For 9 entire days, my family has gone without TV. I truthfully can't believe it. We are at the mercy of the Belgians when it comes to television. There are some major installations that have to take place in order to get cable or satellite. We really don't want cable, even though it is practically free, unless we are planning to watch only CNN and the Discovery channel. Every other channel would be in Flemish or French. Satellite TV is our English speaking option and here it costs around 2000 euros to get started! When the representative came over to explain the plan, I thought Bob was going to fall off his chair. He did his patented "frown with his head shaking" and said "NO". Even if we decided to give up 2000 euros to be able to watch TV it would be from the UK. Maybe we would enjoy watching Fawlty Towers and Dr. Who!
I know what all you technical people are thinking; just watch shows on your computer. That sounds like a good option but in Belgium you can only use 25GB per month. I have no idea how much that is, but I probably need to find out.
Maybe one you knows the answer to our problem. Please remember, this family had 10 televisions back in Greenwood. Going completely without TV for 2 years is not a good solution. How would we watch the Olympics, the election, and most of all Project Runway?
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NO T.V.!!!!!! You poor things! I'am glad you made it safe and sound. School starts in 9 days here! We are taking the kids to kings Island/Great Wolf lodge tomorrow for one last broo-ha-ha before we're back to the grind. We don't know Kess' teacher yet but we will let ya know when we do. I hope everyone is doing great.
ReplyDeleteWe miss you,
Kesslar and Ang
You have been missing some good episodes of Project Runway. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments friends! But neither one you has a solution? Don't you know how to get satellite cheap in Belgium? I am just kidding. Thank goodness we have the computer and Nintendo otherwise we would really be in bad shape. The family has already put together 2 gigantic 2000 piece puzzles.
ReplyDeleteBrenda - Good luck setting up your new classroom.
Ang - I wish I new who Kesslar had for a teacher, but some news is hard to get from Belgium! Send me an email when you find out and tell her any teacher would love to have her.
Yikes, that's a hefty cost. I think I could give up US TV, but I'm not sure about the limited Internet. I don't know what 25GB comes out to either. I'm going to miss NetFlix.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm enjoying going in and taking my time and thinking about things as I set up.
ReplyDeleteSo, I asked my techie friend about the 25GB. (The one I mentioned to you that worked at Miliken.)
She replied:
Oh goody word problems!
Things you should know up front:
1GB = 1000MB
1MB = 1000KB
In terms of web browsing:
Just for the sake of example lets say it takes 30KB to load a webpage. Quick math says
(25gb*10000)/30 = 8333.33 So the family could load 8333 websites per month. Of course not all websites take the same amount of bandwidth to load, some will be more some will be less.
In terms of downloads:
A 3 minute, cd quality mp3 is roughly 3.5MB to download. The math: (25*1000)/3.5 = 7142.86 songs
Obviously the average usage would be some combination of browsing and downloading, but 25GB is really a pretty good amount. For example we were restricted to 2GB a week at Purdue and most people hardly even noticed.
Wow Brenda, I have searched blogs for a week trying to get that info. Thanks to you and your friend. I think we can safely watch a couple shows thoughout the month and not use all our GB space. I wish we were still teaching together...maybe you could teach in Belgium!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. Alli loves questions like that. :D
ReplyDeleteMiss Cosby goes to Belgium. I like it.
The people I worked with last year were great and the ones at my new school seem very nice but I missed working with the 'team.'
Brenda,
ReplyDeleteDo you think your class would like to be my pen pal? I don't want 25 individual letters, but I could write to them as a group. Maybe they might even learn a little about Europe.
10 televisions?
ReplyDelete10 televisions?
ReplyDeleteWhere did you get that 2000 euro figure?
ReplyDeleteEven if you get it done, satellite TV should not cost you more than, say, 500 euros.
Okay, maybe if you want a switching installation to power 10 (ten!) TVs it may be a bit more expensive, but I've got a dish with 4 LNBs (Astra 1,2,3+Hotbird) and a DVR with two tuners (allowing me to tune in to two satellites/transponders at a time to record multiple programs at the same time) for around 350 euro.
We only have 3 tvs here. Out of the 10 we had in Indiana, only 5 were used regularly. I know that is too many. Our 2000euro quote was for satellite tv for 3 televisions including the boxes for each using a system out of the UK so we could get English speaking channels. Are you in Brussels? What kind of channels do you get? I would love to learn more since we have only met with one installer who came to our house to give us a quote. Our other quote was over the phone and was the same.
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't get 25 individual letters...just 17. :)
ReplyDeleteTomorrow is the first day of school. I think I'm ready. All of your pictures of the area are beautiful. Much more architecturally interesting than here.
You don't need a box to get Sky ("The English Channels"), there's lots of Free To Air channels available, including CNN, Sky news, ..., but also most UK channels.
ReplyDeleteTake a look at Freesat, you can easily get that here as well, as long as your dish can tune into the Astra 2D satellite.
This gives you access to, among others:
* BBC one, two, three, four, HD
* ITV 1,2,3,4, HD, 2+1
* Channel 4 (with five coming soon)
* More Four
* 4e
* BBC News
* BBC Parliament
* Al Jazeera English
etc, etc, etc..
Well - at least you can watch the whole season of something unencumbered by commercials when you buy the dvd after the season is over? Heavens... I think my family would go into shock with no TV. I am enjoying the site - sounds like you guys are having a really wonderful time - what a great experience!
ReplyDeleteIs this my cousin Amy? If it is, I am so glad you're reading the blog. Feel free to start planning your trip to Europe. I would love to see your beautiful kids in person!
ReplyDelete