Use your voice

[Bobby]

Well, if it make you feel any better, my local cable (Comcast) will be going up 7% at the beginning of the year. I have never seen Dish go up that much in the 7 years I've subscribed. In fact, I have seen a total of an 11% increase over the last 4 years combined. That's 2.75% annually. That's about the cost of living for the period.

 

[JimBanville]

I'm sorry, but there is NO way I'm going back to cable! Around here, even w/ "digital cable", the first 99 channels are still analog and they look like crap! I also like NOT having to watch the screaming local car dealer commercials the local cable company inserts into all the channels

 

[Neutron]

Our local cable company here has a channel dedicated to local advertising, and the majority of it is car dealer advertising.

 

[maximum]

I switched to Dish for 2 reasons:
1. Lower prices (while still getting most of the channels we like)
2. The 522 Receiver.

Since the 522 has so many problems, if they raise their rates the incentive to put up with their buggy receiver goes away . . . and so will my subscription.

 

[mammothskier]

There are 2 things which mainly keep me with Dish. Multiple DVRs per account and TNT-HD. Cox cable allows only 1 DVR per account and does not carry TNT-HD. Yes, Cox is more expensive (~10/mo, comparing to AT120, but with a few more channels worth watching), but it would be with HD-DVR, and INHD1/2 channels. These ~10/mo would go a long way to catch up with $549 for 921, and by then we would be on MPEG-4.

At least with cable I can add/remove/upgrade/downgrade receivers and programming all the time without paying any fees. Dish DHA is strange as you can't (at least without e-mails to executive offices and/or playing CSR roulette) to upgrade receivers.

Cable's analog channels are comparable to Dish overcompressed SD. Locals on Dish are much worse then cable, Discovery, CNBC, and some others are better.

I'll probably stay until NBA season is over (at the same time my free 6 month of HD pack expire) and Dish plans with HD become more clear, then decide.

 

[blackarrow]

It's just early this year when they advertised the "Feed the Pig" campaign. Right after that they increased their prices.[/QUOTE/

I had a yearly contract renewing in June. I went monthly so I could get another year's contract just before the next inevitable price increase.

I just have to ask about Neutron. Is your kitty Neutron? That was the name of a cat living in a super secret alien laboratory from a 50's scifi film "This Island Earth".

Best regards,
Charles

 

[MI_SAT]

Dish Network is only Marginally cheaper than cable.

It's worth pointing out that cable is also raising its prices in 2005. That won't necessarily negate your argument, but it's worth noting.

 

[Neutron]

I just have to ask about Neutron. Is your kitty Neutron? That was the name of a cat living in a super secret alien laboratory from a 50's scifi film "This Island Earth".

Best regards,
Charles

Nope, the cat in my avatar's name is Tink (when we first got him as a kitten we thought he was a female and named him Tinkerbell)

I got the Neutron nickname at my previous employment the engineers were amazed that someone at my age (I was 21 at the time) knew as much about computers as I did). They started calling me Jimmy Neutron so the name stuck.

 

[jabrre]

Im sticking with Echostar even with a rate hike. I havent had much problems with the 522 and even if the recording bug comes into play, my sense of humor comes into effect. I crack up sometimes when the bug does come up while watching a playback because its like watching a badly dubbed video. Okay, I know I have a weird sense of humor, but its a way not for me to take such things like technology too seriously.

The 522's video playback has been pretty good. Only a few times has a bug come up, but the whole thing is so easy to use and very reliable. Im used to DirecTivo, so the only thing I am missing from using Dish's Dishplayer 522 is actually tallying up so many Season Passes the Tivo way. However, I'm very satisfied with what I have.

 

[tds4182]

Possible E* Price Hike in Early 2005

Unfortunately, I live in a rural area and the only competition Dish will get from people like me is DirecTV, or VOOM. But your point is a strong one.

In your situation it would make sense to compare E* vs D* and go with whoever makes the best deal. I've had both, and they are both better than most (but not all) cable companies.

As a new D* customer, they would make you a pretty sweet offer and their Tivos are very stable and reliable.

Just my $.02 worth!

Good luck in whatever you decide.

