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I posted about this topic a couple of years ago. I decided to post an update on what I am currently using and how it's going and what I am spending on stuff.

For Television

Our "infrastructure":

35 MBPS Cable Internet via Spectrum

Clearstream 2V HDTV antenna, mounted on a pole sunk in the yard ~ $75 today (for local TV stations)

Winegard LNA-200 Boost XT Digital HDTV Preamplifier ~ $44 today  (amplifies the antenna signal to be usable in our rural area)

Amazon Fire TV for streaming internet stuff ~$75 today

Tablo 2-Tuner DVR for Over-The-Air HDTV - ~$89 for a refurbished unit (now)

Subscriptions:

- Amazon Prime - Jeff Bezos sucks, but $10/mo for Prime TV + free shipping for the year is a good deal

- Netflix - $11/mo (the basic package, not the 4K upgrade or any add-ons)

- Philo TV https://www.philo.com - $16/mo - covers about 40 cable TV channels - live + on-demand viewing of almost all programs - Omits all news and all sports, which is OK with us.

- Tablo TV program subscription - $5/mo, makes the Tablo device usable by providing continuous schedule updates for local TV programming, plus provides program descriptions and thumbnail graphics for identifying TV shows in the menus.

A total monthly cost of $42/mo for video services. It's *almost* the equal of a decent cable TV lineup. Some things are on-demand only, but we have a lot of live TV options.

What we lack in this scheme:

- Many cable channels, mainly news related (Fox, CNBC, CNN, and C-span) plus some major networks like FX/FXX.

We sponge off of my mother-in-law's cable subscription with full coverage by using the Fire TV apps for CNBC, Fox News, and FX networks, and log in with her ID. So we can watch pretty much anything we did on cable or satellite, as long as she carries cable for herself.

Observations:

1) The Tablo TV devices are somewhat unreliable. The actual performance is good when they are working. But we are on the second box. We had one "fry" and stop working, which actually burned out the network outlet on the switch the Tablo was plugged into (so that switch now has 3 and not 4 functional ethernet jacks. Grr.) A design flaw of the original Tablo appears to be overheating due to the bottom plate being covered and pointed at the surface the box sits on. It usually ran hot enough to fry an egg on. With the new device I simply placed the box upside down for better air circulation.

2) Philo TV is currently IMO the best deal going for basic streamed cable TV service. No other provider comes close in its basic package and all others are more expensive to start. We did have Playstation Vue, which had really good cloud DVR, but it had crept up to almost $50/mo, and they dropped many Viacom channels (Paramount, MTV/VH1, Comedy Central) plus the History channel. This change saved me $30/mo  and the Philo TV app feels much faster and easier to use than the Playstation app.

3) Spectrum is currently pushing a basic cable bundle with the internet service. But the monthly cost rises from $70/mo internet only to $100/mo with channels, and we then have a stupid DVR box to deal with again. Also, the flyers then send out drastically lowball the real price of the service after adding all fees, taxes, and cable operator surcharges. After dealing with Time Warner before I don't want to give them new business. Streaming is SO MUCH CLEANER than dealing with cable company hardware!

4) Netflix is almost a no-brainer for the price if you'd like some TV diversion on demand. The library of classic and current movies and TV shows is vast.

5) The Amazon Fire TV device has worked fine. But in some ways Fire TV seems to have much more limited application options. The Roku had a vast array of undocumented, off the wall video services you could set up. I moved us to the Fire when we got Playstation Vue whose app worked much better on Fire. But now that Playstation is out of the picture I may try an upgraded Roku again.


6) Android TV: I bought a well reviewed Android TV box a few weeks ago to try out to extend the number of apps we could watch on. I found that the user interface of Android TV is absolutely miserable. You have to use the remote as a mouse in some instances and "press" controls on the screen. Yech. Also, the particular box I bought @$50 was buggy as hell. Youtube videos would break up into snow and Prime videos would lock up and stop playing. I returned the device.

For Home Telephone

We're still with https://voipo.com, VOIP for the house.

I just renewed our plan through 2020. Monthly cost $7.71 including ALL fees. This is charged as $149 for 2 years (24 mo) + taxes for a total of $185. Considering that we paid $85/mo for local phone service before this is excellent.

I have my router configured so that VOIP has been essentially error free and high quality for many months. (the ports need to be mapped in specific ranges and I had lots of problems with the setup until I got that squared away.)

The security alarm was connected to the phone line, and I preserved that connection when I set up the VOIP adapter. The security alarm can make test (and real) calls out to the alarm service reliably.

In fact I recently sent a FAX out over this line and that worked OK, too. It arrived as required. So digital data passes over this VOIP acceptably when necessary.

We did have one small mishap. Voipo provides their own VOIP adapter, which is a "Grandstream" brand device which gets so-so reviews online. A few months ago one telephone jack (it has two) burned out and basically generates noise. I had to transition the service to the second phone jack on the device which still worked.

VOIPO were kind of jerks about this and say that their device is unwarrantied if you use it to drive a house's phone lines, which is the only practical way to use it. They expect you to directly connect the VOIP adapter to a telephone handset. So they only offered to sell me a new box (about $50.)

They didn't really work to earn my new business but they are still the price leader so I renewed recently.

I bought a Cisco ATA VOIP adapter for about $30 and sometime I intend to configure it so it works in all details on our VOIP service. (When I connect it it does work but some features like voicemail are very buggy.)  The Cisco device is reviewed much better than the Grandstream device.

Hey, we were at $195/mo a couple of years ago for internet+TV+phone.

Just check out the Philo.com TV offerings carefully. I find MORE to watch of interest on it than I did on Playstation. You can always subscribe to extra channels through Amazon Prime if you really want (like my wife wants the Hallmark Channel during the holidays so we can rent that for a month and just cancel.) And, you can get premium movies through Prime too.


I like that with the streaming stuff most channels start up instantly with no delay. The cable company box seemed slow.


There's absolutely no reason to bother with the lame overtaxed cable TV utility.


And there's ALWAYS the "United Bittorrent Network" or UBN TV.    A subscription to a privacy VPN is $4/mo and a must-have if you do that. 

Just Google the particular channels that you need. Most channels are well indexed.

CreateTV is simply one of the local  PBS affiliate stations, which are over-the-air and free. We have two Create TV stations in our region that I can receive clearly.

Hallmark is apparently a separate app and subscription, $4.99/mo, but I'm almost positive I saw it as a Prime extra cost channel as well.  Many premium cable channels are available as add on monthly subscriptions to Prime.

Yeah, what you describe is fine. I feel like we have many more enjoyable choices available than just a cable subscription alone.  The Tablo TV adds recording to over the air broadcasting and is easy to use - it's like a cable company box in terms of features and setting recordings and watching. W/o something like the Tablo you are restricted to live only over the air TV. You may want a Tablo or Tivo or comparable device to make Dad happy.

Basically 42/mo and we get what I consider everything worth watching.

The main challenge will be getting Dad to understand what service and box and option gives him what channel or type of viewing.  Unless he's very geek. My wife (not geek) still needs to stop and think about what app to run to watch what. Usually she'll say something like "put HGTV on" which is through the Philo app.

As far as streaming cable services, you can review Playstation and Sling (the major players) but the overall cost is pretty high when you do all of the upgrades necessary to achieve a package that is really usable. Philo TV is a great cheap compromise package.