I originally cut the cord from Spectrum in January of 2016 for a variety of reasons; high cost, awful set-top-boxes, inability to use apps on FireTV, and more. I kept their Internet service, though, since it is fast, priced properly, and reliable. Since my large household watched very little live TV outside of football, I got a SlingTV subscription and a Tablo and was done. When football started in Sept. of that year, I found out the hard way about the limited number of concurrent steams offered by SlingTV, the limited channel lineup, and troubles with the ESPN app. Adding in retraining issues with the family and a host of other issues forced me back to traditional Spectrum TV service after one week of football on SlingTV. The experiment failed. I cancelled SlingTV and used Spectrum for the remainder of the football season.

In January of 2017, I dropped Spectrum TV and picked up a Playstation Vue subscription after trying out all of the players in the streaming world. PS Vue offered five concurrent streams and much better app stability and video quality than SlingTV. It looked like I was all set for football in 2017. Once Sept. came around, disappointment followed. The limited channel linueup meant I couldn't get all of games I wanted to watch. I could, however, pay the same I had been paying with Spectrum to get most of the missing channels but that negated the biggest benefit of cordcutting. Besides, retraining my family to use PS Vue plus Tablo instead of a cable box was still painful. So, in Sept. I went back to Spectrum TV services with multiple cable boxes for the second consecutive year.

In January of this year, I dropped Spectrum TV again due to cost and the antiquated boxes and went back to PS Vue. All was good on the TV front. The picture quality was great, the app was available on all platforms, the channel lineup was still only good (not great) but the cost was acceptable. Due to PS Vue's channel packaging, I did have to jump up to the best channel plan so some family members could watch a few particular shows. Consequently, the cost increased a bit. Regardless, I planned to stick with PS Vue and its short-comings this football season. Then, PS Vue's price went up. Between the better package and the price increase, the value of PS Vue was diminished. Enter Spectrum.

The execs at Spectrum obviously realize that live sports, particularly football, drive their subscriptions. This past week, I received a mail invitation for "selected Spectrum customers only". I could add TV service to my Internet service for just $40/month. Intrigued, I called Spectrum sales. The TV service offered for $40 was the Basic package which wasn't helpful to me. As part of the offer, though, Spectrum offered to reduce my Internet cost to $40 per month. I explored all options with the sales rep. The long and short of it is that I got 200mbps Internet service, the Silver TV service (which has all of the channels I will ever watch), one HD receiver (required), and all fees and taxes for total od $120/month. The breakdown of the monthly total is $40 for Internet, $60 for TV Silver, $7 for one box rental, and $13 in fees/taxes. The price is guaranteed for 12 months. That package is cheaper than what I was paying for Internet plus PS Vue, has a much broader channel lineup, and allows my wife to use the cable box she knows well. Me and the kids will use the apps on our Roku devices, laptops, and phones since that's the way we like to view TV, anyhow. That's a great scenario. Sorry cord-cutters, I reconnected.

I am hopeful that Sept. of 2019 brings many more choices for TV and Internet services (see 5G rollout) so I am not sure that I will stay with Spectrum when this pricing expires. I find it difficult to believe, though, that I can find a better offer today. While there are many reasons to dislike Charter Spectrum, I have a hard time finding fault in the services I just purchased. This same package would have cost more than double just two years ago. I hope this signals better times ahead for all TV and Internet consumers.