December 18th Dish Retailer Chat Recap

[nelson61]

They must have hired their new marketing team from Ford, GM, or Chrysler.

[OV_HDFan]

I am fine with that, except there are no new HD channels yet!!! At least throw us a bone and tell us *something* concrete is coming and not just a screen with seemingly random channel logos, saying "maybe these can be yours..."

Concrete is what your dish pole, home foundation, your feet as a E* customer are set in. E* currently have two new satellites floating in space not broadcasting to us the customer. One they have control of one they don't. The only words E* knows are SOON and Nominal. Hopefully we will know more once they start broadcasting from Ceil II. Which that should be SOON and then we will get more HD for Nominal price increase.

[maxmoto]

So I get a new "Enhanced HD Duo" sticker like my "TurboHD" sticker to go over the 722 on the front of the reciever?

[Jim S.]

Note that starting on February 1st on your first dual tuner receiver there is no additional $5 a month fee if the box is not hooked up to a phone line or broadband

I don't know which is more amazing at this point: the fact that they actually fixed this bit of idiocy, or the fact that it took them so many years to fix something that never should have been in the first place.

But with so many changes being made to the billing system at once, I think we need a lottery pool on how many complaints we get that someone's records did NOT get updated properly.

[CubsWin]

Pushing up prices before delivering anything is a bad idea

Don't worry... If it makes you feel any better, I'm sure we'll have to pay another increase after they deliver.

[dmendenjr]

The renaming of the old packages doesn't sound that bad (at least it will be easier to correlate the HD only and the SD packages), but I have to agree some more concrete teasing of what is coming would help to reduce a little of the tension. Or maybe they will wait til the new year to start teasing (and giving a little HD persuasion to the HD abs subs to come over to the turbo side)

But one thing I saw that I did like was removing the phone line fee. Not wanting to drill more holes in my floor the Ethernet cable is a trip wire between the kitchen and living room, so that can go away!

[RandallA]

I wouldn't say its fair until we know what we are getting. 5 channels? 10 channels? 1 channel? More locals? A split of another channel (how great would it be if they split that eco channel into 2 channels? Since there are only two shows on it, we would have a dedicated 'Emeril Green' channel and that weird 'Tommy Lee vs. Ludacris' environment saving channel...)?

That is what I mean by concrete... Pushing up prices before delivering anything is a bad idea... Then having the audacity to tell us that it is to increase their margin? What about my margin? I am lucky enough to be able to afford it, but it still sucks...

Just giving my opinion. But you're right, it will be fair until we find out what new HD channels will launch.

[HailScroob]

I love how they say South Bend/Elkhart now has HD Locals available: we actually got only one (NBC).

[philiphotog]

Er, yes. The package name changes are certainly there to confuse old and new customers. All part of a marketing blitz meant to confuse-many companies do this when there are rate hikes. Oh well, not much we can do.
I'm actually very happy with the amount of HD channels, the rest are 'B' rated as far as I'm concerned. However, with the rate increases, I'm looking forward to seeing a few more HD channels come Feb 09.

[skierrob]

Of course, I'm still wondering what happens to my Dish HD Advantage $29.99 package come February 1. Will I get no price increase, a price increase, or told that I need to choose a "Turbo HD" Package and have to pay LOTS more $$$?