Last year, my family decided to let go of our cable bundle. The package from our cable company—which included phone service, Internet, and cable—became too pricey for our budget. I suggested that we buy a pair of smartphones in the meantime.
I will explain how I used the smartphones in place of the three services as I determine answers to the following three questions: Were the smartphones a good idea? How well did they replace our cable bundle? Do I still miss the cable bundle?
Phone Score: Satisfactory
We had no problem finding phone service. To replace our landline and my dad’s aging Tracfone dumbphone, we bought our first smartphones: the ZTE Speed and the Huawei Union. The two Boost Mobile Android phones were on sale at Best Buy for $10 each. We activated them on a $70/month family plan. I will spare you the details of the hell I went through to purchase and activate those phones.
The Speed is my dad’s phone. It is a bad phone. It runs Kit Kat. Its screen is washed out. Its touch zones and function buttons are inaccurate and erratic. It often dials people on its own, then freezes so we can’t hang up without rebooting the device. We have to turn off the data when we’re not using it unless we want to come back to a half-dead phone. It is getting worse with age.
The Union, which runs Lollipop, is the new landline. My mom makes calls with it, and I use its data. Although the Union is a wonderful phone overall, it does have three flaws. First, it literally weighs down my pocket. I can’t tell you how many times my dad has accidentally picked it up and exclaimed, “Wait, this brick isn’t mine!” Second, it only has about 3.5 GB of 8 GB free. I can barely install or update apps. Third, the camera is awful. Even the Speed has a better camera. Still, I would buy another one.
Overall, we’ve been happy with Boost Mobile. Each of the three times I called customer service, they were friendly and helpful. My only complaints are occasional dropped calls and the extra charge for international text messages.
Internet Score: Adequate
Replacing internet service with smartphone data was a mixed bag. I’m used to having unlimited service; I now have a combined 20 GB of data to use every month. Most days, I use 400-600 MB of data. Unsurprisingly, I’m no stranger to throttling.
Our plan originally didn’t include tethering. Not having an internet connection for my computer was a nightmare. Here are some of the annoying problems I encountered:
- MS Office periodically locked because it couldn’t check my subscription status.
- I had to build parts of my website on the phone.
- Posting images to social networks required three devices and two cables.
- I once sat on the phone for 13 minutes renewing 34 items (one bar code at a time) through the library’s automated system because I couldn’t access LastPass to get my pin number.
The lack of Wi-Fi affected fun time on my iPad mini as well. Although my beloved Pandora and Spotify were safe thanks to Boost Mobile’s data-free music streaming, I had to completely change how I got my e-books and podcasts.
When I checked out e-books, I had to read them through the Overdrive website until I could get to the library. It was an uncomfortable experience, holding a heavy phone and staring at a small screen. I started downloading the Kindle version of my library e-books on the phone and transferring them to my fourth generation Kindle. The sideloading workaround died when the download link disappeared from Amazon’s website, forcing me back to the phone.
Podcasts caused me similar grief as e-books but with better results. In a further attempt to limit my library trips, I switched from Apple’s Podcasts app to the awesome Player FM podcast app. I read about the app in an Android Police article. Once I downloaded the podcasts in the app, I copied the files from the phone’s SD card to my iPad.
Irritatingly, only one episode would sync from the same show at a time. I had to change the podcast name slightly for each episode—like adding a number at the end of the title—to make them look like different shows. Cluttered? Yes, but it worked.
Life became much more bearable after Boost Mobile added free tethering to our phone plan. Being able to connect my laptop or tablets to the phone’s data has erased or eased most of my problems. Of course, I have to be twice as careful about data consumption. I often forget I’m tethered and blow an extra 400 MB in one setting.
Tethering couldn’t help one thing: major device updates. Using 2-4 GB to update a computer or tablet operating system would be a huge hit to my monthly data allowance. As such, my iPad ran iOS 9 until last month, and I don’t have the Windows Creator’s updates yet.
Cable Score: Needs Improvement
The smartphones were only semi-useful when it came to replacing cable TV due to their limited amounts of data. Honestly, I’ve had better luck replacing cable with DVDs from the library. There have been some bright spots, though.
The CW became my new favorite channel when it began offering free streaming. Since my dad doesn’t use his phone’s data, I began using the Speed’s data to watch shows through The CW’s app. I was immensely thankful that I could watch the DC superhero shows, iZombie, and Supernatural again in real time.
The downside to streaming shows from The CW was that I didn’t have enough data to watch them all. When I started watching Legends of Tomorrow, I had to put Supernatural on the backburner. Sometimes I skipped The Vampire Diaries so I could see Riverdale. It’s a delicate juggling act. That’s why I haven’t bothered subscribing to Hulu or Netflix—I wouldn’t have enough data to take advantage of the services.
I have slightly more streaming freedom now that a few shows from The CW have ended or gone on hiatus. I’ve started watching the “Hot Topics” segment of The Wendy Williams Show through its official YouTube channel every night. Occasionally, I can even watch videos from the Hoopla library service or through Crackle.
The phones also help me watch TV vicariously through online recaps. I read episode summaries for my favorite non-CW shows on Entertainment Weekly, Yahoo Entertainment, and E! every week. Recaps are almost as good as watching the real show, especially when I need to find out what happened after season finale cliffhangers. Plus, the commentary from the recappers is always hilarious.
Conclusion
Do I still miss our cable bundle? Totally. I doubt a day goes by that I don’t throw a minor diva fit about something that requires cable or internet in a way that the phones can’t provide. If I could have cable back tomorrow, I would take it in a heartbeat.
Was it a good idea to buy the smartphones to replace our cable bundle? Absolutely. I can’t imagine what we would have done without them. Sometimes I think the phones were meant for us. I certainly haven’t been able to find another pair that cheap since.
Did the smartphones do a good job of replacing our cable bundle? Basically. They might not cover every service as well as I’d like, but they’re not that bad either. Hopefully, we can find a similarly priced unlimited plan and upgrade to phones with more storage and bigger screens in the future.
We’re not at the point where we can afford cable yet, but we’re getting there. Until then, I’m happy to keep chugging along with the smartphones.