phone/cable versus dish & femotel

[Lothlorien]

What's femotel? It seems to be like Magic Jack (it's made by Magic Jack) and it hooks into your usb port of your computer. It then acts like a blue tooth to your cell phone, but instead of using minutes, you are using cable. I haven't gotten all the details, but I'm like _this close to getting it. I'm sick of being tied to cable.

Cable/phone/internet is about $160 a month....Granted it's cheaper than it used to be when my phone bills were more than $200 a month years ago before they had these calling plan deals.

I got ticked that several channels were made premium channels last year, so I couldn't get them on tvs that didn't have boxes....I raised a stink and they dropped my bill by get this....a lousy $10 ha! Then one month later someone raised it back up and told me the guy didn't have authorization to do that.....even though he told me it would be effective for the year.

Now, it's been several weeks without my favorite channel ....Food Network. It doesn't appear that they are working this out.

Here are my questions:

1. Does anyone have Magic Jack? Does it work through all the phones in your house? How exactly does it work? I want to eliminate the landline.

2. Does anyone have femotel? Does it only work on your cell phone or can it work like Magic Jack and work on house phones?

3. Dish or Direct TV? Anyone want to comment?

4. I saw a box that hooks up to a regular cable/dish box, but I can't remember who had it. It allows you to watch cable box/dish box shows on tvs that are not directly hooked up to a box. I dont' want to rent several cable boxes for each tv. I currently have two dvr boxes and that's all I want. Anyone know how or what I need to accomplish this? Does Direct tv or Dish Tv make you have a box for stuff outside of HBO-type channels?

Thanks for the info.

 

[AnnieO]

Neat... I'm gonna have to look at the femotel.

I hate cable. They keep increasing the rates even though I'm supposedly "locked in" till May. Asked them to disable long distance, and then got charged for a bunch of calls. Rarely get a statement before it is due.

A friend has - I think - DirecTV - they love it. Of course they cannot get cable because they live in the boonies. Me? I don't watch TV. As long as I have an internet connection, I'm good.

 

[DammitJanet]

Well...I cant find a darned thing online about femotel except one article that is ancient and from the uk and Im not even sure its the same thing...lol.

Now I have Dish and I have been happy with it. You can get 4 rooms set up to watch the dish. I only have two...ok three but Billy bought his own receiver two years after I had my first receiver put in. Im sure I have the food network. I dont watch it though. I have everything except HBO and those type things. Yeah...just checked...I get FOOD....lol. Go to dishnetwork.com and check out their plans. I think they are better than the "other one" lol. If you choose them I will give you my name and you can say I referred you and I will get a referral bonus...lmao.

I dont know who your cell phones are with but I am pleased with Sprint. You may want to look into them or Tmobile. I just had a bad experience with Tmobile. Most folks dont. It all depends on where you live what plan or company is the best for you.

 

[Lothlorien]

Janet, I would certainly give you the credit....so pm me. If I go with dish, I'll do it. I had it when I sent something to you a while ago, but I didn't keep it. Just give me the address again, so I can make sure you get the credit.

 

[Lothlorien]

I spelled it wrong...it's femtocell. Basically, it works like a mini cell tower in your home, and you hook it up through a usb port on your computer. Apparently, there are some lawsuits that cell carriers are planning on launching. I think it's pure genius!

http://www.businessinsider.com/magi...ers-next-with-sub-100-wireless-antenna-2010-1

 

[susiestar]

We ahve direcTV. It is great. We have the dvr and everything seems to go through that. works fine. Contrary to what many people say, it does NOT go out in wind or storms. We have had MAJOR storms and it has not gone out at all. Ever. Not even when the dish was coated with ice from a major storm. almost an inch of ice! We get major wind here in OK. A nice breeze here is 15-20mph. A storm can be over 60 mph and still hasn't been any problem.

Not sure about femotel or magic jack, but I will check them out. Sounds awesome.

 

[witzend]

We had directv for ages, and it was ok, but it was sooo expensive and didn't include internet. We recently switched to Fios so that we could put the phone, internet and cable together. It's fine, but the receivers are expensive and kind of limited. I'm tempted to get a TiVo from TiVo to hook up to one of the tvs. But that's another fee, and tends to negate the savings.

 

[Lothlorien]

Dish Network comes with the dvrs. I looked into direct tv, but they want $99. for each receiver and they don't appear to work in the other rooms, so I'd be paying for additional boxes.

husband and I have made the decision to go with Dish Network. I like that they give you two boxes with dvr and each hooks up to a second tv so the other tv can watch something completely different.

I just ordered a Magic Jack. The Femtocell isn't available just yet....I was told soon. Magic Jack is $39.99 online through the site and is $20 bucks for the whole year. It's free for the first 30 days, so I will see how it works and then I'll cut the phone service with cable company too, if I like it.

Fios isn't available yet....though it's just about a block and a half away. I'd have to do Direct tv with Verizon for two years if I hook up with them. I was going to wait until the spring, because they will probably do the lines then, but I don't want to wait anymore....I'm so ticked with Cablevision at this point.

 

[GoingNorth]

Magic Jack basically hooks the phone line into your USB port on the computer. It doesn not work unless the computer is powered on and has an active internet connection. Therefore if you have internet outages, or power outages, you phone doesn't work.

You still need a regular phone or cellphone to work seperately. That said, from reviews I have read, the Magic Jack does what it is supposed to do fairly well, though communication can slow down or breakup especially if you have something else running on the computer at the same time that takes up a lot of bandwidth, such as downloading large files, etc.,

 

[Shari]

We have dish, and tho any of them are ridiculously expensive, in my book, we've been happy with it.

We have one box that controls two tv's seperately. You can watch a different program on each tv, but there is only one "receiver" box.

We wanted to put a tv in wee's room but didn't want to pay for an additional receiver (you can hook up 4 tvs to one "dish", but you have to have 2 receivers, which costs more money) so I just got a coax splitter and ran a coax under the house from the second tv to wee's tv (second tv is in our bedroom so not frequently watched, anyway). Obviously, what you watch on those 2 tvs is the same, but as I said, we don't watch the bedroom tv unless its later at night, anyway, when wee is asleep.

 

[LittleDudesMom]

I have the "triple play" with the cable company - cable, tv and phone. I can tell you that when the power goes out, so does the phone! Used to be that I could plug in an old rotary phone when the power was out and have a phone. Because the converter box that the cable company installs runs on power - you are out of luck.

I have a secrurity system and it's battery back up is 36 hours. So if my power is out longer than 36 hours, I'm out of luck. The cable company says that the box has a 12 hour battery so you don't loose your phone when the power goes out, but it's more like 30 minutes.

I was going to get the dish, but they can't attach it to a clay barrel tile roof, too much interference in the backyard so they said they would put it on a pole in my front yard...don't think so....went with cable. I'm pleased with the service itself, it's the power outages that concern me. I will investigate again when my contract expires in 6 months.

Sharon