As the culture of cord-cutting continues to grow in America, cable companies are quickly reacting and adapting to the needs of consumers lest they lose their customer base. In late November of last year, DirecTV and AT&T launched DirecTV Now. The service is essentially the same cable you enjoy via satellite but runs entirely off of your internet connection. Those who jumped in on the service have had a few perks for early adoption, and the latest one includes free HBO.
Yep, DirecTV Now subscribers who have been active as of March 6th now will be receiving a free year of HBO. The premium channel, which was only an additional $5 charge to early adopters, has now had its fee waived for all those who subscribed before the aforementioned date. If you're someone who has the service but don't have HBO on your list, don't worry, DirecTV will soon be adding the channel to your existing service. If you're someone who was in cancellation leading up to the promotion, sorry about ya. Those who qualify for the offer should check their emails associated with their accounts, and if you haven't received it, search your spam for good measure.
Not at all a bad deal considering my current DirecTV package is charging me around $18 monthly for my HBO. Even if someone signs up today for DirecTV Now, they're still getting their HBO for about a third of the price I'm currently paying for the channel with my satellite dish. While services like these aren't the clean break most people are looking to have from cable networks, offers like these do show there are some incentives for those who hop on board. Of course, every service has their downsides.
As you can imagine, bundling your internet to your cable television watching is going to up your usage quite a bit. That shouldn't be a problem, but with more and more internet providers dropping data caps in areas, it's something you should definitely know before you convert your cable to all internet. Otherwise, you could end up with a sizable internet bill no better than what you saved leaving cable to begin with. You also are going to want to ensure your internet is fast enough to reliably run television in addition to other internet activities in the house, as slow internet means buffering and slowdowns all around.
As someone who came super close to pulling the trigger on cord-cutting, I understand the stress. Although I was unable to do it myself, deals like free HBO from DirecTV Now are definitely reasons why you should do the research and see if it's right for you. Whether you jump ship from cable world or not, definitely pick up HBO as they've had some great television on as of late. See what's on their docket on our midseason premiere guide.
