In Defense of Dish Network
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I had Dish, then Direct & now Dish, again........
I had cable in the 80's. It was all there was. Was in Sam's Club in the early 90's, and seen an offering of Dish. Bought the receivers, took it home and installed it myself. ( I will never do that again). Anyway, they did not have any locals, so I got them through a quasi attachment on the Dish. Could never get the local CBS station clear. Anyway, I waited and waited, but finally opted for Direct, as they had the locals.
Well, I stayed with them for 3 + years, but through this website, was introduced to the far superior receivers that Dish had developed.
The idea of having 2 instead of 4 was to much to pass up.
Have been with them ever since.
Look, I have no gripes with Direct. When you sit down and do the math, and the programming costs, there really is no difference.
Sure, I'm not thrilled with the constant flip flopping of programming, but they have never charged me when I make changes through the on-line chats.
I have an earlier post of what I watch on a weekly basis.
It consists of "24", "Scrubs", "30 Rock","Family Guy" "HGTV" "TCM" and my beloved "Milwaukee Brewers"
If someone could offer JUST THAT, I would take it in a New York minute.
Until then, I will stand pat with the best HD DVR'S on the market.
I had cable in the 80's. It was all there was. Was in Sam's Club in the early 90's, and seen an offering of Dish. Bought the receivers, took it home and installed it myself. ( I will never do that again). Anyway, they did not have any locals, so I got them through a quasi attachment on the Dish. Could never get the local CBS station clear. Anyway, I waited and waited, but finally opted for Direct, as they had the locals.
Well, I stayed with them for 3 + years, but through this website, was introduced to the far superior receivers that Dish had developed.
The idea of having 2 instead of 4 was to much to pass up.
Have been with them ever since.
Look, I have no gripes with Direct. When you sit down and do the math, and the programming costs, there really is no difference.
Sure, I'm not thrilled with the constant flip flopping of programming, but they have never charged me when I make changes through the on-line chats.
I have an earlier post of what I watch on a weekly basis.
It consists of "24", "Scrubs", "30 Rock","Family Guy" "HGTV" "TCM" and my beloved "Milwaukee Brewers"
If someone could offer JUST THAT, I would take it in a New York minute.
Until then, I will stand pat with the best HD DVR'S on the market.
I disagree with your disagree.
The OP said instead of complaining about DISH; SWITCH.
I think that is calling out anyone that has voiced their frustration with the sinking ship that is DISH. Can't see how it could be interpreted any other way.
I complained, then complained louder with my cancellation so that my DISH brothers may now get BET-Jazz HD. :up
To my DISH brethren I say, "You are welcome."
I think a lot of the 100,00 switchers were due to people not getting their locals in HD, certainly a legimate complaint. I'd say the others are people that just have to have whatever nich channel (Speed, VS, etc...). I suppose NFL and Nascar coverage is legimate, but I seriously doubt that many people actually pay for those types of services. A few switchers probably fell for the hyped HD channels that only broadcasted SD content.
I've very happy with the E* HD selection. My only complaint is that I can't get a 922 yet.
I think that in 99% of the HD households the guy drives the decision on what provider to sign with. I doubt that many woman are saying Lifetime-HD or Lifetime Movies-HD is a deal breaker. But I bet the guys that make the decision like myself found more guy HD on D*. I waited till February for Spike-HD and couldn't wait any longer. I know most users don't subscribe to premiums so D* had LOTS more HD for them than E*.
I think your assessment that us switchers were duped by advertising or are just chasing a niche channel instead of making an educated decision based on current and historic data of the two providers is your way of convincing yourself that DISH is somehow the better provider but the Directv subs just don't know it.
I am glad to see you guys getting some HD finally. Is all forgiven when they add the HD D* has had for a year? Or do you think it may happen again?
You seem to be ignoring the fact that for a long time it was Dish that had all the HD channels and directv customers went several years with nothing but promises. These things tend to go in cycles.
I have had Dish for about 10 years now. Hard to believe it has been so long. I have considered off and on over the years of leaving, but I have stayed. One thing I have learned is that Dish will always be competative. Dish *will not* have the best pricing for everyone. But, Dish will have competative pricing for most people. Dish eventually seems to keep up with channels. Dish was ahead in HD a long time, fell behind last year, but now looks to pull ahead again for a while.
Everyone watches a different mix of TV channels. You have to match the channels to the packages among the different providers and pick the best one for you. One cannot say one provider will always win, it depends on what you want as to which provider is best.
Everyone watches a different mix of TV channels. You have to match the channels to the packages among the different providers and pick the best one for you. One cannot say one provider will always win, it depends on what you want as to which provider is best.
I don't know if there is any evidence that these things tend to go in cycles since it only happened once. I like many, believed DISH was the HD leader and them saying so in their ads made me think they would do all they could to keep it that way. I could see a quick leap frog happening but D* has been on top for more than a year and even after April 1st I will have more HD with D* than E*; maybe some that sub to all the premiums can say different, dunno. I would love to see E* and D* add every available HD channel as they pop up. I was able to take advantage of awesome pricing for my full contract at D* so I most likely would have left anyway. It is funny that the HD Only packs have been the top argument for E* on the forums and it seems they won't be getting all the HD. I would be furious if that lured me into signing a contract with E*.
My Mom still has E* so I am still very interested in what happens as I may find myself there on a UFC Fight Night.
