I was jerked around by their customer service on cancellation, which seems to be part and parcel of anything related to AT&T. I would love to see their entire business model completely upended.
Holy hell I didn't realize service could get that expensive. It makes a bit more sense why my parents never got cable. I figured $80-100/month would get pretty much everything.
Quite honestly, I'm thinking about upgrading my PS Vue plan from the "Access" plan to the highest one that includes HBO and Showtime, at $65/mo it's still a hell of a lot cheaper than even the lowest-tier plan I can get from the local cable company.
You can get everything for around $270.
Most streaming sites authenticate you before letting your client know the IP, port and path of the stream. Once that is known, you can turn off the VPN or whatever, and stream like normal, so it should stream at a higher bitrate.