Jamie will be posting a follow-up to this post tomorrow!
Cable is expensive, because of that our family has gone from periods of no cable, to basic cable, to cheap Dish packages, and now DirectTV. Satellite cable seems cheap but the usually either have poor signal that goes out whenever it rains (Dish) or only offer discounts for the first year and hold you to a 2 year contract so they can squeeze every nickle and dime from you pocket (DirectTV).
We didn't have any trouble cancelling our Dish Network service when we moved here, so we didn't really think to much to read every detail of our agreement with DirectTV. We signed up last year right before the babies were born because we knew that I was going to be spending a lot of time nursing the twins and I wanted to be able to have something to watch. The signal from DirectTV has been pretty good compared to Dish, but be forewarned if you do decide to sign up you are signing a deal with the devil. If you need to cancel your service for any reason, they will charge you a HUGE cancellation fee. (from what I've seen it looks like $480 if cancelled in the first year, and $240 if cancelled in the second).
With our upcoming move, we've decided to cut the cord (and our losses) with cable for good. When I first heard people talking about using the internet for TV I looked at them like they were crazy. But in the past year several pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place to make this a reality for people who don't want a ugly PC and a million wires in their living room.
Our Tools:
- HD TV (if using an analog TV you will need a digital converter for local channels)
- High Speed Internet Connection
- Wireless Router
- ROKU streaming player
- Subscription to Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime for streaming content