My prediction is that D* will let E* launch their HD April 1st and in less than a month they will steal the thunder back. Charlie may still be able to claim the most HD with channels like Fishing or Digging in HD but I bet D* will continue to have more non premium national HD that people have heard of. That said I hope D* never gets Lifetime or any other HD channel that give the wife beaters of the world a bad name. 
The premiums channels (in Dish's defense) probably have the most HD content with HD movies all day/night, not just select shows in prime time. Of course if you do not sub to the premiums they will do you no good.
First of all, welcome to the forum:up Hopefully you will find alot of good info here.
I have to say though, couldnt your advice be directed back at you? If you are that unhappy seeing people post complaints, do not read those threads. Most are market clearly enough as complaints.
Generally speaking people do not come to a message board such as this to say everything is fine with my sat service. They come to complain and get answers.
Not trying to be mean at all, and I hope you do not take it that way.
Again,
Actually one of the biggest reasons for switching providers is "the better deal" in today's economy. Most were what we call promo hoppers. People are looking to cut costs.
I'm sure you all have seen the posts about Dish terminating retailers for fraud. Well part of that fraud was making an existing customer a new customer because either the customer wanted all the "new toys or offer" or the retailer was just dirty and was marketing his existing customers and offering a new deal. The other part was activating a customer as new who actually had Dish within the past 2 years. These customers are actually know as "Formers" and must be set up that way. Unfortunately the promotion isn't as sweet as a new customers so the former customer would demand the new customer deal and if the retailer wouldn't do it the customer would hang up and call s another retailer and "juke" the system.
Now retailers are scared to death of any customer calling in being either existing or former and are turning away sales unless they are 100% sure that the customer is a new to Dish customer. So with less sales coming in the customer acquisition number will be negative for a while until Dish gets the fraud issues under control.
Just take a look at every past quarterly report and see exactly how many customers were signing up and how many were disconnecting. You will see what I'm talking about above.
People quickly forget that Dish had a considerable edge on HD programming for almost two years before DirecTV finally got DirecTV 10 into orbit back in late 2007. They offered dozens of HD channels at a time when D* was shutting off TNT HD on Sundays to free up bandwidth for football games. To D*'s credit, they were smart enough to make up for lost time once the bird went live by drowning everyone in advertising about their new HD capabilities. E* squandered a billion-dollar investment in getting a leg up on their primary competitor by barely telling anyone about it, and they later admitted as much.
I personally hate DirecTV- I was a loyal customer of several years until I got unfairly caught in their piracy dragnet back in 2005 for buying a smartcard programmer from a company that was also peddling illegal codes. I'm not one to support extortion and racketeering, so I took my business and that totaling about $100k in annual service fees elsewhere. I don't care if they offer 1,000,000 channels in Super Hi-Vision with feel-around for the porn stations- I'm not giving them another nickel.
I think you can find both supporters and nay-sayers for all sides without looking too hard. Some are from personal experience, while others are just fanboys with big mouths. As the old saying goes: YMMV.
I personally hate DirecTV- I was a loyal customer of several years until I got unfairly caught in their piracy dragnet back in 2005 for buying a smartcard programmer from a company that was also peddling illegal codes. I'm not one to support extortion and racketeering, so I took my business and that totaling about $100k in annual service fees elsewhere. I don't care if they offer 1,000,000 channels in Super Hi-Vision with feel-around for the porn stations- I'm not giving them another nickel.
I think you can find both supporters and nay-sayers for all sides without looking too hard. Some are from personal experience, while others are just fanboys with big mouths. As the old saying goes: YMMV.
Considering how much bigger D* is you would think they would give you so much more. Well they don't from channels to equipment. For most people they even cost more, WTF! Because of this forum I tear up my friends D* sh*t (equipment, pricing) and they all came to same conclusion if it wasn't for sports packages they wouldn't put up with it!!!
By the way welcome.
I have had dish for 8 years and am very satisfied with it. I do not have or need HD so I am not one of the subscribers who complains about lack of HD channels. It seems most complainers on here are HD subs. Yes I would love to see more SD programming but since I am not a HD subscriber Dish could careless about adding more SD programming.
I am very happy with my DISH, it is far better than our local cable provider (charter). I think the comparisons with D* are peas and carrots meaning personal preference.
pfan
pfan
I have been a Dish subscriber for over 10 years. I have looked at switching at least three times during this period, most recently last week.
My wife works for AT&T and the new u-verse cable was just turned on in our community. The biggest plus for us would be almost a 50% savings over Dish due to her employee discount on the service. However, when I looking into the u-verse and read their forums, I found many comparable features lacking including that u-verse has only one DVR per household and the current software is not yet at the level that allows recording and live tv pause and rewind from each TV. Once again, I find that I am happy with Dish and their service and features. Even though I pay more, it's worth it.
My wife works for AT&T and the new u-verse cable was just turned on in our community. The biggest plus for us would be almost a 50% savings over Dish due to her employee discount on the service. However, when I looking into the u-verse and read their forums, I found many comparable features lacking including that u-verse has only one DVR per household and the current software is not yet at the level that allows recording and live tv pause and rewind from each TV. Once again, I find that I am happy with Dish and their service and features. Even though I pay more, it's worth it.
I felt like OP did as soon as I got Dish. Why the hell do the people on this site complain so much?!?! I had just come from crappy Comcast, and that is why Dish was like a savior to me. A year later, I wish I had D* instead. Although Dish is doing a great job right now of catching up in HD channels, I still do not like a few of the things they have done over the past year.
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