Your thoughts on tonight's tech forum.

[n1wbd]

First off let me say DISH and Sling has been coming out with some great equipment this past year.

But I'd like to make a few observations or constructive criticisms if you will.

In the beginning Dish and Directv's business plan IMHO was to serve the rural parts of the US that had no cable service available. Your only option at the time for cable type programming was to get a C/Ku dish. Dish and Directv hit a home run when they started their services.

I myself started with Dish in 1998 and have been with them ever since. A simple single dish and receiver and very low cost programming is fantastic. Dish has again IMO has always beat Directv when it came to monthly costs etc.

Lately though they have started expand their product lines to include Sling Products and other products that cater to those that have Broadband Internet available to them and I don't mean Satellite Internet. I believe Satellite Internet customers especially in rural areas that have no other option area are at a disadvantage with latency and fair access policy issues which does'nt allow those customers to take full advantage of all the options such as VOD etc.

It's seems at least IMO Dish is turning away from there "core customers" and that is those of us in rural America that have no cable or dsl or even cell phone service by introducing these other accessories that depend on a broadband connection. Keep in mind all these accessories are fantastic until you lose your broadband for whatever reason and then these devices are nothing more than a doorstop that will not work.

What I'd like to see Dish do in the future is to introduce more features to their receivers (and not just their top of the line receivers) that work with all customers not just those with broadband.

Also those that do have Sling Equipment have you ran into any issues with those Cable/Broadband companies with fair access policies where the company has throttled you back because you have watch too much tv and used alot of bandwidth and or data?

What do you think?

Bob

 

[tigerfan33]

Dish bought Sling a while back. That's why you see them push their products.

I have AT&T and have no problem with my Sling.

 

[n1wbd]

Thats great and thats all well and good but there forgetting about those without ANY broadband availabilty. Yes I know there is Satellite ISP's available but I think you'll find the majority of the Sling Products won't work well if at all.

Broadband penetration in the US is approx only 60% of the country.

Dish bought Sling a while back. That's why you see them push their products.

I have AT&T and have no problem with my Sling.

 

[the mack]

move out of the sticks fellas

 

[CowboyDren]

In the beginning Dish and Directv's business plan IMHO was to serve the rural parts of the US that had no cable service available. Your only option at the time for cable type programming was to get a C/Ku dish. Dish and Directv hit a home run when they started their services.

Your Humble Opinion is wrong. Rural customers were low-hanging fruit in the mid-late 90s, partially for reasons you stated. Do you have any idea, though, how many hundreds of thousands of miles of single-customer cable TV lines there are in this country. Cable companies worked very hard in that same time period to force the FCC to make satellite dishes illegal, and they did this by running cables that went nowhere. This is a tangent, but we're both right.

Thats great and thats all well and good but there forgetting about those without ANY broadband availabilty. Yes I know there is Satellite ISP's available but I think you'll find the majority of the Sling Products won't work well if at all.

At the risk of being rude, Dish doesn't care about you, specifically. They care about broadening their revenue streams, and buying Sling was a good start. They leveraged an existing consumer product and extended it so that they could even make money from their competition. That's how you satisfy stockholders, and it has nothing to do with keeping customers happy.

Broadband penetration in the US is approx only 60% of the country.

Are you sure about that? Did you know that more than 55% of the US population lives within 50 miles of a coast line? Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf, or Lakes. Now I'm just giving you a hard time.

 

[JDGJr]

move out of the sticks fellas

hell no, i just got here... and I plan to stay.

I see the point of the OP, and i also wish Dish would work on expanding the functionality of their receivers instead of developing new add-on products. But Charlie and company are all about making money and seem to move on to new boxes as soon as some of the bugs are worked out of the current ones. Or E* develops another plugin box so they can charge me additional monthly fees to see recorded shows on other TVs.

 

[dangue]

What I'd like to see Dish do in the future is to introduce more features to their receivers (and not just their top of the line receivers) that work with all customers not just those with broadband.

Bob

I'm just curious as to what you think these features should be. The only one I can personally think of off the top of my head is MVR.

I don't have a problem with adding features that everyone can enjoy. But, at the same time, the trend in electronics is clearly towards more connectedness amongst devices. I'd think that the "non-broadband features" would have to be extremely compelling in order to convince Dish to take it's focus from the current trend.

 

[HDRoberts]

I'm just curious as to what you think these features should be. The only one I can personally think of off the top of my head is MVR.

This is my question as well. What do you think they could add? Remember, Dish is bandwidth limited in the sky, so trying to replicate some features on sat is impossible.

They did recently do one thing: satellite based remote timers. Everyone got to use that.

But remember, 81% of the population lives in cites and suburbs. If Dish wants to grow, this is where they need to expand services. Also, I'm betting all rural customers that want pay TV have Dish or Direct. There is little to no services they can offer you to expand their market in the sticks.

 

[oryan_dunn]

Dish turning away from their customers out in the sticks....

You still get TV right? There's only so much they can do with basically a one way pipe to your house.

 

[Cegarrett]

I see the New sling products that Dish/Sling have announced not only as broadband products but also as Home networking products. I believe that this is how Dish is going to end up with Multi Room Viewing and eventually with a single DVR that server the entire house.

Based off of this information I don't see that Dish is leaving you out in the cold. I think that all of this new equipment is just only useable "locally" for you due to your other lack of services and that's something that Dish can't change.

 

[whatchel1]

Why?

