Finally, I arrived at the destination of my cord-cutting journey: ready to call my cable company and cancel the account I've been using for over a decade

In the first part of this saga, I explained in detail why Spectrum's huge bill ultimately drove me to cut the cord and what I was looking for in a cable replacement service In the second part, I presented my final three choices and explained why I chose Sling, one of the best cable replacement services

For the past two weeks, I watched cable and broadcast network programming using only Sling; I also removed my Spectrum DVR It wasn't a seamless, perfect experience, but it was still enough to cancel cable for good

As I mentioned two posts ago, I came up with a list of must-have and not-so-must-have channels To watch the must-have broadcast networks, I needed Sling's AirTV Anywhere device and the included HD antenna ($99) I ultimately chose Sling over other cable TV alternatives like Fubo and YouTube TV because the initial cost pays for itself over time

As several readers have noted in the comments and on Twitter, FuboTV and YouTube TV are excellent services I can even admit that they are superior to Sling when it comes to the number of channels and interface design

Sling is also a bit clunky to use The cable-like grid guide is intuitive, but the DVR recording section needs a thorough update When I selected a program, I had no idea whether it would immediately start playing an episode or take me to a list of recorded episodes

Setting up the AirTV Anywhere and HD antenna was easy; Sling's mobile app provides step-by-step instructions The antenna picked up quite a few local channels, and I easily added the channels I wanted They appear seamlessly in the guide, but you cannot search for or favorite broadcast programs like ABC's The Bachelorette or CBS' Love Island USA If one wishes to set up a recording of a broadcast program, one must scroll through the grid to find the next broadcast and select to record that episode or all episodes

We also experienced some technical problems One "Bachelorette" recording simply did not happen Another was very glitchy (to be fair, there was a storm in my city that night, and the ABC broadcast was coming through my antenna); an episode of "Us" on PBS ended a few minutes early, forcing me to track it on the PBS app to see what happened I was forced to It also appears that you cannot view recordings in progress

Sling would sometimes downgrade to low resolution, but that may have been due to my internet connection (it's Spectrum's fault) The mobile app also crashed a few times, but in neither case was I on Wi-Fi, so it could be AT&T's fault

The only other issue, which does not affect me personally, is that Sling limits local channel streams to four devices in the home and one outside the home This could be a problem for families with multiple TVs

In short, Sling is not perfect In recent weeks, I've even reconsidered buying YouTube TV or Fubo instead However, despite a few glitches here and there, Sling remains the best value for money cable alternative out there

There are several features that I would like to see introduced into Sling For example, it would be great if recordings could be set to start a few minutes early and end a few minutes later This would be ideal since sports games can go into overtime, and I know that Sling has rolled out a new interface for Fire TV Stick users that includes a better DVR experience, but I use Sling on my Apple TV 4K 2021 and the company is working on a new design has not indicated when it will be expanded to other devices

But aside from these future improvements, Sling is working for me as a cable alternative It ticks all the important boxes I listed at the beginning of this trip The local and cable channels I want, a high-capacity DVR, and all channels and recordings housed and accessible in one place And Sling will save me a lot of money

Of course, things can change, with price increases, new services in streaming, and technical issues But for now, Sling is the answer to my cord-cutting dreams

Now to dial the cable company