New DISH charge for free HD for life

[ttomni6]

I live in Hawaii and upgraded to HD several months ago. In order to have HD, we need two antennas up on the roof. I already had the larger (DISH 500) installed.

When we upgraded to HD, they installed the smaller dish.

Since the upgrade,we now have an extra $5/month charge on our bill itemized as "Premium DISH 500".

Customer service says that this is a charge to access the HD signal. I've called several times and get the same or similar story from each rep. This doesn't sound like free HD to me. Do you folks on the mainland also get the same charge?

 

[sethwell]

It is because your service requires a special dish in Hawaii. Look in the fees section of this link. http://www.dishnetwork.com/downloads/legal/DHA_Agreement.pdf

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[ttomni6]

It is because your service requires a special dish in Hawaii. Look in the fees section of this link.(see original post)
===========
Thanks. I didn't see that line before. It says - $5.00 fee for accounts receiving DISH services in Alaska & Hawaii.

It just seemed odd that I already had the 500 series dish installed and have been a DISH subscriber in Hawaii for close to 11 years (also was a subscriber in Oregon for many years). The charge did not appear on my bill until we upgraded to free HD for life.

If the charge was just for the special dish, I would think that we would have it paid off after a certain number of months. The item in the agreement indicates that it's an extra charge just to have DISH service.

I appreciate the link to the agreement because I could not find any mention of this fee anywhere on the website.

Just one note - I think DISH is the best service available to us here in Hawaii. But it's also a bit frustrating that they charge us an additional special access fee and we don't get all the HD channels that the mainland receives.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Look at it this way . You pay an extra $5.00 a month for a dish , but you get to LIVE in Hawaii year round. Sounds like a fair trade off to me. I live in Southeast Texas near all the refineries and chem plants and we get hurricanes just about every other year. I wish I could live in Hawaii, and I wouldn't mind the $5.00 fee either.

 

[Jim S.]

Wait a minute. When I had a Dish 500 plus a Dish 300 for 61.5 for HD, they didn't charge me for the extra dish. (Other than installing it, which is also stupid.) So why should people in Hawaii have to pay for it? Plus, the dish has a finite cost, but they're paying $5 per month in perpetuity? And some people think this is OK? No, it's not OK, it's an abomination.

 

[Foxbat]

I have a Dish 500 that I could send you and all I'd ask in return is the use of your place for one week a year...

Seriously, though, you should have the option of paying $50 up-front for the Dish 500 instead of getting charged $5/mo for something that the rest of us (well, not including Alaska, obviously) get included with our programming package.

 

[papalittle]

Dish charges these "fees" because they can get away with it.

 

[eurosport]

Wow. There will be people in Hawaii that have a $4,000 dish.... paid for in $5 increments! That's just nuts. It should be a one time fee.

 

[leszekm1]

Wow. There will be people in Hawaii that have a $4,000 dish.... paid for in $5 increments!.

You do realize that $4000 in $5/mo increments is over 66 years, don't you?

 

[isaacmorseMI]

You do realize that $4000 in $5/mo increments is over 66 years, don't you?

It's a joke.