I haven't posted a lot on this forum, I mostly lurk. But, I figured I should add my 2 cents about this, as it greatly affected me.
I have been with Dish for 7 years. Really liked them! But, dropping Fox Sports was a deal breaker for me. A lot of you have said that Dish didn't lose many subscribers, and I just can't believe that this is true. Certainly, they didn't lose a million customers, but I am certain they lost many, and I was one of them. I really like Dish and I didn't want to leave. Frankly, a small part of me even admired Dish for standing up to Fox, as I really dislike Newscorp and Fox News. However, when it came down to it, I wanted to watch my local team. I don't really care what the dispute is over or who carries it. I just wanted my sports!
There is no doubt, for the average consumer, Dish Network is the cheapest cable option. They certainly seem to be for me. When they dropped FSN, I looked at cable, FIOS, and DirecTV. All were definitely more expensive considering I could get two TVs with Dish from one free receiver and only a $6 DVR fee.
However, the closest in price was FIOS. Actually, they were the most expensive, but if you bundled it with internet (which I was already getting from FIOS), the price was very reasonable. It certainly made me annoyed that cable and FIOS don't have up-front pricing. I really have no idea what I am going to pay in two years, but I did get several assurances that if I called in as an existing customer after two years that they would be willing to put me back on a better bundle deal after my rates went up. So, it appears that their business model is to jack your rates up after two years and see who doesn't notice or doesn't really care. Annoying....but I suppose a phone call every two years isn't the end of the world. Plus, I really liked that FIOS had no commitment, and they offer price guarantees for two years. Pretty sweet....especially if they try to do something ridiculous like drop FSN!
The next roadblock was their DVR. It looks awful. Only about 20 hrs of HD recording time and the fees were $30 for a Two-Room DVR with sharing ($20 for the first box, $10 for the second box). Luckily, cable cards exist!
So, I found the Moxi, and I love it! Three tuners is SO much better than two. I always had issues watching what I wanted to with Dish. No problem with Moxi with an extra tuner. And I love the menus, which I really didn't think I was going to like. The Moxi is definitely the best DVR I have ever used (and I have used many --> Tivo, ReplayTV, and Dish 622). I also REALLY love how they handle conflicts and the fact that tuners weren't reserved for particular TVs. I hated that about the 622! With the Moxi, if I want to watch TV, and all three tuners are in use, it asks me which of the three I'd like to stop recording with. Easy! With the 622, if I had a tuner recording, even if the other tuner was free, I often couldn't watch TV because the 622 reserves a tuner for each of the two TVs.
As for the quality, the picture seems to be much better than it was with Dish Network, especially on SD channels. And I really enjoy having HD on my second TV instead of SD, which is a limitation of the 622 and 722.
Overall, I am very happy. My bill is a little less, but I highly doubt that makes up for the fact that I had to buy the Moxi. Maybe in 5 years or so.
Dish Network is the cheapest, and I really did enjoy having them, but what was I supposed to do without my sports? I'm glad they finally got them back, but switching is a pain, so I'm going to stick it out. I'm pretty darn happy with the combination of Moxi and FIOS.
Just my story and my 2 cents. I think many customers are like me. We don't really care whether its Dish or Fox's fault. We just want our sports!
By the way, it does seem to me that the government needs to step in and regulate somehow to prevent carriers from dropping channels in a dispute. It's the customers who really get hurt.
What a convoluted system we have where customers never really see what each channel costs.
