100% signal reliability in the future for Satellite??

[gatekeeper]

Just thinking about the advancements in technology, over the last couple of years. Alot more than ever starting to happen in the streaming live tv channels.Now with Sling it makes it even easier to get tv.
Over time Im sure more and more channels and flexible offerings will be avaliable.

Satellite tv itself still has a few problems. Rain fade,snow fade, trees etc attribute to signal lose and the cable companies still beat the same ole drum that they have 100% signal reliablity. Well actually they do right now.

Ever notice when you are watching and Hd channel for instance on your satellite and a rain storm comes up and knocks off your signal. The receiver then says switching to SD alternative.
Well one day in the foreseeable future when more and more channels become available online this could be a backup for your satellite receiver . In other words when your signal goes out it will switch to the INTERNET LIVE channel as long as your receiver is connected via the internet. This is a long time away Im sure as there are so many channels out there now. It could be however for the main cable channels that most people watch. This is an expensive thing to do right now ,but it could come a reality in the future.....

 

[Claude Greiner]

I can deffinitly see that coming. directv is doing that now with the ability to stream a live channel from the beginning

 

[navychop]

$$$

 

[ChadT41]

I just want to point out the fact that cable companies do not even have 100% reliability, so them beating that drum.... is like a fat kid making fun of someone that is also fat...

 

[Cold Irons]

Well...my Dish setup is already over 99% (*) if you are just counting signal loss; the local cable company can't even come close.

(*) I've had no more than about 8 hours total down time on Dish in any given year. Quick calculation shows that as 99.91% reliability. I really can't imagine any technology doing any better. Most cable companies would sell their soul (if they had one ) for that number.

 

[SamCdbs]

Well actually they do right now.

Really?

So when the storm comes, and the cable is cut, it still works? And the power is out at the headend or at any node or booster, it still works? It doesn't get its signals from a SATELLITE DISH, said signal traveling through the same rain, sleet and snow? There are not people in New Jersey w/o cable due to a storm 18 months ago and it didn't take cable FIVE YEARS to restore service after Katrina, while DBS was up and running FIVE SECONDS after the storms passed?

Cable, an ancient (1940s) technology has to say SOMETHING. "We are totally inferior in every way to the modern DBS systems." isn't much of a slogan. So it spews idiocy about the 99.9% false bogey man of "rain fade" and provides the "service" of allowing you to save the 4 seconds of time it would take to pay for internet and TV separately. It is all they have. Because they are INFERIOR.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Unless they change what a radio wave is and how it travels then I don't see this happening. A radio wave will always be subject to some kind of interference.

 

[Hall]

(*) I've had no more than about 8 hours total down time on Dish in any given year. Quick calculation shows that as 99.91% reliability.

You keep track of downtime ? Whatever values you record are going to be on the short side too as there can be outages that happen when you're not watching TV.

In comparison to cable, outages on satellite are probably more annoying as they make watching TV a pain (signal in and out, pixellation, etc) vs on cable where it's simply 100% OFF or OUT. Of course, outages on cable are likely to last longer too, anywhere from minutes to a couple of hours (in case it's an issue where they have to send someone out).

 

[Cold Irons]

You keep track of downtime ? Whatever values you record are going to be on the short side too as there can be outages that happen when you're not watching TV.

Not really ; just a quick summary based on # of time I've lost signal. For me (even in an area with fairly bad thunderstorms) I can count maybe 6 times in the last year, usually 20 minutes or so. My 8 hours is probably way more than I've really had.

And I know my 365*24 doesn't account for the not watching time. But the OPs claim that cable is 100% was too silly not to respond.

I've only had cable (internet only) since January 2015 when it first became available at my address; just had internet loss for over 12 hours this week (cable trucks on the street yesterday doing repairs). They're already way less reliable than my Dish signal. A satellite signal will never be 100%; but that claim that cable is better is laughable....

 

[darrengs]

After Hurricane Sandy, even though I had no power for 9 days, I still had full TV service with Dish (while my generator was running), it sure made it much easier to cope with being trapped in house due to downed trees and poles. Meanwhile there was no cable TV/internet and limited cell service, even when power did actually come back on.

