Lets see ,you can now lease your receivers like a cable company with no commitment . Your locals are included in the price whether you receive them or not you still pay the price . Kind of like cable companies with locals included in your lowest package. This is a marketing gimmic so cable won't say your locals aren't included and you will pay more with satellite. But what if you don't get locals in your area , to bad ,you will still pay the price for the locals.
You now will pay more for your warrenty than before. This is higher than Directv with their warrenty only being 5.99 per account. With Dish it will go up to 6.99 for 5 receivers and 7.99 for 6 receivers. If Dish would invest in rock solid software( can you say liscense Tivo software Charlie)They wouldn't have to replace all these dvr receivers.
We now have dvr fees where there were none last year at this time. Directv only charges 4.99 per account. Dish charges 4.98 per dvr receiver. Directv gets Tivo software with season passes and name based recordings and with Dish, you get nothing more for your money than you did before. NOTHING at all except you get to pay an extra fee for it. We now have a fee if you don't connect to a phone line with the new 522 and the digital home advantage plan. I still haven't figured out the reason for that one.
THe quality of the locals are now as bad a grainey cable with compression and artifacting destroying the video quality of the picture. What is the sense in adding locals to the satellite if they are of such poor quality that they are unwatchable? Mine are pulsing with a white spidery web that covers the picture every 2 seconds . This is heavy compression.
As far as the price increase, I am now paying an extra 3.00 a month for the same thing I was getting last year with only one real channel added since last year: Reality channels and the Bingo channel which I can't see in Arkansas or Texas. Last year they added the 2 new Cinemax channels to soften the blow of the price increase. That is another thing I have had a price increase with Dish 3 years in a row now. Time Warner is only going up a dollar on their basic pack of channels . When I started AEP was like 69.99 and now it will be 77.99 /82.99 w locals. That is an 8.00 increase in 3 years. Very cable like.
The fact that they are out of the superdish even to install your locals and puting you on a waiting list. Doesn't that sound a lot like cable companies to you? A lot of needless fees and rules where there is no need. Waiting list for new receivers like the hd receivers. Poor video quality on the local networks due to analog instead of digital ,and in Dish's case poor video on locals due to heavy compression of the signal.
It is highly hypocritacal for Dish to make fun of cable when they are turning in to a satellite version of the local cable company. The more I see Dish and their cable commercials pointing out cable 's problems the more I think they are just projecting their own shortcomings. I left my cable company 7 years ago for some of these same reasons . All in all I still stand by my claim that Dish is turning into the satellite cable company. I pray that Rupert will put the pressure on Charlie and he will drop some of these extra cable like fees to compete. Part of the reason why Charlie and Dish became the largest dvr seller in the U.S. was that he had NO FEES. Now Rupert is going to upgrade all his customers to a basic dvr kind of like Dish's and No FEES. Charlie is headed down the wrong path with all these added fees and restrictive rules and high warrenties . My point is that all of Dish's advantages over cable are now evaporating. I still like Dish and hope for their success but in a time of increased competition with both cable companies and the new Directv powered by Rupert Murdoch, why would you be adding all these new cable like fees and rules? Dish is giving all of it's advantages away and if they don't change something soon ,or merge with a bigger entity they will be swallowed up by the competition.