CONFIRMED(?)- Dish Discontinuing Absolute HD Package

well here's the thing DK, i too was in a grandfathered package with D*. so 3 months ago they offered 3 months free of the HD extra pack. i went to remove it a few days ago and guess what buddy? D told me if i wanted to remove the HD extra pack i had to upgrade to the newer programming packages........ So i agreed. They gave me no choice and was surprised that they would've tricked me this way to force me to upgrade to the newer packages. what is helping me is that they did give me free HD for 24 months. so it evened out for now. if not for that i would be paying about $10 more a month :(. its not only dish with this BS. :)

Did you do this online or over the phone?
 
...snip...

Our biggest problem is trying to replace the channels we do want with a reasonably priced package. I watch VS a lot during the college football season but I'm not subscribing to the top package just for it. I'm sure others will be in the same boat since our current channels are spread all over the other packages.


Its kind of obvious that they spread the channels around such that you'd have to go with the big package to get some of the channels.

My content cost will go from $29 to $75 for basically 7 of the 8 channels that I actually watch that aren't locals. That's an extra $552 per year.

I suspect that most of us will stick with Dish till the discounts run out then hop over to Direct TV.
 
Just wait till they have a line amp go in your area. You'll find out how much fun having cable can be. At least if I lose cable I only lose the net & still have TV programming. BTW I've never out an outage on E* that lasted past the storm going thru. And yes where I live does get snow. In fact they had a 18" this winter ( A really bad one for here (it was that much at one time) but several inches several times. Enuff of this off topic though.

No biggie, I stil have a copper phone line for business, that will get me on the net:) on dial up:(

I have that OTA dish pal dvr as a back up to cant mss shows, it runs in the background here on a antenna....

as i have said before i like redundancy, 2 vehicles, 2 washers, 2 dryers, etc...
 
They're more than 2 that got the call.


plus someone who activated a receiver and lost the package plus scott has confirmed it.

they must not care about losing subs even after the 19,000 loss or they wouldnt pull stuff like this..

the beancounters moto profit at any cost.
 
going with mediacom as of next Tuesday.. gonna have to buy out my dish contract as I now live in an apartment where dish is impossible to get.

Still, deal is pretty good... family cable and internet for 29.95 each for a year with a free HD box thrown in for HD access... normally those boxes run 10 bucks a month. after year one, it only goes up 20 bucks a month to 79.95 for both services. Not bad considering I was paying 55 for the internet alone, and another 60 for dish basically the last year.

They gave this deal to me even though I was an existing customer.. one of the sales guys out of Iowa happened to call as I was moving.. they must get commission from giving out deals even if it's not cost effective for them because I would have gladly kept just the internet alone for the 55 bucks but now I get internet and HDTV for 5 bucks more. They did get to lock me into a 2 year contract though so they are getting insurance that I'll stay a customer and they're getting a little more money out of me the second year, but still what I would deem to be a reasonable price.. not like the normal rates of 61 dollars alone for the cable, and 45 for the internet, with 10 for the HD box.. similar to regular prices of directv, no way would I pay that with just me and no wife or kids with one TV.
 
28 pages and it still doesn't add up, only 2 people have got this call, no timetable?

There are only 2 that reported it. Do you believe everyone that has the package is on this forum? We may have been the first they got through too. I saw one post on another forum where they got an e-mail because Dish didn't have their phone number.

Whatever, I posted because it is a fact and wanted to give a heads-up to anyone that has the package which are the only ones I care about. The 20 pages cluttering the thread from those that want to bitch about Dish or have nothing better to do are irrelevant. It wasn't intended as a complaint about Dish since we knew the deal would eventually have to go and we had a great ride for over 2 years. It if doesn't affect you, get a life and move on.
 
going with mediacom as of next Tuesday.. gonna have to buy out my dish contract as I now live in an apartment where dish is impossible to get.

Still, deal is pretty good... family cable and internet for 29.95 each for a year with a free HD box thrown in for HD access... normally those boxes run 10 bucks a month. after year one, it only goes up 20 bucks a month to 79.95 for both services. Not bad considering I was paying 55 for the internet alone, and another 60 for dish basically the last year.

