We’ve taken one more step into the 21st century. Still learning, though.
The Miller household was one of the 600-some remaining cable TV customers of AdamsWells Telecom Internet TV. From what I understand, we may have been one of the youngest ones left. As you may know, particularly if you’ve been one of their customers, they are discontinuing that line of their business at the end of the year.
We are now “streamers,” having plugged in the Roku and signed up for one of the services over the internet that is now bringing the world into our living room. Won’t get into which specific route we took — not interested in endorsing anyone. The one requirement was that the package includes the sports channels and Hallmark options. I hope that it is obvious which one of us is interested in which. I appreciated Doug Brown’s comments last week about Hallmark being a “man repellent,” although my wife’s attraction to those shows is being somewhat dampened by some recent programs. Is Hallmark becoming “woke”?
But I digress.
All three of our sons “cut the cord” and have been streaming their TV for enough years that the term “cable TV” is ancient history in their homes. We had planned to call one of them in to help us figure it all out but as it turned out, that was not necessary. I impressed myself with my newfound tech-knowledge-y.
But we’re still learning. The process of firing up and finding your channels are different of course. Sometimes we remember and sometimes we don’t. “Where did we find that one program?” we often ask — but that question is less frequent with each passing day. Our boys tell us we can tweak the process by setting up some preferences but that will probably wait until they’re here for Thanksgiving.
Perhaps the toughest part was disconnecting the cable boxes and wiring in order to return them to the Craigville office. Not that that was difficult, it’s just that the other part was so much easier than expected.
The friendly Reinhard-VonGunten-Rodenbeck families at AdamsWells (aka Craigville Telephone Co.) have been assuring their customers that the process is not difficult and indeed, we will probably like the service better once we get used to it. We may be the poster child for that. Their technicians will come and help as needed, which is why they made the announcement a couple months ago — so they’d have enough time to get everyone switched. It’s taken me this long to overcome the inertia of dealing with the known to venture into the unknown.
“How’s the process going?” I asked Carla VonGunten when I dropped our now-obsolete gear off.
“Pretty smooth, just not fast enough,” she said. Almost universally, those who have made the switch have done so with no hitches. Their concern is that come early December, they’ll still have more customers that need switched than they’ll have time to assist.
So I’m here today to assure anyone who has not made the switch that it is not all that difficult. If a guy who still has a flip phone and keeps forgetting that Google is an option when doing some research can figure it out, there’s hope for anyone.
The 21st century is not quite as scary as I’d thought. Now about that flip phone …
miller@news-banner.com
