Cooking Channel, even though you are on the Gold Plan? Oh, I see here you are on the wrong Gold Plan."

We dropped to Choice (a la carte, pick 15 channels) $50. Then add HBO/Max through Spectrum $15. Don't get it through HBO/Max directly. If you get it from HBO/Max, you don't get all the HBO content; get it through the cable provider and you get all of HBO (on cable) and all of Max (through streaming). Remember that MGM and Max are merged, so look at the Families of channels on Max, such as HGTV, Discovery, TLC, etc:

https://www.cabletv.com/hbo-max/channels

Don't pick those channels for your Choice package; that's double-access and a waste of 1 of the 15. However, get one Disney now. That way, real soon, when Disney buys all of Hulu and partners with ABC, etc, they are going to offer free streaming access to Disney cable subscribers, so you'll be good to go. We currently have Peacock streaming under those terms. Paramount + has a monthly free code; just search the web. We get Hulu (with ads) for for having Spotify; AT&T or Verizon or some cell phone services are partners with a bunch of streaming services, too. There are Cord Cutters forums on the web where they set up rotating subscriptions: Netflix for 3 months, binge; cancel and move to Apple TV for 3 months, binge; cancel and move to Amazon Prime for 3 months, binge: rotate and repeat.

Spectrum jumped our landline from $14.99 in Aug to $19.99 in Sept. That's was the last straw for me. We ported that to a Tracfone; it took 10 days of chaos, but was so worth it; back to $15 a month and that's our # to keep.

I recently came across a great comment: cell phone #s are the new tribal indicator. The area code tells other people, "This is the land I came from."

My Tracfone was free (Verizon owns Tracfone and had to upgrade you if you didn't have a 4g device) and my service is $7 a month, paid quarterly. I've since learned the way to maintain this is to buy through QVC or whoever it is that offers the annual $50-$150 Tracfone package, because it includes a new phone + service plan, and port over your number to that new device and any remnants of your existing plan.

We have a Samsung Smart TV, so the Spectrum app works for us (won't work for my mother, for instance, on Fire stick and dumb Sharp TV). I got rid of Spectrum's set top channel box and DVR, went to Cloud DVR. That saved another $25. Our internet through them is $85, so we went from $280 to $180 for Oct.

And Spectrum, at least in our area, has a "secret" TV package you never see listed or advertised and they don't mention it (I have a techie neighbor). This is my next change: Essentials. It is something like 40-60 channels, streaming only (which I'm already doing) and no local channels. So, here's what's arriving on Tuesday:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXKSHFS9?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

In your area, you might get over 100 OTA (over the air) channels. I tested my TV with a loaner antenna from a friend, and reference websites show our region has only about 6 or 8, with a couple of subchannels (such as PBS and PBS Kids). We're moving in 3 weeks (we hope, it's a new build that got delayed already) to the base of TV Mountain, where we have line of sight, and we'll hang this when we move in. One TV tower is about 180 degrees different (we live on the slopes of that mountain now), and that is the PBS channel tower, but we get Passport free for supporting NPR, and a free library card gets us Kanopy for free.

Then I can change to Essentials.

[BobKamman]

@Strongsilence-CPA   Tethering is just turning your phone into a WiFi transmitter, as well as receiver.  I knew it existed, but had not used it before.  Look under the Settings for "Mobile Hotspot," at least on an Android.  They warn you that it uses battery charge fast, so keep the phone charging if possible.  I found that my battery dropped from 94% to about 90%, in 15 or 20 minutes.  

My phone connects to the Internet with the Verizon 5G signal.  If my office computer loses its AT&T 5G signal, I can "tether" it to my phone instead.  Do you know how to run an Ookla speed test?  It's easy. When I am using my cable connection, the speed on my office computer comes out to something like 200 whatevers.  (Mbps?).  But that's just from the WiFi signal from the cable modem, because I haven't connected the new box to the cable cord yet.  At home, using the Verizon 5G Home Internet service, I get about 260.  At the office, tethering the Verizon phone to the desktop, I get about 30, which is fast enough while waiting for the regular service to return.  

I think my new office computer is the first one I have owned, that can pick up a WiFi signal.  It can also send one, to one or more printers.  I still rely on cords, to get items to printers, but maybe I should work on that skill.  

Where else would you use tethering?  The first time it was offered to me, I was on a flight to Asia.  This was 12 or 15 years ago.  At the time, WiFi cost more on flights.  Often, it still does.  I could live without it.  Anyway, my seatmate (cute young thing) offered to let me tether to hers.  Being security conscious, and planning on sleeping through most of the flight, I declined.  

[BobKamman]

@qbteachmt "I recently came across a great comment: cell phone #s are the new tribal indicator. The area code tells other people, "This is the land I came from." "

Arizona used to have just one area code:  602.  (If there was a zero in the middle, you knew it was a single-code state.)  Then we grew and needed two.  Then three, then four, then five..  For land lines, there were boundaries.  But if you lived in a cheap neighborhood you could still get a cell phone with a 480 area code (Scottsdale, among other cities).  602 was down to just Phoenix itself.  Glad I got my office and cell numbers there, while still available, and I don't plan on giving them up even if I move.  

But now, they have run out of 602 numbers, so any new subscribers in the metro area are assigned a 480 or 623, even if they live in the city.  And this means that we all have to dial 10 digits, even if to the same area code. All my "saved" numbers on my office phone have to be edited to include the area code. 

I had a problem with my bank.  (It's the largest private bank in the country, headquartered in Oklahoma.)  My complaint went to the regional manager, who started his career in Texas.  He called me on his cell phone, which had a Texas area code.  That's fine, if you're calling back from a cell phone, but I still have a land line at my office, and if I call a foreign area code, I have to pay by the minute. I suppose I should drop the land line.  I used to keep it, because they told me I needed it for the alarm system.  But now my alarm has its own cell phone number.  Which makes it hard to explain, when grandkids ask about those old movies where the criminals first cut the phone cord.  

[qbteachmt]

"I suppose I should drop the land line."

We wanted to keep that old number, and have barely started using cell phones, so almost no one has the numbers and it was easy to abandon one of them for the port over. Montana still has only the one area code for numbers issued here (406) but now that so many variations exist (it used to be "1" or "0" in the middle indicated area code) that we now have to use the entire 10 digits, even for local calls.

We have family from Scottsdale living on Whidbey Island, WA, and they had such trouble getting phone and cable and internet, they have numbers forwarded to other numbers, I don't even know which are the "real" numbers for reaching them.

[sjrcpa]

@BobKamman In the DMV we've been dialing 10 digits for 20 years or so.

@qbteachmt Since cell phone numbers are portable, they don't reliably tell you location.

I called someone yesterday who lives in Northern VA. Their cell has a CA area code.

[BobKamman]

@sjrcpa People outside the Beltway are going to think you work for the Department of Motor Vehicles.  I like the acronym DelMarVa instead (yes, acronyms can use syllables, just ask anyone from the Benelux area) but unfortunately that doesn't include DC, just the peninsula shared by three states.  

[sjrcpa]

I forget that not everyone speaks in the initials we use around here.

[qbteachmt]

"I forget that not everyone speaks in the initials we use around here."

We were watching something last night that had PEBKAC and I was the only person in the room who knew what that stands for.