Cable TV snafus, huge bill stress out Bee’s columnist. How he cut the cord | Opinion

Last week a semi-abusive relationship that tethered me for decades was abruptly severed.

In the year 2024 and at the ripe middle age of 54, I finally severed the cord to cable television. Goodbye 180 channels, the vast majority rarely viewed. So long mammoth monthly bills. And farewell — fingers crossed — to random internet disconnects and TV blackouts at the worst possible time. Like when 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy started scrambling on third-and-4 in the fourth quarter against the Detroit Lions.

The NFC Championship game proved to be cable’s final hurrah in my humble abode. (That and Comcast’s recent rate increase.) When fellow 49ers fans reacted to plays via text a good 20 seconds before the results played out on the screen in my living room, the decision was cemented.

What took me so long? Comfort and familiarity, mostly. Just being able to sit there on the couch, remote in hand, and scroll through channels until something interesting pops up. That ritual is hard to break and not easily replicated while streaming.

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Also the convenience of having one bill for home internet and TV. But when that bill ballooned to $247 — twice as much as a friend pays who binge-watches all the streaming shows — affordability trumped ease.

The evening after the 49ers advanced to Super Bowl 58 (for non-Roman numeral readers) I spent a couple hours researching various home internet providers before choosing AT&T, which offered fiber optic in my neighborhood. I signed up for the most basic plan — $60 a month — and scheduled an installation appointment for a couple days later.

That turned out to be the easy part. More complicated was trying to figure out how to replace certain programming that I couldn’t do without. Or at least thought I couldn’t.

How am I going to watch Golden State Warriors and San Francisco Giants games? How am I going to get local stations including PBS? Which streaming networks, or bundles, should I subscribe to?

As Fresno fans of Bay Area professional sports teams know, the only way to watch most regular-season games is by getting NBC Sports Bay Area. Even games that are nationally televised or streamed elsewhere are subject to draconian blackout restrictions.

With rare exceptions (such as Saturday NBA games on ABC or ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball), it’s NBC Sports Bay Area or bust for Warriors and Giants fans. But as I soon discovered, the only way to get that channel on streaming is to sign up for a bundle, offered by the likes of YouTube TV, Hulu or Fubo, each with a striking resemblance to the old familiar cable lineup.

When you add the price of a bundle to what it costs to subscribe to Netflix, Max, Amazon Prime and the like, the result is hardly any savings.

This is where I had to get honest with myself about my current viewing habits. Warriors games are no longer appointment TV, despite Stephen Curry still being a marvel, and the results are often disheartening. And what to say about the excitement-less Giants? Watching those guys play is only useful as a sleep aid.

So in this cord-cutting move, Warriors and Giants games are getting sacrificed — at least for now.

Faster WiFi, slower service

The technician AT&T sent over was professional and competent, though I was a little puzzled when he employed the phrase “these older homes” to describe my house built in 2006. Nor did I expect the installation to take 4½ hours and require him to make two trips back to HQ for equipment.

However, the end result is excellent. My internet (both direct lines and WiFi) is now faster than ever. Even though I’m paying for supposedly slower service compared to Comcast.

After connecting my computers and devices to the new network, I unplugged and removed the old modem and its power cord. Then I unhooked the cable box from the TV in my office and successfully installed a Roku. The plan was to do the same in the living room. But after seeing all the unwatched shows on my DVR that would vanish as soon as that happened, I relented for a couple days.

Just long enough to finally watch the final few episodes of 1883 (bummer ending) and that Pavement show on Austin City Limits.

When I called Comcast to break the news that our relationship was over, two days before the next bill was due, tell them my new service was already humming and the equipment they were charging me for would be returned shortly, the poor sales rep didn’t stand a chance.

Cord-cutting, after all these years, felt oddly satisfying.