Cutting the Cord Services

Cord Cutting Basics

Everyone’s looking to save money on TV entertainment, and there’s never been a better time to cut the cable cord. Instead of paying upwards of $100 per month for a bloated channel bundle, you can replace it with streaming TV services, and perhaps a TV antenna at a fraction of the cost.

Internet service: You will almost certainly need home internet service to cut the cord, along with a Wi-Fi router, so your streaming devices can get online from any part of the house. As a rule of thumb, home internet speeds should be at least 15Mbps (megabits per second) for each device you plan to have running at the same time.

If you tend to have three TVs playing at once, you’ll ideally have a home internet speed of at least 45Mbps. That’s tough to get with DSL or satellite service, so you might need to stick with your cable company for broadband service (unless you’re fortunate enough to have access to fiber broadband or a similar fat pipe).

Streaming services: To replace your TV service, you will subscribe to one or more online video services. These can include on-demand video services such as Netflix or a bundle of live TV channels such as YouTube TV or Sling TV. There are also plenty of free sources of streaming video that you can use to pay for your subscriptions.

Streaming devices: Once you’ve subscribed to some streaming services, you’ll access them by downloading their apps on a streaming device, such as Roku’s Streaming Stick or Amazon’s Fire TV Stick. These devices plug into your television’s HDMI port and connect to the internet over your home Wi-Fi network, and they’ll work even if you don’t own a smart TV that connects to the internet.

If you do have a smart TV, you can use this in place of a separate streaming device—provided it has all the apps and services you want. (TVs that are more than a few years old probably won’t, especially if they’re not running Roku’s software.) But to be clear, you do not need a smart TV to cut the cord.

One more thing: Each television must have its own way to stream via your home network, whether it’s through a streaming device or a smart TV. If you have four TVs, and only two of them have up-to-date smart TV software, you’ll need to buy two additional streaming devices. The good news is that, unlike your cable box, devices like Roku and Fire TV don’t involve any ongoing equipment rental fees, so you only need to stomach the up-front cost.

(Optional) An antenna: Although many live TV streaming services include local channels already, an over-the-air antenna will let you watch broadcast channels like ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and PBS for free, along with some lesser-known subnetworks such as MeTV and Comet. Most modern TVs have an onboard tuner and an input for your antenna’s coaxial cable, so if your reception is good enough, you can just plug it in, run a channel scan, and start watching without a separate tuner box or other additional hardware. If your set doesn’t have a tuner, you can buy an external one for not a lot of money. You can also buy a DVR to record channels from an antenna. More on that later.

Call Antenna Time LLC for more information.