Anyone have satellite instead of cable?

[Byrons_Ghost]

Between an unexpected rate hike and lousy customer service, my local cable company has really been irritating me. Thanks to the wonderful, organized monopoly that is the television industry, I don't have any other providers to choose from. So I've been looking into satellite options, such as Dish or Direct TV, and wanted to get opinions from some people who had them.

If you have either of these services (or something similar), what do you like about them? How well do they work? Are there problems on days with cloudy or bad weather?

Most importantly, what sort of start-up cost am I looking at to switch? Dish seems to charge you upfront for the equipment and them dole it back slowly over a few years, while Direct TV claimed that it had no starting costs, which experience tells me is about as likely as my favorite TSR settings coming back into print.

Thanks in advance for the help. Let's fire my cable company!!

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

My dad has had Dish Network since almost the beginning. It has issues -- the lack of a local presence is a PITA when there are equipment issues, for example. But it's still much better overall, I think, than his local cable company (Comcast). The picture quality is generally better, and their HD is *much* better. He also has the integrated HD PVR.

He lives in Florida, land of the afternoon thunderstorm. There are occasional signal interruptions in a heavy downpour. Wind isn't generally a problem so long as its installed properly. I was visiting during a couple years ago when a hurricane came within 50 miles or so and we kept a signal through most of it. It was kind of amusing -- the rest of that week, there were Comcast ads on the local channels (which we were seeing via the dish) talking about cable wasn't subject to weather interruptions. Meanwhile, there were 10s of thousands of customers without cable for several weeks because of all the lines that got blown down

Customer service is staffed by the same low-paid, reading-from-a-script monkeys that pretty much any technology-oriented company uses nowadays.

I live in an apartment where I can get a dish signal, but if I could I'd switch in a minute. All other things being equal, I just have more choices with the dish than with cable. They are remarkably more accomodating about adding and removing packages. For example, my Dad would add just HBO for the run of the Sopranos and then dump it again, and they never charged him $.01 more than they should or jerked him around about it.

 

[trancejeremy]

It used to be that you bought the DirecTV receiver, but now you simply rent them. For $5 a month. Which is probably not a good thing in the long term (Since the Receiver was only around $80). So I really don't think there is any starting costs, as they make it up after a year or so.

Eh - I'm not real thrilled with DirecTV myself, but I have no real choice, since I can't get cable. They constantly raise rates, they cut out good channels and give you crap instead (wanting you to go to a better package), you have to put up with constant DirecTV ads, the picture quality sucks these days (because they steal bandwidth to use for their HDTV channels).

 

[Mycanid]

Well ... we do not have DirecTV instead of cable but we DO have DirecWay instead of a cable internet connection ... primarily because where I work is SO far in the sticks that a satellite connection is the only thing out here you can get high speed internet wise that doesn't cost a fortune (i.e. several hundred dollars a month).

It may not be surprising that almost everyone out here does have DirecTV in their homes save for a hand full of us.

Out here cable is simply NOT an option.

Since our recent upgrade we have had WONDERFUL internet service with almost NO downtime! A huge change since before. Their tech support still stinks - but it is SLIGHTLY better than before. :\

But other than this aspect of things I really couldn't be of much help.

 

[Harmon]

My exerience with Dish Network is one that is not positive.

Mom's boy friend had to have satalite as cable could not reach him in the area he lived in. When he moved to where he had a choice DN screwed him and my mom around so bad that they asked to leave their contract, DN told them they could not and that they would have to pay it out. Customer Service began hounding them with phone calls even after they got out of the contract, some of the calls were threatening.

Just a while back I contacted DN to get off their mailing list, they told me that it wasn't there fault that I needed to contact the Post Master about the mail, they didn't send it out, the mail man did. I got a little angry when the guy insulted my wife.

Few days later we started getting threatening phone calls, the first one was a manager at DN, after that they stopped introducing themselves.

Dish Network will never be a service I would recommend or even consider

 

[kenobi65]

I have a few friends with DirecTV. Generally, they do like it; loss of signal during extreme weather (heavy rain or snow, high wind) does happen, but the cable company can have signal issues in that weather, too (i.e., their satellite dishes can suffer from the same problems). And, having TIVO integrated with your receiver box is nice.

If you live in / near a major market, DirecTV carries your broadcast channels, too (ABC, NBC, Fox, etc.). If you don't, you'll need an antenna to pick those channels up the old-fashioned way.

One thing that one friend with DirecTV, who lives a block from us, learned the hard way: cable TV systems have an automatic system that interrupts programming when the Emergency Alert System triggers for your area (usually, when there's a severe weather warning); a dish can't do that. In addition, if you're getting the Weather Channel off a dish, you don't get your local forecasts or warnings (which get put in at the local cable office). My friend winds up calling me whenever it looks like the weather's going bad, or I call him when there's a weather warning. Another work-around would be to get a NOAA weather radio (which automatically switches on with an alert tone when there's a warning for your area).

 

[Aeson]

I've had both dish services. We are using DirecTV at the moment because our phone company gives us a discount. We have had cable in the past. I like satellite. We have never had a real problem with it. Yes it does go out sometimes when it rains but not that often. Our cable service went out more.

 

[kenobi65]

Yes it does go out sometimes when it rains but not that often. Our cable service went out more.

We used to have that problem with the cable in our area; outages were fairly frequent (which was part of the reason that my neighbor switched to the dish). However, I think that Comcast, since buying the system from Time Warner a few years back, has upgraded their infrastructure, and I know that ComEd trimmed a lot of trees that were impinging on the utility poles in the neighborhood. Net effect: we almost never have problems with our cable anymore.

 

[Aurora]

We have DirecTV and we really like it. Yeah, we have the occasional outage, but get a TIVO and when the weather is bad, you just watch something that you have pre-recorded.
You can get DirecTV with no startup cost. Check out what they'll give you and then also check and see if someplace like Circuit City is running a good deal. If you move and have DirecTV, they'll even set you up at your new house, but you do have to sign a contract (I think 1 yr). We are about to do that for the second time.

 

[Aeson]

I think DirecTV has a DVR like TIVO. One thing it doesn't have that Comcast has is On Demand.