If you're considering cutting the cable cord, you might find this TechCrunch article about the state of live TV streaming services of interest. Some good info in the comments section, too. I hadn't heard about Xfinity Instant, for instance.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/atts- ... d-cutters/

quote:

reduce wireless subscriber churn

What the heck does that mean? What is "churn" when not in the context of talking about butter??

Churn refers to subscribers who leave a service.

People even write papers about it.

Wow! I'd love to figure out the origin of this usage!!

I think it comes from the desire to understand the volatility of their subscriber base. Having a million subscribers means something different when you have a million stable subscribers versus when you a half million stable subscribers and a constant stream of half a million people leaving and a half a million people coming in. The second situation has a turbulent, "churning" feel to it. At least that's how I've always interpreted this use of "churn."

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:
I think it comes from the desire to understand the volatility of their subscriber base. Having a million subscribers means something different when you have a million stable subscribers versus when you a half million stable subscribers and a constant stream of half a million people leaving and a half a million people coming in. The second situation has a turbulent, "churning" feel to it. At least that's how I've always interpreted this use of "churn."

Likewise.

MA, that makes sense!

Words are so cool!

I agree. I think that as in making butter, "churn" in business means stuff is in constant motion, swirling around, coming and going.

Cell phone service providers use the term to describe the constant flux of customers joining or leaving their service -- usually when their promotional rate expires or when another company makes them a (seemingly) better offer.

In stock trading, churn is when a broker is continually buying and selling stocks on your behalf -- usually more to generate commissions than to manage your portfolio to make you more money.

In HR, we talk about "churnover," which is the sum of both turnover (leaving the company) and internal transferring/job changes.

But back on topic, I was looking at cord-cutting for a few months. My kid did a lot of research before moving into her new digs, where they do not want to pay for cable. She found DirectTV's interface to be really poor, and their services were frequently down. She ended up with Hulu.

I was ready to cut the cable and do Hulu (plus a few add-ons), so we called our local money-fleecing cable company to cancel everything but internet. OMG, flashing red lights, panic city. Next thing I know we're talking to a supervisor who proceeds to cut the cost like a madman (or, to be precise, a madwoman). Outcome: our cable bill, for the exact same services, was reduced almost $150, locked in for 2 years (yes, it's a contract, but $200 to get out of it, so it's not insanity). Her advice after 2 years? "Call us back and we can find another deal for you."

One thing I hadn't considered but that George K next door pointed out is that you have to be careful about exceeding your data limit on your internet plan when you start streaming all of your TV watching. Xfinity has a 1TB limit here, but if you watch HD or 4K stuff and the TV is on a lot of the time, you can churn through data pretty fast.

We've been successfully doing the re-negotiation thing with Xfinity for a years by going to one of their customer centers; I hear you can do even better if you call and threaten to cancel as you did.

Don't know if anyone's interested, but...

We dropped Xfinity Voice which we were using as a landline. We decided to give Xfinity Mobile a try; it's a relatively new service that they haven't advertised very much. You have to be an Xfinity internet subscriber.

We are very light cellular users, basically using very few minutes and never to access the internet. Would buy a bunch of minutes from Tracfone good for a year with a tiny bit of data to use in an emergency (if we couldn't connect to some wi-fi). Cost us less than $10 a month for the Tracfone cell phones, and that included the phone itself.

Mr WTG's Tracfone service was up. We ditched his phone and number, bought a cheapo Moto phone from Xfinity, and ported our home number to it. Unlimited talk and text (big improvement over Tracfone) plus 100 Mb data (about what we had from Tracfone) for the cost of taxes and fees which around here is $3.71 a month. Xfinity Voice (our former landline) was $10 a month, plus I needed a fancier modem to support it. Xfinity uses Verizon's network, and the phones come set up to automatically connect to Xfinity wi-fi hotspots which takes data usage way down, if you use the "smart" part of your smartphone, which we really don't.

If we go over the data limit, it's $10 per additional 1 GB, or $45 for unlimited. You switch plans whenever you want.