 

[EarDemon]

Really?

So when the storm comes, and the cable is cut, it still works? And the power is out at the headend or at any node or booster, it still works? It doesn't get its signals from a SATELLITE DISH, said signal traveling through the same rain, sleet and snow? There are not people in New Jersey w/o cable due to a storm 18 months ago and it didn't take cable FIVE YEARS to restore service after Katrina, while DBS was up and running FIVE SECONDS after the storms passed?

Cable, an ancient (1940s) technology has to say SOMETHING. "We are totally inferior in every way to the modern DBS systems." isn't much of a slogan. So it spews idiocy about the 99.9% false bogey man of "rain fade" and provides the "service" of allowing you to save the 4 seconds of time it would take to pay for internet and TV separately. It is all they have. Because they are INFERIOR.

As a long term subscriber with top tier equipment from DirecTV and TWC cable I could not disagree more. This past November when my area got pounded with snow,70-90” depending on the town, in a three day span, I lost both my cable and satellite services. DirecTV was the first to go, the snow started falling Monday into Tuesday night at the rate of about 4 or 5 inches and hour, by mid Tuesday my satellite dishes were completely covered, by Wednesday morning both my SL5 and WorldDirect dishes completely collapsed from the weight of the snow. I still had cable until Thursday afternoon, when a snow plow came by and the weight of the snow, combined with the force of if from the plow completely tore apart my cable connection at the utility pole.

The difference is I called TWC and they were out the following day, Friday Nov 21, they were able to just barely make it down my street, and run a new line of RG11 from the pole to my garage. The earliest could get DirecTV out here was the following Saturday, Nov 29. DirecTV charged me $50 for the pleasure of having them come out, as per usual no cost with TWC.

The idiotic anti cable argument of ‘cable gets their signal from satellite’ was never valid and is now even less valid. My cable signal originates at the TWC NOC in Syracuse, NY where channels are received by mostly a combination of fiber and IP and then distributed to regional headends, and then are passed to local headends. Picture quality is on par with DirecTV. Some channels look better on DirecTV, some on Time Warner. The Difference isn’t enough from me to care. Time Warner has better On Demand, had many many more HD channels, but now DirecTV is catching up. There’s nothing 1940s about my upwards of 200 full time channels of HD content, and eventually 300Mb+ broadband.

Besides out of market sports, I cannot think of a single other thing where DirecTV beats TWC.

 

[ChadT41]

As a long term subscriber with top tier equipment from DirecTV and TWC cable I could not disagree more. This past November when my area got pounded with snow,70-90” depending on the town, in a three day span, I lost both my cable and satellite services. DirecTV was the first to go, the snow started falling Monday into Tuesday night at the rate of about 4 or 5 inches and hour, by mid Tuesday my satellite dishes were completely covered, by Wednesday morning both my SL5 and WorldDirect dishes completely collapsed from the weight of the snow. I still had cable until Thursday afternoon, when a snow plow came by and the weight of the snow, combined with the force of if from the plow completely tore apart my cable connection at the utility pole.

The difference is I called TWC and they were out the following day, Friday Nov 21, they were able to just barely make it down my street, and run a new line of RG11 from the pole to my garage. The earliest could get DirecTV out here was the following Saturday, Nov 29. DirecTV charged me $50 for the pleasure of having them come out, as per usual no cost with TWC.

The idiotic anti cable argument of ‘cable gets their signal from satellite’ was never valid and is now even less valid. My cable signal originates at the TWC NOC in Syracuse, NY where channels are received by mostly a combination of fiber and IP and then distributed to regional headends, and then are passed to local headends. Picture quality is on par with DirecTV. Some channels look better on DirecTV, some on Time Warner. The Difference isn’t enough from me to care. Time Warner has better On Demand, had many many more HD channels, but now DirecTV is catching up. There’s nothing 1940s about my upwards of 200 full time channels of HD content, and eventually 300Mb+ broadband.

Besides out of market sports, I cannot think of a single other thing where DirecTV beats TWC.

