DirecTV Intro price rockets up $25, or 71%

[EarDemon]

Is that right ....
And when your drop is pulled down off the house, laying there for days waiting on the company tech to show up .....

Between November 17 and November 20 of 2014 I received around 70" of snow.

By the afternoon of November 19th both DirecTV dishes were buried under a decent amount of snow and eventually collapsed. The soonest a tech could come out was the following Saturday, November 29th and I was charged for a service call. Later in the evening on that same day I lost cable service. As the plows came down my road, the snow was thrown and hit the utility pole that the RG11 runs along that goes from the tap to my house. The line was destroyed by the weight and force of the snow. On Friday November 21, while still technically under a driving ban, Time Warner came out and replaced the RG11, no charge. Less then 48 hours downtime with cable, 10 days downtime with DirecTV.

For those that say, I could have just swept the dish off and kept it clean, and I believe some one did last time I posted this, I went to bed Monday night with no snow and woke up Tuesday morning to over 30". There is no keeping a dish free of snow when its falling at a dangerous rate of 3 to 6 inches per hour.

Lake Effect Summary: November 17-19, 2014

 

[MitchDeerfield]

To provide a different perspective, I have the top of the line TV packages with two DVRs from both DirecTV and Charter with no promos.

Premier @ $167 + Movie Extra Pack @ $5 + $20 for two DVRs + $8.50 RSN fee = $200.50 for DirecTV
TV Gold @ $105 + Epix @ $6 + $35 for two DVRs + $12 Broadcast TV fee = $158 for Charter

Being able to start over an in progress program that you tuned into late is not that amazing anymore and is pretty old. I've been able to do that for over a decade when Time Warner launched the Start Over feature in 2006 in my area.

https://www.multichannel.com/news/time-warner-adds-start-over-markets-332617

Why do you keep your DirecTV service if it is so much more expensive? I am familiar with Comcast pricing only, and it has always cost more. Charter doesn't serve my area so I don't know what they charge.

 

[Jimbo]

Between November 17 and November 20 of 2014 I received around 70" of snow.

By the afternoon of November 19th both DirecTV dishes were buried under a decent amount of snow and eventually collapsed. The soonest a tech could come out was the following Saturday, November 29th and I was charged for a service call. Later in the evening on that same day I lost cable service. As the plows came down my road, the snow was thrown and hit the utility pole that the RG11 runs along that goes from the tap to my house. The line was destroyed by the weight and force of the snow. On Friday November 21, while still technically under a driving ban, Time Warner came out and replaced the RG11, no charge. Less then 48 hours downtime with cable, 10 days downtime with DirecTV.

For those that say, I could have just swept the dish off and kept it clean, and I believe some one did last time I posted this, I went to bed Monday night with no snow and woke up Tuesday morning to over 30". There is no keeping a dish free of snow when its falling at a dangerous rate of 3 to 6 inches per hour.

Lake Effect Summary: November 17-19, 2014

Had you walked out to your dish and dusted it off, you would have been fine ....

Also, there are things like Dish Heaters that would work very well if you were so inclined to use one.

If your dish Collapsed due to snow, something is clearly wrong with the set up.
You would have been back in service in what 2-3 minutes ?

 

[slice1900]

Getting 70" of snow in a few days is pretty extreme weather. You could just as well compare to people who get bullseyed by ice storms and hurricanes and lose cable TV and internet for a week or two, but get satellite back much more quickly (especially if they have a generator)

If you're worried about that kind of snowfall happening again, you either need to take steps to protect your dish against the weather, or switch to something other than satellite.

 

[NashGuy]

People get thier service for Price and Programming, not equipment ...

Now if they have decided to get X or Y, Then it might come down to equipment.

No, that's not totally true. People care if they go from a DVR that can record 6 different shows at the same time to one that can only record 2 at the same time. They care if their recordings are stuck on the TV where the recording was set up or if they have the freedom to watch all their recordings on any TV in the house. And some folks care if they are able to access their Netflix subscription on the same box and with the same remote that they use for all their other TV viewing or if they're forced to switch inputs.

My parents, who are in their 70s and 80s, are on DISH, with 2 pre-Hopper DVRs. Each has only 2 tuners, they are not whole-home, and they have no apps. If Mom wants to watch Netflix or other apps, she has to switch inputs to the Roku. If she doesn't switch it all back to the DISH box when she's done, Dad is completely lost when he turns on the TV and can't figure out how to switch it back. (In his defense, switching inputs back to DISH on the TV requires 4 or 5 button presses on the DISH remote and is a bit convoluted. If the DISH DVR supported HDMI-CEC, the way the Roku does, it would be a breeze.)

So, yeah, these things matter to my parents, who are not at ALL tech-y people. They may not be able to easily articulate exactly what they're looking for equipment-wise and feature-wise in a new TV service but they know the things that they don't like about their current set-up and when I tell them about other options available they see how much better it could be.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I never heard of a dish collapsing due to snow

 

[Claude Greiner]

Just got an AT&T advertisement in the mail pushing their bundle with internet for $89.99

They mention the rate going up in the second year but don’t say the pricing

Sad

 

[Andrew Sullivan]

They probably raised their price so we could watch the PAC-12 NETWORK. Oh wait.