- This is it.
When I finally
cut the cord.
I've been a traditional cable subscriber my entire life.
I got last month's cable bill and it was $210
for internet and cable.
For awhile we were at $180,
and then at the end of the year it just ballooned to $210.
So this just ridiculous.
We were with Time Warner Cable for a long time,
now Spectrum.
- [Operator] Thank you for calling Spectrum.
Can I get the first and last name on your account please?
- In the past I have negotiated the cable bill down
considerably.
Uh, I'd like to reduce our service to just be internet
only, no more cable TV.
I called to cancel cable and only have internet access.
And they wouldn't just say okay, I'll take care of
that for you.
- [Operator] That's actually a different department
that's gonna disconnect any services for you.
- I kept getting passed around to different operators.
I'd get to one operator that would say,
okay that's great, I don't handle that.
So I'm gonna pass you to my colleague who will
take care of it for you.
Five minutes of music later, I get somebody else.
- [Second Operator] You want to go ahead and move
services off the account?
- Yes sir.
- [Second Operator] Okay, what services would that be?
- I want to get rid of everything on our account
except for internet.
When you give them a call, they try and drag out
the experience as much as they can.
- [Second Operator] When you would watch the TV,
what channels would you watch?
- We watch Morning Joe.
They jump in there and ask you these questions like
what kind of shows do you guys watch?
What do you and your wife use your internet for?
It's like what is the point of this?
- [Second Operator] You see here what I can do.
- They would give you just a price that was a little
bit lower.
- [Second Operator] Looks like it's going to bring
it down to $183.80 before taxes and fees.
- Yeah, that's too much.
Okay, this is it.
When I finally cut the cord.
Had to disconnect the cable box,
and had to take it to the Spectrum Headquarters.
It was honestly a little sad.
It was almost like I was giving up a pet for adoption.
We obviously still wanted to have some sort of
content provider where we could watch live TV,
because we enjoy news programming.
We enjoy sports.
There are a lot of options to look at.
Sling TV,
YouTube TV,
Hulu TV,
but the option that just looked like the best choice
was DirecTV Now.
The package that sort of hooked me was $50 a month.
I would have to pay four months up front,
and if I did that they would also throw in an
Apple TV 4K.
Okay, so it's the moment of truth.
We are gonna try out DirecTV Now.
The day that we hooked up DirecTV Now,
the Olympic opening ceremonies were happening,
so that was gonna be like the ultimate test.
The quality is solid.
Crisp HD, I mean I honestly can't tell the difference.
I'm in.
But it's really not up to me.
It's up to her.
What do you think about the quality of the picture?
- It's good, we're good to go.
- We were on board pretty much immediately.
The worst thing about it, there's no DVR,
so we are back in the eighties where if we wanna
watch something we're gonna have to watch it live,
but there are reports that DirecTV Now is gonna add
a DVR feature.
The whole point of this is to save money.
We were paying $210 a month.
Now with the combination of Spectrum's internet service
and DirecTV Now, we're gonna pay $120 a month.
That's gonna save us over $1,000 a year.
So it's been three weeks with DirecTV Now,
and it's been great.
The quality's been great.
It's worked perfectly.
Another bonus is that you can watch stuff on your
phone or your iPad and you gotta think that
unless cable companies start aggressively
lowering their rates, a lot of people are gonna
start switching to these streaming services.
So I'm really honestly surprised I didn't switch over
a lot sooner.
(peppy music)