Is it time to Cut the Cord?
13 December 2020
As Debbie and I are building from scratch we are challenged with making decisions on everything for our new home. Since we’re looking to have an environment for ourselves and our guests that is comfortable and entertaining, technology choices will be driven by desired content. So, we have a lot of decisions to make and one is cable TV.
I recently saw statistics regarding cord cutting that I found eye-opening but in retrospect make a lot of sense. By the end of 2020, as many as 6.6 million US households are likely to cut the cord. Since 2014, 23% of households have cut the cord. These numbers simply can’t be ignored and it really makes us wonder why.
As we’re empty-nesters now and our TV entertainment needs have changed, we’ve been looking to save money on TV entertainment and there’s never been a better time for us to cut the cord. A long-time friend and his wife recently built a new home in Florida and left cable behind in the process and have never looked back. We just don’t need the bloated channel bundle, especially as we’ve already moved heavily toward streaming TV services. The only concerns will be local channels, news and sports which we may be able to be completely replaced with an TV antenna and streaming.
Whereas cable made everything simple, cutting the cord requires picking from different hardware options and an ever-growing list of streaming services. Adding an over-the-air HD TV antenna to the mix could seem complicated and intimidating as well.
We haven’t made a final decision about cutting the cord but we have looked seriously from the following considerations:
Cost Comparison — Most live TV streaming services start at $50 per month, so cord-cutting might not save you much if your TV provider is giving you a great deal. It’s possible to spend less with cheaper services such as Netflix, but not without giving up a lot of what’s on cable.
Home Internet Service — As you’re already paying for internet, cord-cutting will probably make financial sense. Adding home internet service just to cut cable TV, on the other hand, will likely be a wash.
Flexibility — Despite its many advantages, cord-cutting will not provide the same experience as cable for less money. You’ll need to be comfortable using new technology or new apps, and you might need to consider sacrificing some of what you watched with cable. The more flexible you are the better your experience will be and the more money you’ll save.
From our research, we’ve found that cutting the cord requires several elements. These should not be surprising to you but we found it interesting once we got it all on paper. You may have additional considerations based on your home, content desired, comfort with technology, etc. Here’s the checklist we came up with:
Internet service — You will absolutely need home internet service to cut the cord. As a rule of thumb, home internet speeds should be at least 15Mbps for each device you plan to have running at the same time. Do the simple math by counting the number of devices to stream content. Refer to the 15 Mbps model so if you tend to have three TVs playing at once, you’ll ideally need home internet speed of at least 45Mbps. That’s tough to get with DSL or satellite service, so you might need to stick with your cable company for broadband service. Look at your daily schedule as we did — Debbie and I both work from home during the day, shifting bandwidth to entertainment in the evenings. So there are no outrageous needs for bandwidth.
Infrastructure — As we’re building new, our plan is to run CAT6 cable throughout the home to hardwire as much as possible — TVs, appliances, streaming devices, etc. This may seem counterintuitive to the idea of universal wifi supporting everything but this model will reduce load on our wifi for our mobile devices and smart home tech dependent on it. You will need a wifi router, regardless of your home wiring, so your devices can get online from any part of the house. Optionally you may want to consider is an antenna. Although many live TV streaming service include local channels already, an over-the-air antenna will let you watch broadcast channels like ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and PBS for free, along with some lesser-known subnetworks such as MeTV and Comet. Most current TVs have an onboard tuner and a coaxial input, so if your reception is good enough, you can just plug it in, run a channel scan, and start watching without a separate tuner box or other additional hardware. As for Debbie and I, we’ll be installing an antenna in the attic and running coaxial cable throughout the house to all of the anticipated TV locations. All that cabling isn’t required though as an outdoor antenna or simply attaching an antenna to a window will work as well.
Streaming services — To replace your TV service, you will need to subscribe to one or more online video services. These can include on-demand video services such as Netflix or a bundle of live TV channels such as YouTube TV or Sling TV. There are also plenty of free sources of streaming video that you can use to supplement your subscriptions. We currently subscribe to Netflix and Prime Video and have been really happy with the content options. Our TVs are also all smart so there’re additional options for content if we need that.
Streaming devices: Once you’ve subscribed to some streaming services, you’ll access them by downloading their apps on a streaming device, such as Roku’s Streaming Stick or Amazon’s Fire TV Stick. These devices plug into your television’s HDMI port and connect to the internet over your home Wi-Fi network, and they’ll work even if you don’t own a smart TV that connects to the internet. Smart TVs can be used in place of separate streaming devices as they generally provide apps and services you want. As we are an Amazon Alexa smart home, our plan is to include Amazon Fire TV Cubes to our smart TVs for streaming content and voice control.
Now that we’ve run through the basic needs, from our point of view, the simplest, easiest way to cut the cord for us looks to be Netflix and Prime Video, use our Amazon Fire TV Cubes and an HD over-the-air antenna for local channels. If you’re considering cutting the cord your decision may be different as circumstances vary. Hopefully what we’ve outlined here has helped clarify things for you as it doesn’t seem to be as easy as shift as you’d think.
Let us know your thoughts on this as the we’d love to hear your feedback — either contemplating cutting the cord or if you already have. Also let us know if you have questions about our smart home build process or if there’s specific questions you have or things you’d like to see. Until next week …
