To explain this in simplest terms your home phone and cable tv will come over the internet. So all you will need is a high speed internet connection in order for this to work. You will need a 10 Mbps high speed internet service for this work. Most high speed providers this is the bare minimum plan usually runs $30-$40 a month. Once you have high speed internet lets take a look at how you will get your home phone and cable tv.
HOME PHONE/ $29.95 A Year!
For your home phone you will be using a service called Magic Jack. You may have heard of it and thought it was one of those "As seen on tv" junk items. I am here to tell you from experience it is not. You can read a little more about it at http://www.magicjack.com/ Magic Jack service cost $29.95 for a year of service! Most of you reading this probably pay that in a month for a current home phone. With Magic Jack you also get these features:
FREE Long Distance
FREE Call Waiting
FREE Voicemail
FREE Caller ID
FREE Phone Number (You can also transfer you existing phone number to magic jack as well!) FREE Directory Assistance
The way the Magic Jack works is you plug it into your internet connection into one side and plug a phone into the other and you have phone service. You can then cancel your home phone service and use the Magic Jack as your home phone. The sound quality is just as good as well. Also if you ever need to dial 911 on your Magic Jack the 911 operator will see your home address because you provide it when you register your Magic Jack. So there you have it cancel your expensive home phone and get a Magic Jack for $29.95 a year and save ALOT of money. You will be saving near $400 dollars a year. Feel free to contact us at On The Spot Computer services if you have any further questions about this or would like us to set this up for you. Below is a video demonstration of a Magic Jack and what it looks like:
There are also several other uses for a Magic Jack. One is if you travel out of the country you could take Magic Jack with you and make and receive phone calls just like you were right here in the USA. No need to worry about international phone rates! With a Magic Jack you basically have a phone wherever a internet connection is available.
CABLE TV ALTERNATIVE/ FREE DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU CHOOSE
Are you sick of your monthly cable tv bill that is $40 plus! Well I was so I canceled my cable service and found an alternative to take its place and have never looked back. Let me start by saying that the alternative that I am going to introduce you too will not include all the live channels you currently have with cable tv. And not everything will be in HD. But this option if you so choose can have the content you want when you want it.
Let me introduce you to the Roku. The Roku is media player that streams video from the internet straight to your tv. There are several models you can buy. I personally own the Roku HD which is $59. You can also get the LT which is even cheaper at $49 dollars but does not support HD. You can look at all the models here: http://www.roku.com/roku-products#3 There is no monthly fee to use the Roku so once you buy it you own it. Once you own a Roku lets take a look at the content you can get right on your tv from the internet.
MOVIES AND TV SHOWS There are many ways to get movies on your Roku. One of them is through the channel called Crackle which comes installed on your Roku. There are lots of movies and tv shows on Crackle. Including Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and Adam Sandler in Big Daddy. And tv shows like Seinfeld and Sanford And Sons. To check out all the content you can get on Crackle FREE. Check out the website at: http://www.crackle.com/
If you enjoy classic tv and classic movies from the 40s,50s and 60s you will be in heaven with a Roku. A Channel called Pub-D-Hub offers hundreds of classic shows and movies all right on your roku for free. You can also subscribe to the Pub-d-hub Gold for $2.50 a year and get even more content. They update every single week with more content. To learn more about Pub-d-hub check out their website: http://pubdhub.info/You can also get a better idea of the content by reading here: http://www.rokuguide.com/channels/pub-d-hub
If you enjoy classic western movies you can download the channel free channel Cowboy Classics for some oldtime western films. Read more about this channel here: http://www.rokuguide.com/channels/cowboy-classics
Another channel for westerns is called Classic Westerns. This channel includes westerns with John Wayne, Roy Rogers and Tim Mccoy as well as a few others. This channel will cost you a one time fee of $1.99
Another channel that is great for old time movies is Movie Vault. It has nearly 900 classic movies in almost every genre you can think of. This channel cost a onetime fee of $3.99 but is full of content. If there is one channel you get for classic movies this should be the one. Read more about it here: http://www.rokuguide.com/channels/movie-vault
There are many other FREE channels to get old classic movies such as American Pop and Retrovision.
As far as getting newer tv shows and movies on your Roku. Your best free option is Crackle which I already mentioned. Some of the others are the Netflix channel on your Roku but that will set you back $7.99 a month but Netflix does offer thousands of movies and tv shows. You can checkout some of the content of the Netflix channel here: http://instantwatcher.com/
Another option for newer tv shows and movies is the Hulu Plus channel. This channel has many new tv shows and episodes are posted after they are aired on tv. Hulu plus is also $7.99 a month. For an idea of the content you get with Hulu plus check out this website: http://www.hulu.com/plus/content
I personally have opted not to get Hulu or Netflix. As there are other ways to get this content as will be explained much later on.
One more option is Amazon for watching new movies and tv shows. If you have an Amazon Prime Account. You get many tv shows and movies totally free. If not you can rent movies from $1.99-$3.99
There are many more free movie channels for independent and B grade films etc. You can check out a full list of Roku movie channels here: http://www.rokuguide.com/channels/movies_tv
LIVE TV The best channel for watching and streaming live tv on your roku is USTVNOW. This channel will only be useful to you though if you can not get local channels with an antenna. As the channels you get for free are ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, PBS. They also offer a paid plan that gets you some cable channels but it cost $25 a month.
If you like to watch Christian tv networks. There are plenty of free channels on Roku to watch this channels live including TBN, Daystar, Godtv and many others. Many of these channels also provide on demand programming of certain shows and even movies.
Another free channel for live tv is Justin.tv on this channel you can find feeds for news channels many times such as FOX NEWS,MSNBC,CNN etc you can also find NEW movies as well. This channel is not the best of quality of video at times though. But it is free.
A good free channel that has live feeds of some channels is called Mummy Box. On this channel you can watch these channels: BBC, Sky News,CNBC,CNN and a few others. There are times these channels can be down.
There are tons of channels for the Roku that do alot of things and give you access to various kinds of content. I have only touched the surface here. You can also get weather and even stream radio and music. To check out more roku channels take a look at the following websites:
http://www.rokuguide.com/
http://streamfree.tv/apps/roku-private-channels/
http://www.roku.com/roku-channel-store
So there you have it that is how you can have home phone,internet and a cable tv alternative all over the internet and all for the price of your internet service ($30-$40 a month). If you are paying for a house phone and dont have internet. You may want to look into getting Magic Jack and canceling your home phone. For the price you are paying your home phone you could get internet and home phone! Or maybe you are sick of your cable tv bill and think a Roku box would work for in you instead. Maybe you dont have home phone at all but want one and think Magic Jack sounds like a good deal. Whatever your reasoning feel free to contact us at On The Spot Computer Services with any of your questions about these services.
EXTRA BONUS TIP FOR ROKU
I went through the basic functions of the Roku. There is something you can add to your Roku that will open it up to MUCH more content. It is called Playon. It requires you to install software on your computer. And the Roku accesses it. You gain access to content and full shows from CBS, NBC, FOX as well as many others. See the full list here: http://www.playon.tv/content-channels Not to mention with plugins you can get here: http://www.playonscripts.com/ for playon. You watch virtually ANY live sporting event you want on your Roku. MLB,NBA,NFL,UFC etc. If the sporting event is televised somewhere in the world you will be able to watch it live with playon. Every sport, every team, every game! Also you can get almost any new movie that you want on demand whenever you want it! Not to mention the ability to get more live tv feeds as well. If you would like more details on this let us know and we will explain all the details.
Thanks for sharing a nice blog.Keep it up.
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