Does dropping cable make sense?

Does Dropping Cable Make Sense?

 

With the cost of cable and satellite TV rising all the time, many people are cutting the cord and getting their entertainment from a variety of traditional and non-traditional methods. But as with anything, you have to take the total cost of ownership into account. You also need to place a value and associated price on the convenience of a single source versus piecing your video entertainment together. This article attempts to help determine if dropping cable makes sense.

 

Cable, as referred to in this article includes all the major players, including the satellite companies. Subscribers often argue over which of those is best, or in many cases, worst, but one thing they all agree on, it costs too much. The solution for many people, especially millennials, is getting video from a variety of particular sources and attempting to only pay for what they need and use. One method that is arguably cheaper is the modern version of traditional broadcast television. With the proper antenna, you can get a few local channels in HD for free. Of course, most people aren’t going to settle for their grandparent’s idea of watching TV when there were only three or four channels. For a small fee, the broadcast antennas can be modified to pick up a few extra channels, and possibly Netflix.

 

The next step up is to stream content to your cellular devices. You are already paying for cell service, and depending on your data plan you can get a significant amount of material over that network at no cost. If there are particular programs you can’t live without, you can stream those networks for a nominal fee. Via devices such as BlueViewTV.com which we found to be the best iptv provider with over 800 live IPTV Channels, you can even watch that content on your flat screen TV for as little as $20 or $25 a month.

 

To get beyond that basic TV, you are going to have to start shelling out some money. Depending on what you want to watch and how up to date you want to be with series viewing, etc., you are going to need one or more of the many subscription systems such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, Sling, and others. Also, you will most likely need high-speed internet access as your cell phone provider is probably not going to handle all the traffic, or may start throttling your speed if it gets out of hand. Everyone complains that cable is costing them $100, $200, $300 or more a month, but part of that package is your internet. And by today’s standards that internet is blazingly fast and getting faster all the time. Before you cut the cable, you have to find out how much it will cost for just internet to supply your streaming services. If you now have a package, the price of internet only may be much higher than you think.

 

Some would argue that you are going to pay for internet anyway, so you shouldn’t factor in that cost. But that is still part of that high cable bill, so you’ll need to factor it into the total cost of ownership. The deciding factors for many will be content and convenience. If you just want to watch something and are entertained easily, a broadcast antenna and a single subscription service may give you all you want. But if you’re going to stay current on all the latest shows across a dozen or more networks, and need to keep up with Game of Thrones and Outlander, you are likely going to find that the cost of cable is worth it with these iptv channels.

 

If you are a millennial who is happy streaming an hour of TV a day while sipping lattes at Starbucks, then dropping cable makes sense. But if you are the type that spends four to five hours a night watching TV, while surfing the net on your laptop, then you probably don’t want to cut the cable.