They gave this deal to me even though I was an existing customer.. one of the sales guys out of Iowa happened to call as I was moving.. they must get commission from giving out deals even if it's not cost effective for them because I would have gladly kept just the internet alone for the 55 bucks but now I get internet and HDTV for 5 bucks more. They did get to lock me into a 2 year contract though so they are getting insurance that I'll stay a customer and they're getting a little more money out of me the second year, but still what I would deem to be a reasonable price.. not like the normal rates of 61 dollars alone for the cable, and 45 for the internet, with 10 for the HD box.. similar to regular prices of directv, no way would I pay that with just me and no wife or kids with one TV.

your a example of Es flawed business model, they have lost near all phone partners, and the bundling discounts are going to bleed E in red ink from sub losses.

E doesnt appear to play nice with anyone, and whenever everyone is the problem the problem isnt everyone:(

Perhaps the bean counters infected the phone bundling negoiations?


no doubt the revenue from E selling bundles isnt as good as regular sales, but its better than nothing which is what E will get without the partners
 
There are only 2 that reported it. Do you believe everyone that has the package is on this forum? We may have been the first they got through too. I saw one post on another forum where they got an e-mail because Dish didn't have their phone number.

Whatever, I posted because it is a fact and wanted to give a heads-up to anyone that has the package which are the only ones I care about. The 20 pages cluttering the thread from those that want to bitch about Dish or have nothing better to do are irrelevant. It wasn't intended as a complaint about Dish since we knew the deal would eventually have to go and we had a great ride for over 2 years. It if doesn't affect you, get a life and move on.

this is similiar to the early leaks about fee increases that were dissed as impossible or unlikely.

in any case we now know any grandfathered package is at risk...

perhaps family will be next its low revenue.........
 
lsilvest,

I was going to rip Bob a new one but went back and scan quite a few pages.

It does appear that you and I are the only ones so far on this forum that got the call.

Maybe it registered with the powers that be that more than doubling charges won't fly. If absolute subscribers don't bail on them immediately, they will once the discounts expire.

We'll know more in a few days.
 
Why not just put a poll up and see how many people have lost their service to this change.

I tried , but couldn't get the poll to work.
 
One option for us Hd Absolute subs would be for Dish to create an HD Absolute+ package that includes the same programming as it does now, but adds in the SD channels.
It already does (except for a couple random channels) or those that have NO equivalent SD channel.
 
Top 120 HD Free with one receiver is 39.99 a month with locals. My one receiver is a 722K with OTA module. It feeds both my HDTV's. The only channel I am lacking is Bravo (I like Top Chef)... But, they put them in HD on Dish on Demand a week later, so that's cool.

I doubt many, if any of you will actually cancel. About the only person I believe will follow through would be Digi, and if they offer him a good deal, I would imagine he will stick around for 12 more months too.
 
Maybe it registered with the powers that be that more than doubling charges won't fly.
First, I have Absolute HD. Second, I don't think Dish has much option here... The providers seemingly are forcing this issue on them. If Dish balks, it's not just Absolute subscribers will lose various channels, DISH WILL LOSE THE CHANNELS.
If absolute subscribers don't bail on them immediately, they will once the discounts expire.
Based on what I've read so far, my tentative plan, if it comes to it, is to take advantage of any good deal they offer. When that expires, I will find the best deal for me. I left Dish years ago when the only HD-DVR option was the 921 and it cost $1000. Went to TW, who gave me a helluva deal for 2 years for "leaving" satellite. 23 months into my TW deal, I came back to Dish because of the "returning DHA customer" deal I got.
 
The only problem with switching from Dish is that regardless of who I go to, I lose channels in HD that I really like. And in the case of Mediacomm, SD PQ is crap! And with cable, the DVR isn't anything to write home to mother about either, somewhat offset by having VOD that is really sweet.

The upside, is every switch saves some money.

I think that when all the dust settles over Absolute, that most will evaluate the choices and most likely stick with Dish. Sometimes it is better with the devil you know!
 
And in the case of Mediacomm, SD PQ is crap!
In the case of Time Warner, at least last time I saw it, their HD is horrid too.
And with cable, the DVR isn't anything to write home to mother about either, somewhat offset by having VOD that is really sweet.
That's one thing that worries me... I went through numerous DVRs with Time Warner. It was no big deal disconnecting it, taking it to office 10 min away, tell them it died and I need a replacement, but we still lost recordings.
 

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