FIOS does not compress the broadcast/cable channel at all. It comes just as it is sent to them. Cable in a lot of areas does not compress either, but tend to have limited HD. Note, this is not the same as bluray, but it is a big step up from what DBS/Uverse and some cable does where they take the signal and compress it even more. Dish is taking a 19.2 mbit MPEG2 stream and compressing it to a 5-6mbit MPEG4 stream. Yes MPEG4 does better than the MPEG2, but not 3-4x better, things look a lot better on the original feeds.
Thank you for the information; I appreciate it. I do not think Fios is available in my area. The local cable does have limited HD and does not offer all the channels on Dish and DirecTV. Maybe that is why cable is more....I am not sure about the pricing of Fios.