Dumping Cox cable and possibly switching to Dish

[geneva54]

I'm new to this forum and satellite. We have always had cable. As we just found out COx has too much control over TV, internet and phone. The system went down and it takes Cox a couple of days to respond.

So I would like to find out if it is possible to do 5 TVs in 5 separate bedrooms? Is there a lot of startup cost in doing this?

Where can I find a comparison between Dish and DIrect TV? Also how does satellite handle internet service?

 

[mdavej]

5 TVs is no problem. You're probably looking at $300-$500 for an install like that plus 2 yr commitment. They don't generally do internet. So you'll need to keep cable for that or get a small bundle discount with DSL. There is a good channel comparison at avsforum.com. Service is about the same except DirecTV is more sports oriented, and Dish has more basic HD.

Since Dish has a habit of dropping channels and DirecTV is slow to add them, I've gone the opposite direction and switched back to cable. A hardware failure can put sat out of comission for days as well. So the grass isn't always greener.

 

[Jakester3]

There is no good answer. We have a small cable provider comparatively to Cox, Comcast etc (Armstrong). I bought the Dish Network, which is way better than the Armstrong cable, for use in the RV only. Then figured since I was paying for it anyway I bought another dish so I could use it at home on our main TV. And I am stuck with the cable also. If I drop the cable only and keep the phone and business class internet the way they have it structured I would be paying about the same. My only other option for phone would be verizon landline. Thats a small fortune. So I have both. I was in a best Buy and they had a salesman hawking Direct TV. He asked me if I had satellite or cable trying to get a sale. He did not know what to say when I told him I had both. He gave me a look like I was insane, which I most likely am. And although I do not have satellite internet I have been told to forget about it if you do any online gaming with a pc or console, I think it has to do with upload speeds.

 

[Dishman1978]

There is no good answer. We have a small cable provider comparatively to Cox, Comcast etc (Armstrong). I bought the Dish Network, which is way better than the Armstrong cable, for use in the RV only. Then figured since I was paying for it anyway I bought another dish so I could use it at home on our main TV. And I am stuck with the cable also. If I drop the cable only and keep the phone and business class internet the way they have it structured I would be paying about the same. My only other option for phone would be verizon landline. Thats a small fortune. So I have both. I was in a best Buy and they had a salesman hawking Direct TV. He asked me if I had satellite or cable trying to get a sale. He did not know what to say when I told him I had both. He gave me a look like I was insane, which I most likely am. And although I do not have satellite internet I have been told to forget about it if you do any online gaming with a pc or console, I think it has to do with upload speeds.

The new ecxede (if available in your area is pretty fast) but you pay different amounts for different tiers. I would not recommended it if you are a huge internet user as the lowest tier which is 50 bucks a month only provides up to 7.5 gigs of memory before they throttle your speed way down.

You could always go to the wildblue website and have a look.

 

[geneva54]

Thanks for info. I will figure something out.

 

[dwarren2]

2 Hoppers and 3 Joeys give you 5 TV's all in HD. Also gives you 6 tuners. Ota add on tuners are supposed to be coming out.If you activate the Prime Time Any Time, you will loose 1 of the tuners during Prime Time, but you will be recording the 4 major networks on 1 tuner.