DirecTV Stricter on Retention Question??

[adam61]

Per AT&T's earnings calls and strategy layouts I mostly expected this. But I keep satellite as a hang on by a thread option. My mother lives with us to watch our toddler and there's about maybe 8-10 cable shows we watch without good streaming options. At the $80/mon for 3 rooms and HBO (which I can easily get on Demand so no issue there) it was worth it. Well my $50/mon retention offer from last year expired and another $10 credit. so now we are at around $150 which just doesn't cut it for me.

I did the standard thing (judge if you want) and played retention roulette and they were noticeably stricter than previous years. I got offered a $20 credit, and free Showtime for 6 months (Don't really want). $130 a month plus sport packs seems outrageous based on use.

If their way of playing ball against cord cutters is to squeeze the few remaining customers I just don't get it. I have NFL Sunday Ticket and Center Ice and would feel like a valuable customer to them (AutoPay no Late pays, 12 year customer), I know they said they would slow their deep discounting to draw a line in the sand, but what are my best choices here? No contract at all.

 

[TheRatPatrol]

Welcome to the new DirecAT&Tv.

 

[adam61]

Yea that's kinda how I felt if that's their strategy I can't fight them on it. What are good options if any?

-Pay more roulette (wonder if others had more luck)
-Pay $130+Sports a month and bite the bullet
-Cord Cut, we have Netflix, Hulu, Prime, would add HBO. Not sure if there's anything good for the main shows we'd miss.

 

[reubenray]

I switched to Dish after having Directv for 17 years. My discounts ran out also and they offered only $5 off per month. I am locked in for two years and who knows what happens at that time. When AT&T bought Directv I knew they would slowly bring them down.

Good luck!

 

[DaRef]

My 2 year price guarantee runs out in August so I've been scouting the streaming services. At this point, the best value to me seems to be a combo of YouTube TV and Philo. Together they are $56 per month and cove practically everything in my D* Ultimate package. Both have unlimited DVR, YouTube TV keeps your recordings for 9 months, Philo for 30 days. Each allows three streams. There are always trade offs, and of course the need for a reasonably fast broadband Internet connection. As always, Your Mileage May Vary.

 

[bobvick]

My 2 year price guarantee runs out in August so I've been scouting the streaming services. At this point, the best value to me seems to be a combo of YouTube TV and Philo. Together they are $56 per month and cove practically everything in my D* Ultimate package. Both have unlimited DVR, YouTube TV keeps your recordings for 9 months, Philo for 30 days. Each allows three streams. There are always trade offs, and of course the need for a reasonably fast broadband Internet connection. As always, Your Mileage May Vary.

I’ve looked at this too, a combo of YouTubeTV and Philo. My discounts with DirecTV end later this year. I have older parents that are used to the DirecTV interface, I’m working on getting them used to using a streaming device, and will have to ease in YTTV and Philo, if I decide to go this route.

 

[Andrew Sullivan]

I like the combo of Sling Orange and Blue. I already have Netflix and Amazon. I get all of my locals off an antenna.

 

[Sparkman]

We're moving next month and dropping Directv after 10 years. Going with Playstation Vue and the Spectrum stream to pick up the few networks that Vue doesn't have. I getting Spectrum's 1 Gig internet so streaming shouldn't be an issue. Directv moving offer was nothing any more, basically the new Dish installation in exchange for a 1 year contract or new equipment for a 2 year contract. Passed on that, we see if they offer anything when I cancel. Don't think it will make a difference.

 

[Marcingak]

There's also Pluto TV. The channel lineup is not the same you get on pay tv but at least it's free.

 

[ScottChez]

Heads up, you get what you pay for
Even with Fiber Playstation Vue has issues, they all do. I tried em all, there not perfect.
But so far I have saved Hundreds with this pain.

1. Locked screens or buffering while on live tv
2. sports are 2 to 5 mins behind as they need time to compress
3. cant skip comercials, some channels you are forced to watch the On Demand version
4. some locals cant DVR at all, only On Demand for national feeds

 

[slice1900]

2. sports are 2 to 5 mins behind as they need time to compress

The delay isn't because of compression, it is because they want the service to have a buffer to tolerate temporary hiccups in the path from the servers to your house. The closer to "live" it is the less tolerance for such issues it will have. Even people who have gigabit fiber can still have problems within their ISP's network or along the rest of the path for brief routing snafus that cause packets to be delayed, or lost or resent. The buffer allows a clean stream even under such imperfect conditions, the greater the delay the larger the buffer and the greater tolerance for issues.

Depending on the way the service works, sometimes the buffer is fixed where everyone gets the same delay, but can also be adaptive. In that case a really clean path will have less delay, but maybe tomorrow when there are issues you get more delay so you'll never know for sure how far off "live" you are without checking in some way - or finding out the hard way by seeing texts from your friends, tweets etc. about things that haven't happened yet. And you have no control over it on your end.

 

[jborchel]

If the changeover to streaming keeps gaining momentum I wonder how long it will be before the web gets slow and our video looks bad.