Neither broadcast TV nor traditional forms of highspeed internet reach out here where we live, and that's not going to change anytime soon. Just not enough population density to make it commercially viable.
15 - 20 years ago our only options were satellites for both TV for critical entertainment* and limited-bandwidth internet for equally critical connectivity. Two seperate things back then.
*For us the TV, or more accurately, screen-based escapism, is a critical mental health tool for winding our brains down at the end of the day.
Some time back I released this post about how we eventually dumped our satellite internet because it was no longer critical to our connectivity and they priced themselves out of our value-for-cost tolerance.
You might think that in this day and age not having an actual internet service at home would be a bit of an inconvenience. Well I released that post in June of 2025 after taking a time-out from social media while dealing with cancer, but I actually wrote it 2.5 years before that.
So that means we've done without a traditional internet connection for some 3.5 years now, relying solely on cell-data, and in The Wife’s case, since she has zombie-fingers which makes using the phone's touch-screen difficult, mobil hotspot over cell in conjuction with her laptop, for a connection to the outside world. All services that were already included with our cell plan, (just under $100 for two unlimited lines) and it has been no hardship at all.
Yes, the cell signal here on the part of the property where we live is not the greatest, about -115 to -110dB at 4G on the serving cell and no usable neighbor cell, and we have to use a cell booster to stay connected when inside the living quarters which are tucked into a corner of an all metal building. (our booster is too old to support 5G and boosters are expensive! So we haven't upgraded). Even with the booster, once in a while the signal isn't strong enough for a data connection for short periods.
When we do have data-strength signal inside, which is probably around 95% of the time, download speeds hover around 13Mb and upload at 1Mb.
Sounds pretty marginal in this day and age, but actually that's comparable to the speeds (real, not advertised) we got from our satellite internet anyway, when we weren’t bit-blocked by clouds that is.
And seriously, what do we need faster for? We're not runnimg a home business relying on connectivity speed for our financial survival, we're retired so there's nobody judging our digital productivity, we don't 'game', multiplayer or otherwise, so aren't trying to slam the bandwidth with fantasy pixels, or doing any of those other things that many people have been brainwashed into thinking they need higher speeds for.
We do do all our banking, bill paying, social media, research, browsing, shopping, video conferencing (for medical appointments), and streaming shows and movies just fine over our cell connection thank you very much!
And streaming brings us to the subject of this particular post.
Evening TV together has always been our winding down time. It’s how we give our brains a chance to re-center before trying to sleep. And our only options for viewing back when we first moved out here was DirecTv over satellite, or Netfix DVD. (Remember, even with the satellite internet connection we had limited total data allowance and couldn't stream more than one or two shows per month without having to buy more, rather expensive, bits. Besides, Netfix streaming didn't yet exist when we first settled here.)
We used that combination of the satellite TV and Netflix for many years.
Since it was a 34 mile round trip to collect our mail (See here for when the mail delivery situation finally changed in late 2022.) we would pick up mail once a week, including the 3 netflix DVD's our 20 some dollar subscription allowed, usually on a Friday, then burn through the DVD's over the weekend so we could get them back in the mail (a drop box is only a 10 mile round trip away) in time for the next batch to reach us before the following weekend. And then watch stuff off DirecTv in between.
Initially this worked quite well. The turn-around time from Netflix was impressive and reliable, but towards the end of our relationship with Netflix the service level of both them and the USPS had degraded to the point where we were lucky to get 3 rounds of DVDs in our hands in a month, and only 2 wasn't unusual.
So a while back, before they stopped the service altogether, we severed our frustrating relationship with Netflix. Besides, by then we had burned through their dwindling supply of good stuff and the remaining choices were either re-runs or crap.
Now we were making do with DirecTv alone.
Not that that was much better.
For a long time now The Wife and I have generally found the offerings on American TV, network as well as so-called cable-stations, just too pedantic, purile, violent, dooms-dayish, psychologically punishing, or farcicaly fantacy-ish for us.
When we kick back in the evening to watch a show we want something conducive to - well, kicking back. Not something that's going to leave us bored, disgusted, discouraged (by the general state of mental decent into mediocrity), or, both of us being on the spectrum and sensitive to situational and sensory stimulation, leaping out of our chairs with our minds rattled and bodies flooded with stress hormones.
