Obviously, a personal call - your worth is not my worth ... But, I was in the same spot back in October. I was with my local cable company for many years. Then they had some box/HD quality/customer service/outage issues. After attempting to work all that out, I decided that it was time to look at the alternatives. The funny thing was it was those Beyonce commercials (over and over and over) that got my research started with D*. But, since I'm a comparison/numbers type, I created a "total cost of ownership" over a two year period - to factor in those great introductory offers - (and in my case) - Dish won in the cost category over my cable by about $10 per month, and a few more dollars over D*. With the Feb. price increases, it is a much closer call. However, after being a customer for 3 months now, here are some other factors that I put in the "is it worth it?" category for me - on top of a few bucks a month:
- Not one interruption of service since 12/11. I was re-booting my cable box weekly - and it was taking about 10 minutes - that (to me) is an outage.
- Better equipment - the 722 allows for DVR sharing to a second TV - less contention for the main tv so each family member could watch their recordings easier. Larger hard drive.
- HD Reliabilty - My cable co was having issues as they added HD and nothing was more annoying than putting on ESPN HD only to have a black screen. Of course, if I called, it was "did you reboot the box?". The HD channel(s) that would not come on - it varied week to week.
So, for me it was also ending the growing frustration with my cable service. That was so worth it. I do miss those dancing blips on the box as it was booting yet again (NOT!)
Saving money, better quality, and reliable ... Looking back I wonder what took me so long.
your actual mileage may vary ...
Bill