Decision Made: Charter Fiber Optics or Dish Network?

Like it has been said before. Congrats if you found something that works for you. I know me personally am sticking with dish. $40/month for aep+bb@home and 2hopper 2 Joey. I love my setup. Even when I wasn't getting the employee discount I had all that for $70. So I'm satisfied. Plus, even if my rates do go up, I feel I'm still getting my money's worth for what I watch. That may not be the same for everyone. Just me. Dish has taken care of me, so I remain loyal.
 
I checked the prices for a nearby Charter system and the prices on the promotional bundle were discounted by $81/month for the first year. The price would almost double to $167/month in the second year.

My prices will go up $20 for year two. Then in year three they will go up $10. Yet, like I said, I won't be getting the phone, so I'm not really sure what my fees will be. Yet, I will say this, the HD that I'm getting is worth the $30 increase that they quoted me. So, if I had to keep the phone service in yrs. two and three, I'd do it in the bat of an eye.
 
Bundles include phone and internet and DVRs and tons of stuff I don't have. I can tell you that the rack rate for just my TV package (phone and internet aren't relevant to this discussion) is $80, no discounts. That's about the same as AT250 ($80 at Dish) plus HBO/MAX/SHO, or "Everything" ($125) minus Starz. I don't know what it costs to add HBO/MAX/SHO to AT250, but I can guess it's probably around $25. So with Charter, after promos expire, I'm getting a package for $80 that would cost me $105 at Dish, plus HD fees, DVR fees, lease fees, mirror fees, probably another $40 or so. That makes my bill about half what it was with Dish, plus I get 60 more HD channels. And if I had Dish in every room like I do now with cable, that's probably another $40 in fees to add those 4 rooms. That's a huge difference. Granted, I provided all my own equipment, probably $600 or so in all for DVR and live tv access in 5 rooms. But my savings made all that back in the first year or so.

My current discount for TV is $20 per month for a year, bringing my $80 package down to $60. I've never had a Dish bill that low, even when I first signed up. I'm not interested in any bundles. I'll keep my $3/month Ooma instead of Charter's $40/month (or $20/month with discounts) phone service. Internet is another subject, but $40/month for 64Mbps isn't bad. That goes up to $50 in a year.

Even if you were to break down the bundle that you found and take out phone and internet, you're probably down to about $100 for the TV part, which is still cheaper than Dish.

Anyway, I've done the math many times, and cable is still the bang for the buck by far in my market.

And, yes, no Disney for years referred to the HD versions of the Disney family of channels (ABC Family, etc.). I don't watch SD anymore, especially uber-compressed satellite feeds.

To be fair: The price of the computers and any software that you need to use is a part of the cost that would need to be included with your fees, since they are actual cost to get the signal to your televisions.
 
I'd like to know how much it's going to cost you to replicate what you would have with the Hopper system. How much equipment do you have to purchase to make it a DVR? Are you getting HD on all your TVs? Do you have to lease any equipment from the cable company?

I don't about everyone else but $80 for everything you're talking about seems great but almost unrealistic. If you are purchasing other equipment such as PC components and Tivo boxes you need to factor those costs in as well. Does Tivo have a monthly fee for their guide as well?
 
Does Tivo have a monthly fee for their guide as well?

Tivo currently charges $14.99/month for service, which includes guide data. Or you can pay $499 ($399 with commonly known discount codes) for lifetime service. As this will pay for itself in a little over 2 years, and it greatly increases the resale value of the Tivo should you decide to do something different in the future, the lifetime service is generally considered the way to go.
 
Tivo currently charges $14.99/month for service, which includes guide data. Or you can pay $499 ($399 with commonly known discount codes) for lifetime service. As this will pay for itself in a little over 2 years, and it greatly increases the resale value of the Tivo should you decide to do something different in the future, the lifetime service is generally considered the way to go.

I thought there was some kind of fee, so this would have to be factored into the total bill as well.
 
To be fair: The price of the computers and any software that you need to use is a part of the cost that would need to be included with your fees, since they are actual cost to get the signal to your televisions.
I agree. So I'll take a stab at it. I almost never pay retail, but have used those in my calculations. So my actual costs were a lot lower.

Retail cost of Joey equivalent (Ceton Echo): $99, monthly cost $0 - qty 4
Retail cost of Hopper equivalent (PC + Ceton ETH 6 tuner): $400, monthly cost $2 - qty 1

Life of equipment, 7 years, I'm guessing? So just spreading that $800 out over 84 months (not considering amortization, depreciation or resale value), that's roughly $9.50/month. Say you double that because you just had to have a killer PC, that's still only $19 for 5 TVs.

Equivalent system for Dish would be 2 Hoppers at $12 plus 3 Joeys at $7 each plus $10 HD plus $12 DVR service for a total of $67/month. If you're lucky enough to still get free HD for life, then that's $57.

So best case, still a $40/month difference, worst case a nearly $60/month difference. That's not even counting the higher programming cost, which is probably at least $25 as I posted earlier. And it's not counting the fact that Dish is going to charge you a few hundred bucks up front for additional Hoppers and Joeys. And it's not counting the 60 additional HD channels on cable. I'd say that's probably at least a $15/month value.