I'm going to purposely ignore the rest of the argument, but both Dish and DTV receivers are far far far superior to any cable providers receiver.

 

[EarDemon]

I'm going to purposely ignore the rest of the argument, but both Dish and DTV receivers are far far far superior to any cable providers receiver.

I assumed you used every cable DVR?

Please tell me in what way they are superior. Because I am not a fan of either the HR24 or HR34 receivers on DirecTV that I currently use and I was less then impressed with the 622 and 722 DVRs on Dish.

 

[ChadT41]

I have used Cox, Comcast and TWC and yes, the production lines of satellite equipment is far superior than the cables equivalents. Want proof? Check CES with Dish Hopper and other equipment being constantly rated best in the business. They are not the only ones. Almost every single consumer electronics magazine constantly rates satellite equipment over cable equipment.

 

[barleyguy]

I'm going to purposely ignore the rest of the argument, but both Dish and DTV receivers are far far far superior to any cable providers receiver.

I can't argue generalizations. Some receivers are excellent, others aren't so excellent. The Dish 622 for example, was a piece of crap. It had the HDMI port soldered to the top of the motherboard, it was released before the software was done, and the HDCP wasn't compatible with all TVs.

To their credit, they fixed most or all of the problems and then released the 722.

But there are obviously some pretty bad cable boxes as well, and often cable is supported by smaller organizations that don't know how to solve the problems with their boxes.

So again, generalizations are bad. In order to have a useful discussion about which is "better", you'd have to be comparing a single product to a single product.

 

[Hall]

Want proof? Check CES with Dish Hopper and other equipment being constantly rated best in the business. They are not the only ones. Almost every single consumer electronics magazine constantly rates satellite equipment over cable equipment.

I've never seen a review of cable set-tops or DVRs. The reason is probably because of non-standardization across cablecos, of course.

At CES, it was competing against mobile phones and other devices...

 

[EarDemon]

I don't think I could ever bring myself to care who wins what type of award.

Admittedly, I have no first hand experience with the Hopper, since well almost no one in my corner of the world has Dish, and there is really only one Dish retailer left in the area that I could visit to play with one. But from seeing demos online and reading about it, I don't think it's all that spectacular. Most of the fluff features I have no use for. So that's why I was mainly referencing my DirecTV equipment, since I use it day in and day out. My cable equipment has been generally more of a pleasure to use.

 

[Hall]

I only have experience with Time Warner DVRs and DirecTV. I don't even know what models the receivers were. The TW was horrible. DirecTV's was quite a bit better. I also realize it's not fair to compare to the Hopper since I'm so familiar and "used to".

 

[TNGTony]

Satellite tv itself still has a few problems. Rain fade,snow fade, trees etc attribute to signal lose and the cable companies still beat the same ole drum that they have 100% signal reliablity. Well actually they do right now.

I know others have taken issue with this statement, and I will as well. The last major rain fade event I had was accompanied by a 30 minute power outage. When the power came back, cable didn't. It was out for 12 hours. Satellite was back up the moment the receiver rebooted. Before that we had a wind storm. No rain fade at all, but we did have some power glitches, that, thanks to my UPS did not affect the satellite receiver at all. Cable went our for 7 hours. These two events are from the last 45 days.

Back in 2009, Hurricane Ike hit OHIO! It knocked power out for 3 days. Cable (and internet) was out for 5 days. With a battery, I was able to watch satellite TV, ironically enough, to get local channels.

Cable is also not immune from rain fade. Recently I was watching an event on a network channel and signal was lost due to heavy downpours at the source of the live event. The interruption lasted 10 minutes.

So no. Cable is far from 100% reliability. I would argue they are LESS reliable than satellite so far this year!

To your point about switching from HD to SD to Internet, that is a different story. It sounds good on paper, but in my experience, when I lose satellite long enough to worry about it, cable/internet is down for longer!

 

[TNGTony]

Unless they change what a radio wave is and how it travels then I don't see this happening. A radio wave will always be subject to some kind of interference.

Especially a radio wave at the frequency DBS has to use! The wave length is nearly perfect to be absorbed by water molecules!