Fifty Plus (50+) - Perhaps less is better after all....

It's been four weeks without cable T.V. and we're still alive and well.
Sometimes we aren't able to get the rabbit ears adjusted properly
and some of our stations (only 5 available) are a little snowy, but
we are surviving quite nicely. We miss the History channel and the
Home Improvement programs, but we have both been more productive
within the house. We are much less prone to while away an afternoon
on the couch mindlessly flipping thru the channels.

We also got rid of our land line a couple of weeks before our local
elections. What a joy the silence has been. We each carry a cell
phone, well my wife does and I do when I remember to. We turn them
on when we want, which isn't very much. Of course,along with canceling
the land line we also don't need long distance service...another bill gone.

We've also canceled newspaper delivery and now get our news on-line.
If my wife wants the coupons she walks the 3/4 mile trek to the Convenient
Market and picks up a paper. When we do see a paper, the news is old as
it was already on-line the previous afternoon on the newspaper's web-site.

I'm not sure how much of this streamlining has been due to having three kids
in college and how much is due to getting older and tired of all the stupid
bills...but simpler seems to me to be better, at least for now.

P.S. Maybe I'll have more money for bike stuff?!?!?!

Have to admit that with Mobile phones-News on line and radio- which I do listen to- and the number of repeats on TV that I did not want to watch First time round-You have done the right thing.

However- In the Summer I do not even need a house except to sleep and shower in. Gardening and riding take care of that and with the Hammock in the garden- I could just smell a bit and rent out the house.

Good on yer- But there is no way I could without my TDF and other cycling to relax with after a hard day's work and it is too dark to garden.

What are you using for internet access?

What are you using for internet access?


RoadRunner. With three daughters spread across the entire continent, we all went
cell phone with the same network for simplicity. Land line plus manditory long distance
carrier plus internet carrier came to within pennies of the price of RoadRunner. We
opted for the faster (?) RoadRunner.

With voicemail on the cells and e-mail on the net we find we have no problems getting
ahold of each other....and with the cells all on the same network the girls chat
all night if they want for no additional fees (and with the wife and three daughters, that's
a lot of chatting).

I am not familiar with roadrunner. Is it available nationwide?

EDIT: There is no TWC or Road Runner Services at this address. The service provider in you area is Comcast.


Have you considered VOIP?

I can't figure this out either. Internet comes in via the phone line or cable, and if you have neither then how do you connect?

I am not familiar with roadrunner. Is it available nationwide?

EDIT: There is no TWC or Road Runner Services at this address. The service provider in you area is Comcast.


Have you considered VOIP?

I don't know VOIP. In fact I'm kinda ignorant in the realm of computing.

I can't figure this out either. Internet comes in via the phone line or cable, and if you have neither then how do you connect?

RoadRunner is provided via cable, but maintaining cable T.V. is not required.
Since we had both, I just had Time Warner, our cable provider, turn off the T.V. portion
of our service saving us over $60 per month.

I don't know VOIP. In fact I'm kinda ignorant in the realm of computing.
\O.K. I googled VOIP. I believe that our local phone providers offer it as DSL and
our cable providers offer it as Digital Phone. Both more expensive than what I have now
since we intend to stay with the cell phones. Just the Voice Over without the cells
would be more economical for us, but like I mentioned, we are going to stay with the cell
phones...so RoadRunner service over the cable network works nicely for us.

Skype is wonderful for communicating long distance. I regularly talk to my sister in China and my brother in Montreal, and it is completely free. Sometimes we do conference calls and the three of us talk together. We also have web cams so we can see each other.

We keep a basic landline for emergency purposes. In the event of a major blackout, cellphones and computers don't work. We had an ice storm once that knocked out power for 11 days.

VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) is free and overlays your internet cable. Since you have cable directly into your home, VOIP should be no problem. My son uses Skype, and there are others available. It works OK, but he has had to do some fine tuning (bad echo, etc.). He has his own Skype phone number for the VOIP.