I'm all for remaining loyal to a company that treats you well, even if it costs a bit more. But I just couldn't tolerate the disputes.
 
I agree. So I'll take a stab at it. I almost never pay retail, but have used those in my calculations. So my actual costs were a lot lower.

Retail cost of Joey equivalent (Ceton Echo): $99, monthly cost $0 - qty 4
Retail on the Echo is $179.
Retail cost of Hopper equivalent (PC + Ceton ETH 6 tuner): $400, monthly cost $2 - qty 1

As the InfiniTV 6 ETH retails for $299 and a modest hard drive is another $100, are we to assume that you're not going to dedicate a computer to managing it?

Even at dealer cost, I think you would be hard pressed to put such a system together for under $1,500 (including a dedicated computer).
 
I agree. So I'll take a stab at it. I almost never pay retail, but have used those in my calculations. So my actual costs were a lot lower.

Retail cost of Joey equivalent (Ceton Echo): $99, monthly cost $0 - qty 4
Retail cost of Hopper equivalent (PC + Ceton ETH 6 tuner): $400, monthly cost $2 - qty 1

Life of equipment, 7 years, I'm guessing? So just spreading that $800 out over 84 months (not considering amortization, depreciation or resale value), that's roughly $9.50/month. Say you double that because you just had to have a killer PC, that's still only $19 for 5 TVs.

Equivalent system for Dish would be 2 Hoppers at $12 plus 3 Joeys at $7 each plus $10 HD plus $12 DVR service for a total of $67/month. If you're lucky enough to still get free HD for life, then that's $57.

So best case, still a $40/month difference, worst case a nearly $60/month difference. That's not even counting the higher programming cost, which is probably at least $25 as I posted earlier. And it's not counting the fact that Dish is going to charge you a few hundred bucks up front for additional Hoppers and Joeys. And it's not counting the 60 additional HD channels on cable. I'd say that's probably at least a $15/month value.

I'm all for remaining loyal to a company that treats you well, even if it costs a bit more. But I just couldn't tolerate the disputes.


I'm not trying to sound like a Dish homer or anything, just making sure we're comparing similar things. Being in business myself I get customers telling me they can buy the same thing I'm selling for much cheaper at Lowes or online, then I find out that they aren't comparing like models.
 
Like it has been said before. Congrats if you found something that works for you. I know me personally am sticking with dish. $40/month for aep+bb@home and 2hopper 2 Joey. I love my setup. Even when I wasn't getting the employee discount I had all that for $70. So I'm satisfied. Plus, even if my rates do go up, I feel I'm still getting my money's worth for what I watch. That may not be the same for everyone. Just me. Dish has taken care of me, so I remain loyal.
Do you get to see those "cool engineering" channels that normal subs miss out on?
 
When I had my beta equipment I did. Unfortunately the only difference in employee accounts and equipment, is we get a credit covering programming costs, and software releases to is first typically. Disadvantage, we do not get to take part in promotions like free multisport. That's why I the other thread I was saying I couldn't justify paying for it when I watch so little. I do like it, but am swamped in school. But testing the software 1 day early is usually interesting.
 
I agree. So I'll take a stab at it. I almost never pay retail, but have used those in my calculations. So my actual costs were a lot lower.

Retail cost of Joey equivalent (Ceton Echo): $99, monthly cost $0 - qty 4
Retail cost of Hopper equivalent (PC + Ceton ETH 6 tuner): $400, monthly cost $2 - qty 1

Life of equipment, 7 years, I'm guessing? So just spreading that $800 out over 84 months (not considering amortization, depreciation or resale value), that's roughly $9.50/month. Say you double that because you just had to have a killer PC, that's still only $19 for 5 TVs.

Equivalent system for Dish would be 2 Hoppers at $12 plus 3 Joeys at $7 each plus $10 HD plus $12 DVR service for a total of $67/month. If you're lucky enough to still get free HD for life, then that's $57.

So best case, still a $40/month difference, worst case a nearly $60/month difference. That's not even counting the higher programming cost, which is probably at least $25 as I posted earlier. And it's not counting the fact that Dish is going to charge you a few hundred bucks up front for additional Hoppers and Joeys. And it's not counting the 60 additional HD channels on cable. I'd say that's probably at least a $15/month value.

I'm all for remaining loyal to a company that treats you well, even if it costs a bit more. But I just couldn't tolerate the disputes.


In other words, the cost closest to the actual purchase date of your equipment is quite high, but as time goes on closer to yr. 7 and beyond your system pays for itself more and more.
 
In other words, the cost closest to the actual purchase date of your equipment is quite high, but as time goes on closer to yr. 7 and beyond your system pays for itself more and more.
Actually, everything after year 1 or 2 is gravy. Pays for itself very quickly because sat and cable DVR fees are so high. I just picked 7 years out of thin air. My equipment may last 4 years or 20 years, who knows. Also my case was for 5 TVs. Payback for a 1 TV system is probably 1 year.

And keep in mind this is just cable card solutions I'm talking about. If you were to use a cable company's DVR, there would be very little cost difference, and the experience would be a whole lot worse than Dish. If you don't do cable card, it's not worth switching, IMO, especially if cost is your primary concern.
 

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