What ever happened to the likes of Columbo and Murder She Wrote?
Anyway, by then we had enough cell connectivity here on the property (When we first moved here we could get a usable signal from an antenna on top of a water tower about 5 miles north of us, but only from the top of the east ridge, not down by the barn. Eventually a new tower was installed about 4 miles to the east and that signal is usually stong enough to reach down into the valley where our buildings are.) that we started experimenting with the Prime Video that comes with our Amazon prime subscription. (We earn more in discounts during the 15 or so annual trips we make to Whole Foods than the subscription costs, and that's before factoring in the 'free' shipping - and we do a lot of shipping with Amazon!)
Turns out streaming Prime over cell works pretty damn well! Open the Prime Video app on either one of our phones, select something to watch, and cast the phone's screen to the smart TV, which in our case, since we have no internet to actually plug into the TV and make it smart, is actually just a monitor for the phones and the DirecTv box.
The only drawback being the limited offerings. Turns out Prime Video isn't (at least wasn't. It's gotten better lately and currently accounts for almost 30% of what we watch) that much different than any other US based studio and for us, the pickins were slim. So, managed from one place through our Amazon account with simple click-to-add or cancel, we added subscriptions to Britbox and Acorn, all watched through the Prime app, which gave us access to shows from other countries which seem to have viewing, intelectual, and philosophical standards more in line with our preferences.
Back a few dwcades ago when I first started watching telenovelas for Spanish practice (with Spanish captioning on) I would sometimes forget to turn the captions off and now we have been watching everything with captions on for years. So moving on to shows in other languages was pretty seamless for us since virtually everything has English captioning available. (We've tried one or two shows that have been dubbed into English but prefer the characters talking in their own voices and language while we read the captions instead.)
After a while you start to get an ear for languages. Because they are related I can often follow bits of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and even some French, and the Germanic/Nordic languages (Belgian is a mix of French and Germanic) are all related too with a similar sound and cadence.
Except for Finish. You would, I did anyway, expect Finish to be related to the Nordic languages but we recently started watching the Finish series Sunset Grove, and the language is completely different, tracing its roots back to the Uralic family of languages originating in Siberia some 4500 years ago. Which, BTW, even though you might think so, Rusian is not decended from a Uralic language but rather has Proto-Slavic origins. Go figure!
Anyway, all this streaming stuff had us taking a hard look at the value we were getting out of our quite expensive DirecTV subscription.
So we kinda eased into an experiment by adding subscriptions for Paramount+, through our Amazon account, and Hulu*, which is only available as a stand-alone subscription, to see how much we could wean ourselves off of DirecTv. Then, for shows we could still only get off of DirecTv, we researched and spreadsheeted other potential sources, many of which were surprisingly affordable.
*Side-bar. Hulu uses some sort of video encryption that is not compatable with casting to the smart TV. The only way to get Hulu from phone to TV is though a direct connection with a USB C to HDMI cable. (For some reason, if you tell the TV that it's a PC hooked to that port rather than a phone, you get a brighter, clearer image.) Only our identical Galaxy 32 phones don't output video on the USB C port, so we now own one Galaxy 32 and one Galaxy 25, which does output video on the USB C port. Seems counter intuitive that a device with a lower model number would have more features, but hey - they don't consult with me about shit like this.
The resulting spreadsheet confirmed what we suspected. In this day and age traditional cable/satellite TV subscritions are way over priced for the value they deliver! At least for us. Even adding a lot of various streaming subscriptions to make up the difference (I'll list what we currently have later.) we could still save over $2000 a year by getting rid of DirecTv! And without giving anything up along the way.
Of course DirecTv thinks they're exempt from any of the various "click-to-cancel" laws, so you actually have to call and talk to a live person to cancel their service. Not something either one of us are all that comfortable with. On top of that, this live person is actually a "customer retention specialist" that keeps flashing more and more "tempting" deals at you. (Why the fuck do you think I would want 6 free months of HBO?! All 10 chanels are crap, most of it old stuff either already seen or not interested in, and they keep repeating that same drivel over and over again.) And the fact that these "deals" aren't offered to loyal customers, only disatisfied ones on their way out, pisses me off even more!
