Notes on DTVPal.com site
It looks like the DTVPal is now ONLY available through the DISH Network Sales organization?
I don't know any possible retailers that are listed as a NTIA participating retailer and also in the DISH Network Sales organization.
Do you know how to find out who is a member of both?
What I find interesting at dtvpal.com (which, like dtvpal.net, dtvpal.org, etc., is just masking the real URL
www.dishnetwork.com/dtvpal/) are those three big buttons across the page that say "Order your DTVPal," "Get The Coupon," "Contact Us".
First, there's no doubt they're encouraging everyone to use a coupon for purchase, evidenced by the center "Get The Coupon" button.
Second, I suspect that the first "Order your DTVPal" button might be replaced by a working online ordering link in the near future. But if so, are they set up to accept the coupons themselves (NTIA-approved as an online retailer)? If not, it's misleading to put that "Get The Coupon" button right next to the order button. (By the way, although the button links to
www.dishnetwork.com/dtvpal/order.shtml, the ".shtml" does NOT mean "secure html"; it just indicates SSI, a server-side scripting language, is being used, so it is not necessarily evidence that a secure online ordering site is coming. All the links on the page end with .shtml.)
Why have a big "Order" button if it won't eventually be used for taking orders? The page it goes to now gives the link to the email signup/survey (which has sent no email except for the acknowledgment which Malouff has quoted), but other than that, it just repeats the information that appears on the button itself ("DISH Network will begin selling DTVPal in late June 2008")! In other words, it's pretty useless now, and that's why I suspect it is intended to become a "real" order button in the future.
Ok, I'm sort-of repeating myself, but as a final point about this button, it's not a "Where can I buy it?" button (and there is no such link on the site), it is an "Order" button. However, if they aren't authorized to accept coupons and sell directly themselves, maybe they will just be providing links to online sellers once it is available, and it really will be more of a "Where can I buy it?" button. There is at least one online seller that apparently still believes they will have some in stock within a week. I don't think it's a sponsor of this site, so I'll just say its name starts with "Solid."
Third, the "Contact Us" button only provides the email
press@echostar.com. A former Sling employee has said (Dave Zatz on his blog and at avsforum) that maybe we, as individuals, shouldn't contact the woman in charge of press relations with questions (and I haven't), but a "press" contact is the only one we are being given on the official site!
Unless you consider that the whole box (name, GUI, remote) is an advertisement for Dish Network satellite service. It gets you used to the Dish experience, thereby (hopefully) making you more likely to select them as your premium service in the future.
