Streaming your choice of video channels is what the future holds. I spend a good chunk of my day job looking at the prices of Internet services across the country.

Blacksburg, Virginia, 02/21/2022

I studied cable, DSL, and fiber services in dozens of counties and communities last year. That along with my personal experience with prices and as an early streamer starting several years ago has helped our family to continue to save money after switching from cable and its expensive packages to fiber and streaming services.

However, it is easy to go overboard with streaming. The grandchildren show up and their favorite shows are on Disney+, so you subscribe. An older child comes home and wants some Apple TV channels. It only takes three or four spur of moment decisions added to your regular streaming services and you will be paying more than you would be for a cable package.

The way we handle our streaming services is to keep them on a budget. We budget $40 monthly for streaming services. We are Amazon Prime members so I am not sure we would allocate the full $8.99 (stand-alone cost) for Prime video but as you will see, even when we do that, we are still well under budget.

Our four current services for a fee are Prime Video at $8.99 monthly, Paramount+ $5.99 monthly, Britbox $6.99 monthly, and PBS Masterpiece $5.99 monthly for a total of $32.96 for all our streaming services. We also subscribe to the free version of Peacock. I recently canceled Netflix and Acorn while adding Masterpiece and Britbox.

We stream so much that it is easy to run out of new, watchable programs in two to three months. I manage all but one of our channels on Amazon prime so it is easy to see them and the costs all in one place. You also have the advantage of being able to snare some Amazon specials like HBO Max or Starz for $1.99 a month for two months. You just have to remember to cancel them. The picture at the top of the post is what you see in Amazon’s Video channels management console.

My studies across the country along the current Hulu and YouTube pricing I see tell me that about $70 a month will get you a full range of video services. So if you are paying $70 or more for your streaming services, you are not saving money and it is time to go on a streaming budget.

- David Sobotta, VP of Sales

100+ countries are together for a better internet and world. For home & school programs in the US #SID2022

Blacksburg, Virginia, 02/08/2022

Tuesday, Feb. 8 is Safer Internet Day, which will be celebrated this year in over 100 countries. ConnectSafely, the official US host, spoke to parents, educators and young people across the country to find out what’s on their minds when it comes to online safety and wellbeing in 2022. They took the questions and concerns — and a few of their own — to experts in online safety, parenting, bullying prevention, security, and executives at popular apps like Instagram, TikTok, and Roblox. The results were some great conversations with a wealth of advice and insights.

Visit https://saferinternetday.us/ for details, programs and additional resources for parents, guardians, teachers and students.

When you're connected to WideOpen's super-fast and reliable fiber network, what's stopping you from listening to music anywhere in the house? Meet Sonos.

Blacksburg, Virginia, 02/03/2022

Long gone are the days where you can only hear your favorite music in the living room in front of the stereo. Sure, you could wear headphones around the house, or carry around a bluetooth speaker with you from room to room. But what if you want a seamless experience, no matter what room you're in (or, not inside the house at all)? That's where Sonos comes in, the brand of Wi-Fi speakers that has recently been gaining popularity in households across the US.

Sonos has a wide range of products. Their most popular product, labeled "One", is a simple stand alone speaker that you can add to any room of your house. They also sell two different types of soundbars, a subwoofer; outdoor, and even in-wall/in-ceiling speakers, for ultimate space saving.

The best thing about all of these products? They can all sync up to play the same audio, anywhere you have a Sonos speaker in your home. From cleaning around the house, doing laundry, working in the home office, cooking, working in the garage, or just lounging inside or outside, the same music will be playing perfectly synced up wherever there's a Sonos speaker.

The speakers sync up over WiFi, so as long as there's a connection, you can have music. You can control all aspects of your speakers through a smart home device such as Alexa, Siri, or Google Home, and there's also an app available for download to your smartphone. Sonos plays your music from whatever source you might have, including Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon Music (plus many more).

Other accessories sold by Sonos include a record player, network extender, an amplifier - anything that will make listening easier around your house.

And when you're on WideOpen's fiber network, you can be sure that your Sonos system will always work quickly, and reliably.

To learn more about Sonos and to purchase, visit https://www.sonos.com/en-us/home

Happy listening,

- The WideOpen Team

Blacksburg, Virginia, 01/19/2022

People are always asking, "What makes WideOpen Blacksburg's fiber connection better?" We just talked to a Comcast customer who was trying to edit some photos over the weekend and upload them to their cloud storage. They said it literally took two days to upload the edited photos. They did a speed test, and while they had 300 Meg down, they were only getting 6 Meg uploads.

Our fiber network is fully symmetric, which means our upload and download speeds are equal. If you order our 250/250 service you have 250 Meg down and 250 Meg up. Ditto for our 500 Meg and Gig service: 500 down, 500 up; Gig down, Gig up.

And unlike those "other" companies, we are your local network provider. Our headquarters are right here in Blacksburg, and our staff are all local. Stop by and see us if you have questions.

Blacksburg, Virginia, 12/17/2021

Many folks in Blacksburg have cable services in their home and wonder how life with fiber to their home might be.

Our Vice President of Sales, David Sobotta. moved in February 2021, from the North Carolina coast back to Piedmont where he grew up. He also went from copper-cable-modem service to a fiber to the home (FTTH) neighborhood.

Below is an excerpt from his blog on the changes he noticed. He has a long history in the technology industry including twenty years at Apple

"Like many people who have been on a cable modem for decades, my experience has been a roller-coaster with some very frustrating experiences. By the time we moved in February 2021, our speeds had increased to 488 Mbps down and 24 Mbps up. Because of bundling, our phone service also was delivered by cable modem. The numbers looked impressive on the surface.

However, with a job that involves clients in over twenty states and a home office over seven hours driving away from our corporate office, experience had taught me that I could still expect problems with video conferencing which had become critical to meeting the needs of our clients since the pandemic.

Video conferencing with a cable modem, even with the best speeds that my cable modem company could deliver, involved using both the phone and my computer to establish a video-conference link. Collaborative tools just did not have reliable connectivity and even worse, sharing large files was anything but instant.

Our move let us subscribe to a symmetric 500 Mbps fiber connection provided by our local telephone company. Now joining a video conference whether through Zoom, Teams, or GoToMeeting no longer ties up our home phone line for audio. A simple click of a link delivers both video and audio that are crystal clear.

As our move cut the cable cord, I initially worried about how my wife would take to streaming. While she cannot see all of her favorite shows live, she has not had to give up any shows and she has found a far broader choice of shows. We get local live television through Paramount+. We rotate through a number of streaming services, cancelling them sometimes for several months until their content has been refreshed. My wife who is somewhat reluctant with technology changes has learned how to stream the shows that she wants without any help from me.

We are saving close to $500 per year and every service that we have is far better than what we had."

David’s full post is available at Adding Fiber To Your Life.