i understand that there are customers out there that are competent enough to do their own install work. And as mentioned above, if those customers call and talk to the tech support people, and know the lingo, they will probably still be able to get their own stuff activated.
But I totally see where Dish is coming from on this, I see alot of installs where the guy did it himself, or he had the kid down the street do it, that surprise me that they still work.
Perfect example.... I went on a service call last week that was a single 510 on a dish500 that the guy had bought on ebay and installed himself. He used machine screws and washers and screwed it into a metal mobile home roof. He also had the 110 going straight through a tree. He had decided to put it in that location because it was right next to his old antenna, and he just used the cable (RG59) that was already there....
He ended up having it in for about a month before he started calling dish and complaining that he "wasn't getting a picture"... they tried scheduling a service call a few times but the company that recieved the work order just kept pushing him off... so he called our company to come out...
I went out, and he tried telling me that this thing was just put in a month ago and should be covered under the warranty... i told him that this was more than a "service call" and that the whole system was going to have to be reinstalled... he was not happy at all.
moral of the story... had this guy just called and got a 510 as a new customer it would have been installed right the first time, and it actually would have been cheaper for the customer...