Hi everyone. I'd like to get the DISH Network but am afraid to. I've heard so many bad things from my neighbors and co-workers that used to have satellite TV and have gone back to cable. Things like "you lose signal when it rains". "They lied about the pricing. I was supposed to pay $34.95 a month but when I got my bill it was almost $45 a month". "They have me under contract for two years but then they make changes to their channel lineup and now I don't have the channels I signed up for". "I don't get the local channels that they first told me I was going to get". Just about all those people I talked to about satellite TV are now back on cable. So you see why I'm afraid to "pull the trigger" and sign up. Can anyone give me some encouragement? Two years is a long time to put up with something that you don't like.
Afraid to sign up with DISH
- Thread starter Abbydo
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They complained about price and went back to CABLE? The cableco around here has more fees than Dish ever dreamed of.
Get an accurate accounting of the fees, and then decide. In fact, why not tell us how many TVs you want to serve independently, how many SD, how many HD. I assume you want DVR capability. What package are you interested in? 250? HBO? We can then make recommendations and tell you what your monthly bill will be, before any taxes.
And by the way, you came to the right place for answers!
Get an accurate accounting of the fees, and then decide. In fact, why not tell us how many TVs you want to serve independently, how many SD, how many HD. I assume you want DVR capability. What package are you interested in? 250? HBO? We can then make recommendations and tell you what your monthly bill will be, before any taxes.
And by the way, you came to the right place for answers!
You obviously need to do a LOT of homework before you can make an intelligent decision that's not based on "what you hear"...which is mostly BS. This is a good place to start....but don't come in so paranoid/negative. We'll be more inclined to help you.
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For the most part do your research before you start. Know what system capabilities you will want to have. Those people you have been talking too probably did not do their research and was not able to communicate that to the customer service reps. Some reps do a poor job of communication also. Have a good idea about what you will want to spend a month. This will have to be split between the programming cost and lease fees. Make sure you know what you will end up paying when all the incentives expire after signup. Dish is pretty good satellite company for the most part. We have all had our battles with them when equipment fails and etc. I would recommend trying to use a DIRT service rep off this web site to help you. See if you can get them to call and communicate with you, it may be better for you. Good luck!!
It doesn't sound like you are ready yet. You need to do more research on what you should expect as opposed to what others have told you about their experiences.Go through Dish's channel lineup and get some idea as to what channels are important to you, then we can begin to help you with your concerns. Thus far, I don't think you may be ready for a Hopper/Joey system and you may want to start with an older sd system or Vip series receivers. There would also be questions if Dish does not have all the local channels you want and if adding OTA to the system. You should be at least checking as to if you want/need HD or a dvr receiver.
Huh. I don't see any regular price package for $34.95. Are you looking at a promotional price for the AT150 package? Lots of folks around here have that; IMHO it's a great value. (I have AT250 myself w/Blockbustesr@home. Not such a great value.
) Another thing to think about is not just how many TVs you have total, but how many TVs you want to watch independently. All receivers but the Hopper have a home distribution port, which just puts an old analog NTSC RF signal onto a coax which could be fed to any number of TVs at no exta cost. Dish receivers come in single-tuner, dual-tuner, and tri-tuner varieties.I would highly recommend future-proofing yourself, though, with an HD DVR. If you have never experienced either a DVR or an HD TV, you are in for a treat and it's hard to go back to the old SD TV crap with wall-to-wall commercials. I sometimes vacation in Nags Head, NC, and the beach houses all seem to come with analog cable w/no DVR whatsoever. Ugh! I can't believe how many commercials are on cable TV these days; my wife and I endlessly channel surf with no on-screen guide, and no way to avoid those dratted commercials. We've gone through the cable provider's entire channel linup many times seeing nothing for commercials! Intolerable.
Also, note that when your tube TVs die (good riddance!) you won't be able to replace them with something comparably crappy.
Honestly from your post I would not get Satellite. Being afraid is not a good sign. If you view Cable as more reliable and will give you the price you are expecting just go with them. You never even mention why you would be interested in Satellite or Dish. It just seems trying to answer anything but a specific question is only going to end up "defending" Satellite or Dish. But there is a ton of information on this forum for you.
I hear the rain thing all the time and just laugh. I record over 30 hours a week every week, and tend to get 3-5 weeks behind. It might be once or twice a MONTH i see a blip in one show that says signal partially lost, and its not a long time. Yes, you may be sitting home on the weekend watching football and miss 10 mins due to a gully washer, but so is life. Ive seen cable go out as well, and after a hurricane I can watch Dish, cable is usually out a few days. For the record, I live in one of the, if not the, most rainy cities in the country.
As far as not getting what you paid for, you see that everywhere on every service. Many times it's because people did not read the terms of the discounts.
As far as not getting what you paid for, you see that everywhere on every service. Many times it's because people did not read the terms of the discounts.
Huh, so what IS the AT150 pkg - NEVER heard of that one. Maybe a link to it on the DISH website???
Well, it gets more complicated. As I understand it, part of Ohio is Eastern Arc, part is Western Arc. WA uses an older system, called MPEG-2, which allow the use of older SD receivers such as the 625 (as well as the newer receivers). EA uses MPEG-4, which puts you into the newer receivers only. What is your zip code?
Go here and you can select which package you want to see the included channels.
Go here and you can select which package you want to see the included channels.
I never notice rain fade on my Dish.
If it was that bad, directv wouldn't have almost 20million customers and dish wouldn't have 13 million
33 million people can't be wrong
If it was that bad, directv wouldn't have almost 20million customers and dish wouldn't have 13 million
33 million people can't be wrong
I would think the average rain fade would be less than 2 hours a year. never seen it last more then 10 minutes.
Hell the other day I was at my friend's house (he has cable) and some 60-80mph winds came through. His cable went out. I pulled out my phone and was able to Sling from home just fine
. His cable took two hours to be fixed.Sent from my iPad 2 using Forum Runner
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