I don't have it as I still get two phone lines for $39 per month, and one of them has all the bells and whistles that I still desire, and I use DSL, which I am finding is NOT fast enough for You Tube and other video applications.

The problem is, there are too many darn choices, and too many possible configurations, that it is confusing.

HELP!!

I am still back in the world where you turned the crank and got the operator on the 13 person party line, and you listened to Jack Benny on the radio.

Good for you. I gave up TV 3 1/2 years ago and haven't missed it at all. I too only have a cell phone and get my news from the Internet or NPR or BBC radio.

I also dumped my cable high speed internet service because they kept raising the rates every year. So I got a laptop with Wifi. So when I go to the coffee house I take along the laptop. But I am getting a Wifi connection at home from somewhere in the neighborhood.

I'm not sure how much of this streamlining has been due to having three kids in college and how much is due to getting older and tired of all the stupid bills...but simpler seems to me to be better, at least for now.

P.S. Maybe I'll have more money for bike stuff?!?!?!

Way to go, C.O.D.! Don't know if I missed a previous post on why you disconnected the cable, but my family and I did the same thing at the end of August. Just got tired on all the junk--only about 5-8% of the programming was worth watching, far as I was concerned. I couldn't believe the amount of anger, hatred, and the level of put-downs and profanity. My wife and daughters have been great about it, partly because the $30 we save each month goes straight to them! My son is off at college so it doesn't bother him a bit.

A week or so ago, I discovered that I could watch my favorite program, "The Office," via internet, and my daughters found they could watch a couple of their shows on the computer as well. [Yes, cable is how we get our internet--just shut off the TV capability.]

As you mentioned, this makes a big difference in family activity patterns. I don't spend as much time zoning out with TV when I'm tired at the end of the day, and we're all talking and hanging out a lot more together! After the first month of no cable, the wife, who was skeptical about the whole thing, said, "You were right to get rid of the cable."

As it says on a bumper sticker I saw the other day: "Kill your TV!" But really I think it should just be put in another room to quietly fade into obscurity.

VoIP can be pretty unreliable, for some it works great - for others it is off and on. I have looked into cutting the land line but decided against it and wnet back to minimum telephone service. I also use road runner with basic cable TV service. We are not big TV watchers, the nightly news runs mostly for background noise and I liek the morning Today show before I run off to work. I hate teh local paper but my wife won't give it up.

I use DSL, which I am finding is NOT fast enough for You Tube and other video applications.

The problem is, there are too many darn choices, and too many possible configurations, that it is confusing.



I have no problem with You Tube and DSL. Course, I recently changed to DSL since my excellent ISP went belly up. Have you tried a cable modem? Of course DSL has different speed rates too, based on how much you want to pay. I was paying $17 per month for dial up and $28 per month for an extra phone line. After the demise of my ISP I dropped the extra phone line saving $45 per month. DSL at a medium speed is $30 per month for a year before it goes to $40. But I still be saving money at the higher rate with a faster connection rate.

I have no problem with You Tube and DSL. Course, I recently changed to DSL since my excellent ISP went belly up. Have you tried a cable modem? Of course DSL has different speed rates too, based on how much you want to pay. I was paying $17 per month for dial up and $28 per month for an extra phone line. After the demise of my ISP I dropped the extra phone line saving $45 per month. DSL at a medium speed is $30 per month for a year before it goes to $40. But I still be saving money at the higher rate with a faster connection rate.


My DSL goes directly into one computer, and by wifi to my other two computers. I can play the You Tube and other video, but it sometimes jerks and sputters, and takes a long time to load in and spends a lot of time "buffering." Not that I am missing anything, actually.

Ever since I started getting online with my laptop tethered to my cell phone at work, I've considered cutting out the dsl and land line at home. The cell phone connection is as fast as the dsl, and my new laptop's display is better than my monitor at home. Decisions, decisions.

Haven't owned a TV since 1996. Only miss it during the World Cup.

Tyson