A Little Upfront And Nothing A Month Or ViseVersa

A Little Upfront And Nothing A Month Or ViseVersa was Originally Posted on February 14, 2013 by lavarock

Our consumer guru, Clark Howard, has been talking about technology and said that providers feel that about $79 a year is the sweet spot for many video services. Amazon and Netflix come in at that rate and allow you to stream TV and movies to your TV or PC. You may not get get the current shows you now get, but in many areas of the country, an antenna may get you local channels from 50 miles away or further. Here in Hawaii some places get all the networks and PBS, etc for the investment of perhaps $125 for a good antenna.

I use a Roku device and pay Amazon for Prime membership. I then can also create my own mini-series by watching clumps of programs at one sitting if I want. One Roku currently has “The Good Life/Good Neighbors” queued up and the other has “Hawaii-50″ and “Mission Impossible” episodes. Yes, I know, I like the old series, but have also watched the first and second series of “Downton Abbey” and some fairly recent movies. If I wanted extremely current movies I could pay, but that would cut into my $79 a year price. The hardware cost me about $79 to buy.

As for long distance, I have an Obi 110 and an Obi 202 which allow me to make free long distance calls with GoogleVoice. The boxes cost about $50 to $80 or so. If I wanted a somewhat different unit, an Ooma at $150 and perhaps $3 a month would work similarly.

There is a new company who will sell you a small box and let you access free or cheap internet for a year. If you upgrade to a paid service then you pay a small amount each month. If you don’t updrade from free, you will need to buy a new device each year. I won’t pass along more info until we see how the service works. A neighbor got the hardware yesterday and is sending it to a older family member who is going to use it with a tablet to see what this “internet” is all about.

Another neighbor bought a Prius car. They paid more up front but their gas mileage is in the 40-50 mpg range, so have cut gas purchases considerably.

With the U.S. requirement that incandescent light bulbs being phased out, we can pay more for CFL’s or a lot more for L.E.D. bulbs but your electricity consumption drops considerably also.
Here one solar company will install solar panels on your roof at no cost and your electric bill drops dramatically every month.

So as you can see, technology is offering some exciting changes in how we do things.