Going straight family plan ended up costing us only slightly more than we did before. However, we had overages on the plan prior to switching and we added another line. I would call AT&T and get those individula details. It could be cheaper in your situation. AT&T customer service or going into a store to get these details was very helpful in helping me decide what to do. I do have the Hotspot on all of our phones on the plan now. It is one of AT&Ts tactics to help get many of their customers without the hotspot away from the grandfathered in unlimited plans. Which is why I always delayed in switching plans but just makes more sense for our family.
I use Ghetto Wireless aka Virgin Mobile. Saying that the coverage in Baton Rouge is horrendous is an understatement... but hey, its only $35 a month for unlimited everything. My current setup (for the past year) is two used PCs from ebay, one in the livingroom and one in the bedroom. Bedroom computer is my "media server". It has 5 TB of hard drive space that is mostly filled with movies and tv episodes. Both computers use XBMC as the media center software. I have accounts with Hulu (for current TV shows), Netflix (lots of movies, Disney contract), and Amazon Prime (free 2 day shipping, Nickelodeon contract). I use my sister's login for HBO Go and WatchESPN. Lastly, I have an antenna on the roof that lets me get all of the local channels and New Orleans channels in HD. For TV only, I am paying $50 for internet, 7.99 for Hulu, 7.99 for Netflix, and 7.99 for Amazon (I buy enough online to negate this) for a total of 73.97. This is compared to $150 I was paying for cable with very little movies. The only problems I run into are that the wife absolutely refuses to learn the software and that the "plugins" for the streaming serves stop working every now and then when those services make changes to their websites. Looks something like this (this is a general screenshot, not from my computer)...
So you have to have a pc for each tv? Sounds pretty cumbersome and my wife would never go for having a pc running all the time right next to the tv, regardless of the room.
My wife would cut my nuts off...However, with the new Google thing it would take away having the laptops at each TV and could make selections wirelessly from Smart Phones or laptop. That is still going to be a learning experience for my wife if and when I make the transition.
We have uverse and my wife already uses her iphone as a remote. She likes technology, but the room has to look unlived in - nothing out of place.
We got the streaming netflix and I was pretty much underwhelmed. My wife started watching downtown abbey and only got the first season on there. I looked at some stuff and there didn't seem to be a whole lot of movie selection. Well I should say there was but nothing I was real interested in. If you go totally cable less, what should you use as far as services?
The PC in the livingroom is the middle one in this picture. It is really no bigger than my old digital cable dvr box. I do not have a tv in MY bedroom. The wife and I both agreed on that one... My server is in an extra bedroom that is my sad excuse for a mancave. I recently began to convert it to a home office. The PC in there is the tall one in the picture above. It is connected to a monitor that I have mounted on the wall above my desk and to the TV across the room via a 20 foot HDMI cable. I also have my cable modem/wireless router and ethernet hub in here. My main goal for a media center is that I can look in one library and see all of the videos to which I have access. Right now I have that... mostly. I click on "Movies" and I see see that I have 481... this includes the 200 or so stored locally, plus 300 or so that I have on marked as "favorites" on Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix. They all look the same in XBMC. Each launches a little differently though. Local vids just play. Hulu pops up a little box that says "streaming" and after about 10 seconds of buffering the vid plays just like a local one. Amazon and Netflix are a little different. Both services have instituted DRM that prevents programs that aren't either a browser or officially licensed from playing the videos. Instead, these videos pop up a browser window at full screen (kiosk mode) that loads up the selected movie. When its finished, I hit "close" on my remote (equivalent to hitting alt-f4) and the browser window closes and XBMC comes back. This setup takes a good bit of maintenance and several programs running in the background to keep things up to date. Eventually I may just get to the point where I go back to Windows Media Center and just use the separate service plugins there. No more integrated media library but also less headaches and upkeep. The ironic thing about all of this is that there is a plugin for XBMC that lets me get all of the shows and movies that I want and its free... and illegal. I am trying to do this the right way but Amazon and Netflix are fighting tooth and nail to prevent me from doing so. Amazon recently made changes to their DRM setup in an effort to force people to buy a Roku or a Kindle from them. I already pay for the streaming services... I'll be damned if I pay for the hardware as well. The only reason I have kept them is that Amazon Prime comes with free 2 day shipping... I buy enough online to make it worth the fee. Also, Amazon recently won the contract with Viacom, with means Nickelodeon (I have a three year old).
Amazon has the first three seasons of Downton Abbey and they usually add a new season just after it finishes. The one plus with Amazon over Netflix is that you can purchase or rent movies that aren't available for free streaming. Most of the newest releases are made available. With Netflix you get what you get.
