Hi everyone
I have been reading quietly all the post in this thread without commenting because of what neljtorres said. This has been commented for over a year now and nothing has changed Charlies plan, "if he has one". I just have grown tiered of calling Dish, posting here on the forum for this reason and who knows what else I have tried. I just gave Dish a little of the medicine that dbs2000 is starting to do and that is reduce my services and make them pay with my wallet. But to be true and honest Dish is still of great value to us here on the islands. Only Liberty Cable has better service than Dish and more HD's and also offer 10mb internet service which in my area is working like a charm. What ever I don't get from Dish now I am getting through Hulu and Netflix streaming service. And yes I said Netflix streaming service, 100% working with full 10mb bandwidth with a VPN but with NO bandwidth reduction, pretty easy in fact. Hell I am even streaming Netflix in HD to two different TV's at the same time with no stops to buffer. Also got VUDU working on my PS3 in HDX, that's 1080p with 5.1 dts over my 10mb connection without buffering stoppage. This is also a good example of how different companies treat PR and USVI like if we were foreigners and not US citizens, come on stop this behavior immediately we are US Citizens by birth no more different than anyone else in the mainland. For Hulu, owned by ABC, NBC and Fox we are as part of the US as the state of Kansas is, that is right in the middle of the nation, everything is working as it should. But for Netflix we are half and half, meaning they provide mail service (great service) through USPS but leave us out when streaming is concerned. Stupid considering we are good enough to go to battle in Iraq, Afganistan and every other war were called to serve, with pride by the way, but then stupid stuff like this happens. Anyhow if anyone is interested in making netflix work just ask, I'll be more than happy to help.
Now back to the Dish issue. The reason I mention Liberty is because that is the only real Dish competitor here on the Island, the only problem is that it does not cover the hole PR territory and much less USVI. Sadly you can put all the other cable and satellite companies and put them in one bag and they would still not compete with Dish. Believe me I work in the telecommunication industry here in PR and I have had the opportunity to visit the facilities of all of these companies and they rely rely suck. Onlelink in the metro area is the worst, I rely do not even know how they manage to keep their network up and running, I have even seen plants growing in between their equipment racks, awful !!! Direct TV is not even worth the attention. At some point in time they made the bad choice of giving service to PR and USVI from their Venezuelan Sats. Now, what in the hell they were thinking it just blows my mind away, just complete lack of knowledge of what the market wants. They thought, at least in PR's case, that because we used Spanish to talk among ourselves that that meant we wanted our TV's to talk to us in Spanish. One more time, and let me make it clear, we got all the Spanish networks we want over the air, what we need is HD in English. No one is paying attention to the Spanish channels except for the news and maybe some soap operas. Sorry Direct TV wrong choice, doom to fail at some point in the future. The other company is Choice Cable which serves the southern and west part of PR, they are a good company with rely good intentions but lacks the resources to grow more rapidly. And this takes me to the last company Claro TV which has the most potential because they are rely investing in IPTV with something called FTTN (Fiber to the Neighborhood). Which will bring us 52mb of data into the home; how this bandwidth is going to be used is still being tested. But most probably will resemble UVerse from AT&T as they are using the same technology (VDSL) and CISCO iptv receivers. But and this is a big but, their is no timetable of when this is going to be available, they say that it it is being tested already on some neighborhoods, and most importantly they do not have the amount of channels that Liberty and Dish have. "Big but". Also it was a complete disaster that the FCC approved the sale of PRTC (now known as Claro) from Verizon to some strange Mexican company that has no business being here. I am ashamed that a federal agency would have let the sale of American assets to some foreign interest. Come on America if we plan on keeping on top we better be buying other people property not the other way around. This sale also put us at a disadvantage as now AT&T does not have their arch nemesis in town Verizon. Now we do not get the Motorola Xoom or any other product from the main competitor for AT&T. We are still also stuck with AT&T being the only Iphone provider. Bad, bad, bad choice PR and the FCC for approving this. Instead of boycotting Dish like dbs2000 proposed I propose boycotting this Mexican company. We want Verizon back soon.
Well politics aside, Scott this is the situation for us here on the Island of PR and as others have posted USVI have it worst than us. I have criticized Dish for the PR's situation in the past and still I am going to keep on doing it until they start respecting their costumers here and one of their 3 best sales markets. And respect does not mean giving us all that we want but it does mean giving us clear information on what is going to be done with clear time tables and no bogus comments, which only infuriate more. And importantly if you are not willing to do something about it in a reasonable amount of time, which by the way it already expired, then start giving some credit for the service not being provided. Do not expect to have happy costumers if you are clearly milking their wallets and this also includes AK and HI. But in PR's and USVI credit we do not suffer from technicalities like AK and HI because we do have access to 119,110 and 61.5 which makes them capable of providing the service, which makes it more insulting and reflect a thief like attitude. And lets not mention the tax issue stunt that Dish pulled. But at the end Dish while not being the best anymore because of Liberty Cable, it is still a great choice for the rest of the people not covered by Liberty. And to be honest Dish gives other added value like: Sling, Google TV, best DVR experience and Dish web streaming page which are the reason I still have Dish TV service over Liberty, but with the reduce service until they start proving again, with actions, that they are the best option in town. Have to protect my wallet somehow, they still would have my money if they stop screwing around with us.
Thanks for your patience once again for the long post.
