Called to upgrade to Hopper. $65 and 4 very confusing minutes later...

[FogNoggin]

I'm posting to tell all, that upgrading to Hopper right now will cost you $65, maybe. The phone call to request this was more than a little confusing.

I requested an upgrade from my VIP612 to 1 Hopper and 3 Joeys. The customer service rep didn't ask me any questions at all or offer me any information. No mention of the whole-home DVR fee or the price-per-Joey fee. The limited info I did receive was this; my monthly bill will go up by roughly $24 and they're running a promotion right now offering the Hopper upgrade for $50 "lease" plus a $15 installation fee. I questioned $15 as I subscribe to the monthly protection plan. No good explanation was offered other than without my protection plan that installation fee would have been $95, bringing the total install charge to $145. Whatever, I accepted the $65 upgrade total and agreed to a new 2-year contract. The earliest install date I could get was 11-23, Black Friday.

 

[sparc]

Price seems right since they dropped the upgrade cost per hopper by $50. $15 install is normal for protection plan, but sometimes waived. It's still cheaper than a few weeks ago when people were paying $100 per hopper.

Also, a reminder on a 1H/3J system that it only has three tuners available over those 4 TV locations. If you need more tuners, you might consider a 2H/2J system.
______________________________________________________

You can always message someone at DIRT to confirm that everything is correct...

On the bottom of the main forum page, you'll see the usernames in red with @DISH Network at the end. Those are official reps from Dish that are active on the forum right now. Just send them a private message with your account or phone number.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/forum.php (scroll down to the bottom)

 

[FogNoggin]

Thanks for confirming my experience. I've never spoken with a service rep that was in such a hurry to complete a call. She didn't try to up-sell me anything. ;-)

The 3 Joeys are all bedroom TV's so 1 Hopper should be enough. It'll certainly be a huge upgrade from my current 1 DVR setup.

 

[knot]

If you got kids it won't be especially if there all home trying to watch tv or record.

 

[FogNoggin]

I have 2 teenagers, 4 of us total in the house. We've all been sharing a single VIP622 with it's 2-tuner limitation and a single TV. We now have 4 HDTV's but all will never be running at once and we're almost always watching recorded material.

I do have one question, does the PTAT utilize any of the 3 tuners or are all of those recordings downloaded via Internet?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

PTAT uses one tuner to download all 4 networks from the Satellite.

 

[coinmaster32]

Also, a tech said all the PTAT channels for each area are on the same transponder, this is how it is supposed to work.