Thats great and thats all well and good but there forgetting about those without ANY broadband availabilty. Yes I know there is Satellite ISP's available but I think you'll find the majority of the Sling Products won't work well if at all.

Broadband penetration in the US is approx only 60% of the country.

And why is it you think that it won't work w/ sat broadband? It takes very little to send a request to E* that can be done via the lowly phone line. Then the download of the program VOD can come down at the highest rate your sat ISP can provide.

 

[n1wbd]

Well if you ck out the various sat broadband companies fair access policies I believe you'll see that one's total data allowed to be downloaded per month would'nt take much to exceed your monthly limit if you watch a lot of VOD especially 1080p movies not to mention your normal internet surfing on top of that.

And why is it you think that it won't work w/ sat broadband? It takes very little to send a request to E* that can be done via the lowly phone line. Then the download of the program VOD can come down at the highest rate your sat ISP can provide.

 

[n1wbd]

Exactly, darn I wish they had kept the Dishplayer I always thought for what it was. A great receiver/DVR/webtv box I had one for years and it ran great and was a webtv subscriber I loved the GUI they used and heck I even made my own website with it and the wireless keyboard years ago. Too bad Microsoft stopped supporting their portion of the unit. Newer models could have incorporated a choice for those that wanted to use it for accessing the net by adding a ethernet card and gave the customer a choice either to use dialup or broadband.

So what else would I like to see??? Well the older VIP 211 and 222 and 501 and 508 510 etc. could use a bit of a update on the GUI's. Think of it as throwing on a new coat of paint. I would'nt think it would be all that hard to do. Maybe improve on some of the current features the older receivers have. Think of it as like updating your OS on your computer.

All and all I am a loyal supporter of Dish since 1998 and have no plans to switch even if cable came to town here in the sticks. Cable just can't compete no matter how hard they try.

hell no, i just got here... and I plan to stay.

I see the point of the OP, and i also wish Dish would work on expanding the functionality of their receivers instead of developing new add-on products. But Charlie and company are all about making money and seem to move on to new boxes as soon as some of the bugs are worked out of the current ones. Or E* develops another plugin box so they can charge me additional monthly fees to see recorded shows on other TVs.

 

[Bob Haller]

Exactly, darn I wish they had kept the Dishplayer I always thought for what it was. A great receiver/DVR/webtv box I had one for years and it ran great and was a webtv subscriber I loved the GUI they used and heck I even made my own website with it and the wireless keyboard years ago. Too bad Microsoft stopped supporting their portion of the unit. Newer models could have incorporated a choice for those that wanted to use it for accessing the net by adding a ethernet card and gave the customer a choice either to use dialup or broadband.

So what else would I like to see??? Well the older VIP 211 and 222 and 501 and 508 510 etc. could use a bit of a update on the GUI's. Think of it as throwing on a new coat of paint. I would'nt think it would be all that hard to do. Maybe improve on some of the current features the older receivers have. Think of it as like updating your OS on your computer.

All and all I am a loyal supporter of Dish since 1998 and have no plans to switch even if cable came to town here in the sticks. Cable just can't compete no matter how hard they try.

Once MPEG4 rolls out completely ALL those old boxes will be door stops. So upgrades to guide appearance ETC is probably a waste of money and time, besides opening the door to NEW BUGS

 

[HDRoberts]

Exactly, darn I wish they had kept the Dishplayer I always thought for what it was. A great receiver/DVR/webtv box I had one for years and it ran great and was a webtv subscriber I loved the GUI they used and heck I even made my own website with it and the wireless keyboard years ago. Too bad Microsoft stopped supporting their portion of the unit. Newer models could have incorporated a choice for those that wanted to use it for accessing the net by adding a ethernet card and gave the customer a choice either to use dialup or broadband.

So what else would I like to see??? Well the older VIP 211 and 222 and 501 and 508 510 etc. could use a bit of a update on the GUI's. Think of it as throwing on a new coat of paint. I would'nt think it would be all that hard to do. Maybe improve on some of the current features the older receivers have. Think of it as like updating your OS on your computer.

All and all I am a loyal supporter of Dish since 1998 and have no plans to switch even if cable came to town here in the sticks. Cable just can't compete no matter how hard they try.

So, your hope is that they continue to upgrade MPEG2 receivers? Why? Their focus needs to be making MPEG4 receivers better so people will switch to them, making the eventual MPEG4 transition easier. I believe trying to improve an MPEG2 receiver would be like trying to improve on the VCR. No reason to improve on the obsolete technology.

And is the VIP 211/222 GUI really that different than the 622/722? It has been 3 years since I used a 211, but I remember it was similar.

 

[n1wbd]

Well if the current receivers "are'nt broke don't fix them" whether it's older MPEG2 receivers or MPEG4 receivers. Yes I agree when they breakdown replace them with newer models but don't force subs to shell out more money for something they don't need if they are happy with their current setups. If anything if Dish wants to dump MPEG2 altogether then switch them out to MPEG4 receivers for free.

Just my opinion.

So, your hope is that they continue to upgrade MPEG2 receivers? Why? Their focus needs to be making MPEG4 receivers better so people will switch to them, making the eventual MPEG4 transition easier. I believe trying to improve an MPEG2 receiver would be like trying to improve on the VCR. No reason to improve on the obsolete technology.

And is the VIP 211/222 GUI really that different than the 622/722? It has been 3 years since I used a 211, but I remember it was similar.