Cutting The Cord - Part 1

In this discussion (which will span several weeks) we'll explore the ways it is possible to reduce or eliminate your dependence on cable TV service providers if you have broadband Internet service available at your home.

By way of background, when our family first arrived in Vermont and discovered that it was impossible to reliably receive television over the airwaves at our location, we signed up for DirecTV satellite TV service and use it today as our primary source of television programming.

When FairPoint deployed DSL broadband service here 3 years ago, it piqued my interest in exploring alternative sources of television programming – television delivered over the Internet rather than from a satellite orbiting high above the earth.

We initially ordered the best (the fastest) Internet service available from FairPoint, knowing that fast Internet was necessary for a satisfactory viewing experience. Within a few months, FairPoint dialed back our 15Mbps service to 7Mbps as they explained due to the “excessive length” of the copper telephone wire running to our home.

Many subscribers in Woodstock have even longer connections to the FairPoint “point of presence” (called a POP for short) and therefore have actual download speeds considerably less than 5Mbps. If you have FairPoint DSL Internet service, the further you live from their POP, the slower your Internet connection will be. No amount of money can fix that -- it’s just a matter of physics.

So the question is: with 7Mbps Internet service (or less) how practical is it to “cut the cord” from your current cable TV provider and rely on your broadband Internet service for your television viewing experience.