Well, this is the last straw...

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by earlyfilm

As for using Roku as a solution, that requires having high speed internet. There places within 80 miles of Washington, DC where the only internet available is still dial up! We have become addicted to cable. . . .




James

I do have broadband Internet service; haven't had dialup for years.

I cannot believe the Washington area's cable providers still offer only dialup Internet service. This is the 21st century, for crying out loud, and Washington is the nation's capital. There is no excuse, IMO, for one of the most important cities in this country to stick to such an antiquated Internet access method as dialup. I can see Internet providers in smaller cities and very small towns which may still offer only dialup service, but not the Washington area. The locations you speak of may be very small, rural areas that cannot afford to have broadband cable TV systems; their idea of "modern" cable TV service may well be standard cable and dial-up Internet.


BTW, I hate the term "smartphone" as it is applied to today's Internet-enabled mobile cellular telephones; I cringe every time I read or hear it. Just because these phones have a bunch of computer chips in them and are connected to the Internet does not make them "smart". Without the Internet connection, these phones are nothing more than glorified cell phones. There are probably many people who own cell phones with Internet capability, but they do not use the phone for anything other than making and receiving telephone calls; they could not care less that it can connect to the Internet.

As to your statement that "we have become addicted to cable", well, that's just the way it is. Most people today have some level of cable TV or satellite service, especially since the digital switch six years ago this June. (There are hardly any outdoor TV antennas to be seen in my area, a small northern Ohio town of 3100 population, 35 miles from Cleveland, where good TV reception is hard to get, at least it was in the analog NTSC era before digital.) Services such as Roku and Apple TV are used by folks who want to cut the cable, which is one reason I am switching, at least partially, to TV via the Roku streaming video service. (I will keep the cable for now, if only to retain access to channels I will not get with the Roku box.)

Many people are disgusted with cable TV's constant rate increases, which is yet another reason many switch to alternative video services. Roku and Apple TV will not even come close to putting the nation's cable providers out of business, but these streaming services are becoming very popular with folks who don't want to deal with cable's rate increases. Those increases are here to stay, unfortunately (our cable bills will continue to go up and up and up and . . .), but the two video streaming services I mentioned carry many free TV channels, something cable operators don't like but again, that's how it is. The only fee most Roku users pay is the initial cost of the streaming video box itself; if they do not use the premium channels, they will not have to pay any more than that for the programs the service offers. There are enough free channels on Roku to satisfy most viewers for years; Roku also offers, at least in this area, the Time Warner Cable application, which will allow access through the Roku box to many of the cable provider's channels--but there is a catch. The catch is that you must have, as a minimum, TWC's standard cable service; otherwise the application will not work. I found this out when I had broadcast basic cable and the TWC TV app. I called the cable company and asked specifically if the app would work with broadcast basic; the answer was no, at least standard cable is required for the application to work properly or, in most cases, at all.