 

[mike123abc]

The bundling of services is where cable comes out ahead of Dish... Here it is $15/month cheaper to get cable internet if you are a cable sub. That is quite a big discount, and makes the cable side of the equasion a lot cheaper. In many areas of the country now they are bundling in phone...

 

[Neutron]

I'll still gladly pay $24.99 a month for unlimited local and long distance plus tons of features with Vonage. It has both the cable and local phone companies beat.

 

[Stargazer]

A dollar increase is not worth worrying about, $2 is worth noticing, $3 starts to become a concern, $4-5 is enough to make some if not many people switch or reconsider their options and have a good excuse to take a good deal by a different company and cause a lot of churn.

 

[hancox]

J3ff they did it last year AFTER they ran the don't feed the pig ads, there were a bunch of "Who's the pig now" posts here when that happened.

I remember trying to get someone to "oink" on the charlie chat.

 

[JimBanville]

Cable's analog channels are comparable to Dish overcompressed SD.

Not in my town. On my 53" HDTV, you can see the compression artifacts of Dish, but with cable, you get a fuzzy picture, rolling lines and just a whole lot of general picture "noise". And this is from a direct connection from the street to a new house!

 

[mike123abc]

Not in my town. On my 53" HDTV, you can see the compression artifacts of Dish, but with cable, you get a fuzzy picture, rolling lines and just a whole lot of general picture "noise". And this is from a direct connection from the street to a new house!

Every town is different. Cable can be fixed up a lot by changing the wiring in the house to RG-6, and using high quality splitters and amplifiers. The main difference is how far it has traveled in analog state from your cable company. It is impossible to predict the quality of a cable connection since every cable company plant is different and how close the fiber comes out to your house and how many splits/amplifiers there are before the signal gets to your house. You could have poor reception at your house and someone on the other side of the neighborhood could have incredible reception...

 

[bcshields]

I don't care about the price increase. Dish has been known to try to keep prices low. As long as Comcast is in my area taking your first born son as part of payment, I'll be a Dish subscriber.

I would like to see Dish mirror their core programming at another location to minimize line of sight issues. LOL, think they make things complicated now.

 

[Stargazer]

I do not see them doing this because the number of subscribers that cannot get a signal in due to line of sight issues is fairly low. The bandwidth would be used for other purposes in which will make Dish Network a profit.

 

[JohnL]

Whine, Whine, Whine

Sure a couple of bucks increasein price doesn't even come close to the rip off price of the local TW cable franchise.

Last I checked Food, Gas, energy, School Taxes, and everything else went up every year. So everytime someone raises prices we all complain. How is a company able to maintain stable prices when the price of goods and services they have to pay go up as well as the purchase power of the dollar drops year after year.

Dish is a good value for me and offers me channels and services I can't get from the local TW cable company, like Superstations and Distant Services. I even get a huge savings on top of that over the Local ROBBING TW franchise. Standard cable service just went up by $5.50 to $49 bucks for just Analog cable.

Do you want a DVR, Digital service and HBO then say Hello to almost one BILL per month, yepper thats right $96.50 for ONE BODVR) Digital service and HBO. Wow, what a great deal I think I'll switch so I can pay $25 more per month with no Superstations or Distant Locals or 4 other channels.

John

 

[BobMurdoch]

Sigh. Here we go again. Compare E*'s price hikes to cable and D*'s and THEN complain. You can't have it both ways..... You can't roast him for going to war and shutting off channels occasionally (like Viacom last year) and ALSO roast him for passing on the price hikes that were extorted by the programmers (You didn't think Nicktoons was gonna be free forever did you?).

Personally, I don't mind the increase as long as the offerings keep pace... I'm more upset with the lack of information regarding increasing bandwidth for more HD channels. They are falling behind as we speak and will get CLOBBERED next summer if Rupert's stated intent to bring 100's of HD channels online comes to fruition.

My gut is that there will be an announcement about a deal to buy V*'s assets from Cablevision in 1Qtr '05. Cablevision's stockholders revolting, combined with E*'s desperation to keep pace will help force the deal.. They need to do this BEFORE next summer or churn will start to go through the roof, especially with the "whales" (to co opt a Vegas term) who spend $100+ a month on E*.