Please see question on internet speed at the end.
First, thanks to all who have offered their advice and experiences with the various streaming services as well as what equipment and internet download speeds make streaming work best. We're going in that direction because of our experience with DirecTV and the fact our local cable provider dropped SNY four years ago and replaced it with the Horse Race Channel............of course, some might say that might have been more fun to watch the last four years than our football and mens basketball.
Twice in the past three years I've found DirecTV charging us for HBO and Cinemax when we didn't order it. Called them and the first rep told me we must have signed up for it, so I told him to send me a copy of the order I reputedly signed, and he then said it was done by phone so I asked him to play the audio recording that would prove I signed up. He told me they'll have to request it and it might take ten days or so. I told him "no problem" I'll call back in two weeks.
Called back and different rep told me I must have signed up for it and I repeated my experience two weeks earlier and asked when I can hear the recording. He then told me it wasn't available so I told him I wanted to speak with a supervisor. He told me I didn't need to because he can do everything a supervisor can do and I challenged him on that and he hung up on me.
Called right back and got another rep and repeated what transpired in the first two calls and that I wanted a refund for the charges and asked how I go about cancelling service (not likely to because it's the only way I can get SNY where we live in South Carolina but the rep didn't need to know that). This rep too said I must have signed up for them but did so half heartedly and when I pressed her about hearing the recording and wanting to speak with a supervisor she put me on hold and came back and advised they would refund the charges and then offered me $40 off the monthly charges for the level service we have for the next two years and discounts off the Sports Pack for one year and some other regional sports package for 6 months.
I accepted and then two years later my wife again told me we'd been charged for HBO and Cinemax for the past couple months. She didn't read the detail and initially thought the monthly charge went up because we had lost the discounts. Called DirecTV and went through much the same routine with multiple calls to several reps before they probably saw on their screens that I wasn't giving up so again after the third or fourth try we got a big discount off the entire package for two years and the smaller discounts off the other two sports packages.
We will go with a streaming service after this basketball season provided we can find one with:
All the ESPN networks;
All the FOX networks;
CBSSN;
NBCSN;
SNY;
and hopefully NESN and YES, but that's hard to do in this area.
BIG QUESTION: Youtube TV says all we need is a 7 MPS download speed and that doesn't match with the experiences others have mentioned. Any thoughts on what speed is required for great video quality?
