Here's a letter I sentto
ceo@echostar.com just now.....
To Whom It May Concern......
I have been a subscriber since May 2000. In that time I have been frustrated on numerous occasions with your firm, but I can honestly say that this is the first time I have been furious with your decisions. You've turned off Lifetime, announced price hikes, AND now announced that you will finally be adding HD channels (all but Voom available elsewhere) BUT that all of us existing customers will be out of luck as only new lease customers will be welcomed with the new "upgrade" deal. In addition, you've compressed the Voom Channels to the point that they are basically HD Lite.
I live about 50 miles away from New York City and am unable to receive OTA HD signals without putting an enormous antenna on my roof. I rely on your firm exclusively to provide me with my programming. When I switched from Cablevision in 2000, your channel offerings, audio, pricing, and picture quality were vastly superior. That gap has closed as your competitors have met or exceeded your technological capabilities. I've waited patiently for you to move into the HD era. Since that time, Cablevision now provides FIFTY HBO/Showtime/Cinemax/Starz/Movie Channel channels, HD PVRs, Fox Sports New York HD, and a host of other offerings. DirecTV has also constantly peppered me with offers to try and get me to switch. Verizon is expected to announce shortly Fios service in our area.
Through it all, I remained loyal and currently spend over $200 a month to subscribe to your service.
On various internet forums, rumors were circulating that ESPN2, NYC broadcast networks, and the additional Voom channels would be added maybe as soon as 5pm today. You've even been testing the Mpeg2 feeds of the channels for the last month, although we couldn't yet see them. Two years ago, I had the Super Bowl in HD on WCBS's HD channel provided by your firm on a 921 receiver that I paid a THOUSAND dollars for (as you would not sell it directly or as an upgrade at the time, I had to go to a retailer and pay full price). I missed the game in HD last year, and had to watch on an overly compressed standard definition channel you provided. I had high hopes that I would not have to be subjected to that again.
I think that you would agree that the 921 has been one of the worst receivers you have ever released. Every software update fixed two bugs and introduced three new ones. I would have replaced it with a 942, but I figured that it would be a lame duck receiver as it could only receive Mpeg2 broadcasts and could not be updated to receive Mpeg4 via software. Today, you proved me right.
Not only have you delayed for a month channels which we have been waiting for (and which can be seen on DirecTV and Cablevision in my area), you've willingly created a supply imbalance by adding these channels without having hardware ready to ship. I was lucky and was able to get a 921 within a month or two of its release date. I saw many of my frustrated fellow subscribers wait up to another YEAR to wait for you to produce them in quantity. Are we going to have a similar shortfall in supply to look forward to? When the Olympics start next month, will you make that Mpeg4 as well and deny it to all of us "existing" subscribers who continue to be treated like second class citizens?
I see that you will be discussing the HD upgrade on Monday's Charlie Chat. As someone who has always been a supporter of Dish Network, it pains me to say that these actions are forcing me to consider looking elsewhere for a program distributor. I implore you to provide at LEAST the ESPN2 and broadcast network feeds until the 622 is "ready for prime time" and shipping in sufficient quantities to meet demand. You've basically turned the 622 into another XBox360 at this point. The only people happy with this decision will be speculators who exploit the imbalance by selling the handful of units at a 50% to 100% markup on EBay. I understand that bandwidth constraints are forcing you to go this route, but The Super Bowl and the Olympics are right around the corner and I feel that I pay a LOT for the privilege of getting these channels in HD and I expect to get them, especially when every other distributor has them available to me has them BUT you..
Please have someone from your office contact me to let me know your upgrade plans for existing customers. I don't mind extending my commitment IF there is a reasonable trade-in value for my 921. As it has an extremely high failure rate (through faulty software coding as well as hard drive and tuner card failures) , it may even be prudent to subsidize the removal of these units from "the channel" to cut down on your CSR expenditures.
Thank you in advance for your prompt response to my concerns.
Bob Murdoch...........
(address and contact info deleted to keep the D* fanboys from laughing their asses off at me directly)
