How to Cut the Cord for 2021 - Ultimate Cord Cutting Guide (UPDATED)
We hear so much about people cutting the cord. But aside from grabbing scissors and hacking away, how do you actually cut the cord? And if you do cut the cord, will you be missing out on all of your favorite content? Will it even save you any money in the long run?
Don’t worry. We’re here to provide you with the Ultimate Cord Cutting guide. Let us walk you through a practical way of how you can cut the cord for 2021.
First let’s define what cutting the cord is. Cutting the cord refers to getting rid of your cable TV service, and replacing it with broadcast or internet related services. The reality is that few can completely cut the cord from all services.
Cancel Your Cable
So how do you get rid of your cable TV? That’s pretty simple. Just call them up (or go online) and tell them that you’d like to cancel your cable package. When you do this, you should make sure that you have a strong internet package, as you will be running most of your services off of your internet connection.
When you tell them that you are cancelling your cable they will try to entice you to stay with a reduced monthly rate. If you are good with that, by all means accept. But if you are all-in on cutting the cord, then you have to stay strong and cancel anyways, no matter what the cable company customer service rep might tell you.
Broadcast TV with Antenna
The cheapest way to replace some of your cable channels is with broadcast television. Can you believe they still do that!!!
This means that you have to buy an external antenna, as most televisions cannot get reception for over the air (OTA) channels on their own.
You can try connecting an antenna directly to your TV. Something like the ANTAN Indoor Window HDTV Antenna could work.
If you are in an area where it is difficult to get reception, we suggest placing an antenna either in your attic or on your roof. Typically the higher the antenna, the better chance you have of getting broadcast channels.
To achieve this you can opt for the ANTOP AT-415B 720° UFO Dual Omni-Directional Outdoor HDTV Antenna
If your house is already hooked up for cable you can actually connect the ANTOP antenna to the existing cable lines in your attic and have broadcast TV throughout your whole house.
While some people might be comfortable doing this themselves, installing an antenna in your attic or roof might better be done by a professional. This shouldn’t run your more than $100-200 for an install service.
With a good antenna you should be able to get anywhere between 40-100+ channels. You will actually discover that there are so many channels that you never knew of.
The really good part about getting broadcast TV is that you have no recurring monthly payments.
Free OTT Streaming Channels
Outside of broadcast television, most people think that your only options are paid streaming services.
While those are great, and we’ll cover them soon, there’s actually some other really cool options for free TV.
A service that we like that most people don’t know about is Samsung Plus TV. Samsung TV Plus is 160+ linear TV channels that are offered for free. It comes pre-installed on all Samsung TVs, but it’s also available as an app that you can download phone and cast on your TV.
Pluto TV is another good option here for hundreds of free OTT streaming channels.
Top Tier Streaming Services
After you’ve loaded up on hundreds of free channels from broadcast and Samsung TV Plus and Peacock, you might think that you’ve got enough. WRONG.
Truth is there’s never really enough access to high quality entertainment. To fill this need, we have the big boys, the streamers. From Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Paramount Plus / CBS All-Access, and Netflix, these are the big players in streaming.
The big players can get real expensive real fast. In fact if you subscribed to all of the streamers, you might find that you are back to paying what you were for cable. If you are in that position there there’s another class of streamers that might be right for you.
Advertising Video on Demand (AVOD)
These are called AVOD (Advertising-based VIdeo On Demand) streamers. Popular choices include Tubi, Xumo, and Crackle.
Skinny Bundles
If you feel that you still need cable but don’t want to go back to paying those high prices, then there are options for you. These services are called Live TV streamers. Top Live TV streamers include Sling, Philo, Hulu Live TV, and YouTube TV.
They show the channels that you would get on cable, except that they are streamed to your TV via the internet. These services are known for what are called skinny bundles, meaning that you can just get a group of the channels that you want for a low monthly price. So if you want to see TNT, TBS, ESPN, CNN, MSNBC, Discovery, or your other favorite cable channels you can find them on these services.
