Having Dish installed tomorrow

[webbydude]

Waaaaaay off-topic, but DSL speeds is a lot like cable service. It really all depends on where you live. When I lived out in the country, my DSL speeds where pretty awesome, roughly 2MB down. After moving to Canton, it took a considerable drop...roughly 300KB (yes...KB!!).

With regards to Danny Boy; it's a shame about your installer being afraid of rain. Unless it's a major typhoon...OR!!...huge amounts of lightning, I (and most other installers I know of) will work in the rain. Yes, it does suck. But it's part of the job. I hope the price Time Warner quoted you isn't a special or promotion price. Sticker shock is what drove you to Dish in the first place. It may yet bring you around again. Good luck either way.

 

[Danny Boy]

I'm going to call the cable company tomorrow to see if I can get the price down a bit. I really don't need all the premiums.

The only thing I really watch is Sopranos on HBO which isn't that big of a deal for me. Since I last had Digital cable (May 2004) they've added a lot of stuff. They have DIY, HGTV, Food, AOL Music and a host of other things on demand. I'm not really into all that stuff although it's nice to just press play and there it is.

I've already had my DVR box freeze on me twice while just channel surfing to see what they have. It froze shut off then rebooted and updated itself again taking about 5 minutes each time. I'm not to thrilled about that. I'm considering trading in my DVR for 2 regular boxes.

One thing that I've noticed is a lot of stuff on the 100 and 200's is just rebroadcast on 700 and 800's.

As for DSL speeds, I know DSL is normally slower then cable but I didn't except that much of a difference. I downloaded open office (65 MB) on cable a couple days ago and it only took 3 or 4 minutes. When I downloaded it for my sister laptop it took almost 15. I'm very picky about waiting for downloads.

I may revisit dish in the future when we move to an area without snow (hopefully 2007)

One thing I was confused about is I wanted to go with digital phone from the cable company, they said it isn't available in my area yet. How is that if Road Runner is available and that's the backbone I don't understand. I'm going to contact vontage tomorrow.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Have them run ALL new wire. Good installers never use diplexers

ZandarKoad beat me to the zing.

PROPERLY USED, there's not a DAMN thing wrong with using a diplexer. Just did an install today where I diplexed TV2 out of a 625 back to near the DP34, and then directly into ANOTHER diplexer to get it to near the TV.

Going through four diplexers, two barrel connectors (wall plates), two surge suppressors, and 100' of RG-6 caused enough loss that channel 60 was a bit snowy, so I dialed it down to channel 35 - PERFECT SQ & PQ.

This hous already has enough cable to lift the house with it - I wasn't going to run ANOTHER interior wall RG-6, or add ANOTHER RG-6 to the dual I ran to the 811 (Sat/TV2 plus OTA). Note that I DID keep the OTA feed "pure". THAT's where diplexers can become a real issue - weak OTA signals.

 

[Van]

A good installer knows when to use diplexors, an installer that uses them all the time or never uses them is not a good installer. There is no garauntee that the local guy is going to be any more of a better installer than what you would get from a farmed out installer or one that works for the company directly, fact is is that the ones who work directly for the company have to go to the job and with recent changes the possibility of you being missed by them is incredibly slim. Another thing to consider is that the jobs that are farmed out go to local contractors and local rsp's who employee local people to do the job.