The same already occurred with satellite radio when Sirius and XM merged.
So food for thought. What is the likelihood Hughesnet buys Viasat's subs or Viasat buys Hughesnet's subs? Given Viasat's divested interests, I could see them getting out of the residential business, but who knows.
Something to watch.
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Posted 3 months ago
Stephen Rice, Champion
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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There is a possibility I might be able to get cable internet now, but they want $70 a month after their introductory rate expires. No thank you.
I've used up my priority data for the month and my speed is currently 3.36 mbps. Thats good enough for me and at a sweet price as well!
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When I changed from Liberty 50 to Liberty 25 the difference was basically not noticeable other than the $25/month cost saving.
My speed is unusually good at the moment. Unfortunately, this is the exception rather than the norm.

Stephen Rice, Champion
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GabeU, Champion
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GabeU, Champion
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Thanks for the heads up. :)
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Of course if I had reliable, high speed cable internet I wouldn't need Directv.
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No OTA TV.
No fixed wired internet.
The value of my house will he worthless when I try and sell it.
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Question: How does an antenna just die (unless hit by a tornado or an ice storm) ? They are just Aluminum.
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Glad I don't watch sports at all. No locals by any means here either. Youtube TV just became available a few months ago, in the area. It works pretty well, you can set streaming quality manually. They had a short signup period one weekend where you could get a free 3 week trial, instead of the usual one. They just don't have RFDTV, but not a big deal. DVR works fine, haven't had any buffering at all (of course not sat, but vz). Hulu live was my other choice, haven't demoed that yet. I will see what Directv says when my discounts quit, but very likely I'll drop it, either streaming or Orby.
"Fewer and fewer though. And certainly not young families unless their kids are home schooled or they are Amish."
Not the case where I live. Houses average miles apart, but it's common for a kid/kids to stay home to work on the ranch/farm or start out on their own. They buy someone's house when somebody dies (not many retire and move in old age until they are physically not able to do anything, some in their 80s+ still doing chores, even if "retired", common to stay in the house many miles from town). Or, they put in a new house on a corner of their parent's land, sometimes close, sometimes on a remote chunk miles away ($100k gets a very nice new basic house). My area (or much of the state really) hasn't been subject to much of the fluctuation in pricing, there was no housing crash to speak of (much anyway), just a fair increase through the years with not so bad fluctuations. Quite common for a percentage of kids to go off to college, maybe live in town a few years after that, but then come back. My cousin's kid was in LA of all places 3 years, missed the home lifestyle, came back.
Stephen Rice, Champion
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Channel Master CM-4221 UHF and HDTV Antenna https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FVTPX2/...
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http://winegard.saveandreplay.com/Win...
And don’t fall for the HD antenna crap. Antennas don’t know HD from Adam. Look at the gain and directivity and pick an antenna that suits your location. There are web sites such as tvfool.com that will help you estimate what you need and where to point the antenna. If you need to cover a azimuth of 50 degrees or less, you may be able to get by with no rotator as I do. However, if your good stations are 90 degrees or more apart, you probably want a good rotator.
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Like satellite internet, DirecTV made a difference for where I live. But neither satellite internet nor TV is once what it was. If I knew 20+ years ago what I know today, my house wouldn't be built where it is.
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GabeU, Champion
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Trying to make people believe that they need a different antenna to receive “digital signals” is one of the biggest marketing frauds around today.
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Analog signals you are correct. You didnt always get the clearest channels at times, but they were still watchable and you got enough for acceptable viewing.
HD channel is "all or none". You get a clear digital channel to view or you dont anything, based on the amount of signal received. The signals at my location are not good enough to watch ANY HD channel. With the analog channels, I probably could watch a dozen stations.
GabeU, Champion
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GabeU, Champion
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And then, of course, there's the all or nothing problem with digital, like you mentioned.
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GabeU, Champion
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However, I think digital TV as hyped so much at the outset as being so much better than analog TV that it probably is not palatable to display a less than perfect image on a digital TV.
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Same principle with satellite internet, satellite TV, etc. You either have a workable signal or you dont.
I agree about more sub channels. But when you get no channel, you dont get any of its sub channels either.
Stephen Rice, Champion
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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I looked at the FCC page that showed what stations I should get. They assume antenna 30 feet in the air, out of 10 listed, I was marginal (a PBS I would never watch), one was fair (but because I live on the side of a hill opposite that signal no chance), and 8 were no signal at all.
Until just a couple years ago I didnt even have a wireless signal.
The really sad thing is i live a quarter mile from a level 3 fiber transmission cable. But there is no way to tap it, and a railroad, highway, and creek are between me and it even if I could :(
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I think that same package used to be $30 a little less than 10 years ago. Also all the bells and whistles costs a friend of mine over $200 and that used to be like $95 back when I had it. If a person is into sports there isn't much on broadcast TV anymore. It is down to like 3 or 4 college bowl games. In my area there isn't any MLB until the World Series, the only NBA play-offs are the finals with hardly any regular season games shown. Over half the Nascar races are on pay channels now. The only sport that seems to have the same broadcast TV coverage as it did before cable and satellite TV is golf.
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GabeU, Champion
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Amazon, Netflix, Showtime, HBO, etc. can all do series shows much, much better. Probably because they can be edgier and are well written. Even some cable channels (AMC comes to mind) can do better than network.
Then when it comes to original movies, the networks can't even come close to the providers mentioned above.
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Okay.
But yes. No more satellites. If only our internet infrastructure would be in place within 10 years.
I am not holding my breath.
GabeU, Champion
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GabeU, Champion
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We can only hope we can get high speed, low latency, truly unlimited internet in the next five years.
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And it will take awhile to get the bugs out and cover the rest of the U S. Still, it sounds exciting!
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Everything is an "if", of course, it just looks a bit more promising than other alternatives have. I was hopeful for VS-1, cautiously optimistic, but never saw coverage or any major improvement from that (no coverage, minimal increase in browsing speed with Exede 5 upgrade, still massive congestion, and the beam closed for years within a couple months of "upgraded" service), no coverage from VS-2 ($110 plan at the cheapest now), and nothing to get excited about VS-3 (more of the same). So, disappointment is definitely a possibility and won't be shocking. Except with these attempts, if not this company, then another, unless they are blocked. At least one ~should succeed, so if there's a failure, waiting should result in something that actually works, this time.
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I am hoping to have fiber soon and that is far and away the best solution for communications, but I do wish for much better satellite service for those of you who may never get fiber or at least not anytime soon. LEO is by far the most promising solution for the rural areas that have no other options and, if the receiving antennas don’t have to do any tracking, it could be a great option for mobile internet as well taking some pressure off the cell networks. At the least, it should help keep cell prices in check by offering a viable alternative.
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Phone company said fiber would be here 10 years ago. They upgraded out the other side of town, like 15-20 miles out. But, it's a locally owned company, in a village of about 200 people, and they have had the company for sale for some time, very doubtful anything will be done. Their fiber options match what they have in town. $85 for 5 meg. That would be "fine", but my cell is faster, and cheaper....
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How did something like this end up in the Supreme Court!
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GabeU, Champion
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ExSatUser
Ron D Stricklin