With a sweaty ear, and getting hoarse from repeating 'not interested' over and over again, we finally made it to the end of the script, you know, the part where they grudgingly give in while make various threats about what will happen if we don't return the outdated equipment we've paid for many times over by the deadline they've given us. On top of that, in a move that confounds all logic for a service industry, we were warned we wouldn't be allowed to resume service for 6 months. (BTW, the "We want you back" emails started up the week after we terminated the service - the lying bastards.)
Oddly enough, they only wanted us to return the three ancient, dumb-repeater boxes, one out in the main barn for when The Wife was using the stationary bike, one in her barn for when she was working on something out there, and one for Elmer's trailer when it was parked on the pad beside the barn. For some reason they didn't want this much newer, intelligent receiver/DVR box back. Now what the hell are we supposed to do with that?!
That all happened five months or so ago now and we have been happy with the decision, so I guess the two antennae on the roof are some sort of historical yard-art now, because I sure as hell am not climbing up there to take them down!
We have been happy with our current selection of subscriptions but are spreadsheeting our veiwing habits so we can spot any that are underutilized and can drop them. With Amazon Prime's click-to-subscribe/cancel it's easy to add/remove most of our subscriptions on the fly.
In a concession to the sometimes marginal cell signal, in order to avoid the occasional ten minute or so interuption while the cell tower resets, or whatever it's doing, we've learned to keep a handfull of fresh episodes of our current shows downloaded on our phones.
In addition to all that traditional veiwing stuff, when working on crafts in the living quarters The Wife likes to have something going on the TV. Not neccessarily to watch, but as a sudo-companion. With DirecTv she would pick one of the commercial-free channels, such as TCM and have it running with the sound muted.
To replace that feature we have loaded a couple thousand, and counting, personal and historical photos onto a stick which plugs into the TV's USB port and loops as a slideshow.
We also stumbled across window-swap.com, which is pretty cool. People upload 10 minute videos shot out their windows, both stationary and mobile, (We've traveled down a remote highway in Patagonia, navigated the congested streets of an English costal town, and careened on motorcycle down a mountain road, sometimes paved, sometimes not, in Costa Rica.) which then play slideshow-style, and The Wife has spent hours traveling all over the world peeking out people's windows.
Which brings us back to our current subscription list (All commercial free versions). Which, in decending order of cost, goes a little like this:
Hulu: At $19 our most expensive subscription and one we are keeping a close eye on, but where else are you going to get Only Murders In The Building, and HIP, the original French version of the show some American network has copied and called High Potencial? (High Potencial, just like PBS Masterpiece's show Patience, a study of a moderately autistic person navigating through the neuro-typical world, is a poorly done, watered down copy of the French original Astrid.)
Halmark+/Discovery+: This is a bundled subscription. We were after Discovery but do also enjoy some of Halmark's cozy-murder-mysteries so went ahead and grabbed the bundle
Paramount+: for some of the networky shows we watch
Prime Video: Although, factoring in the Whole Foods discounts and free shipping, this one is essencially free for us.
Britbox:
Acorn:
PBS Masterpiece: Not only do we get the movies/series you would see on your local PBS station, like Bookish and Inspector Ellis, but we also have access to the likes of, German, Italian, and French language shows, respectively Partners in Crime, Inspector Riccardo, and Panda, that have never aired here in the States.
Mhz: for loads of Nordic and Germanic shows like the original Walander (Swedish), Homicide Hills (German), and the somewhat dated but still fun Inspector Rex (Austrian).
PBS Passport: For the This Old House/Ask This Old House franchise, America Outdoors, and, among many others, the full catalog of Craft in America. Plus we can watch live-streams of all the scheduled shows on the local PBS station of our choice. (The Wife is pissed that growing up she didn't have access to all the educational opportunities of the PBS kids shows of today. Somehow, compared to them, the Roadrunner just doesn't stack up as usefully educational!)
All but Hulu and PBS Passport are managed directly from our Amazon account.
Anyway, DirecTv is out, we are saving a bunch of money, and have access to way more than we could ever watch. Which is nice.
For instance, last night we watched the first episode of the Italian, Don Mateo, in part because it's billed as 'warm humor and clever mysteries'
and in part because Terence Hill (remember the My Name is Nobody spaghetti-westerns?) plays the main character. It was nice enough, but didn't really grab us so we took it out of our to-watch list because there's plenty of other choices out there.
Boy it's nice to get that DirecTv monkey off our backs!
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