Dish Drops HD Enabling Fee

[Scott Greczkowski]

Its nice to post some good news about Dish Network!

Just got word that as of April 7th Dish Network has dropped the $5 a month HD Enabling fee down to $0!

Customers who had ViP MPEG4 receivers but did not subscribe to HD packages had to pay this $5 a month fee to watch HD locals and HD premium channels.

Its great to see this fee go away... Now only if they got rid of the Per DVR fee...

 

[Juan]

I'm very suspicious..must be baaaad uplink news coming

 

[Character Zero]

Oh man I thought it was the Hard Drive enabling fee from the title. Hopes up.....then back down.

 

[theoak]

This would be real nice for those in a financial pinch who had to downgrade to a basic package and locals to save even a little more.

Way to go Dish!

With that being said, here's to hoping this is not the only "release" for today ...

 

[cosmo_kramer]

I'm very suspicious..must be baaaad uplink news coming

And, that would be different than any other week, how??

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Here is an email that was just sent to retailes.

Dear DISH Network® Retailer,

Great news! The $5.00 HD Enabling was reduced to $0 on April 7, 2009!
In the past, existing customers who had a ViP-series/MPEG-4 receiver and did NOT subscribe to eligible HD Programming were charged a $5.00/mo. HD Enabling Fee. As of April 7, 2009, those customers who were subject to the $5.00/mo. HD Enabling Fee can continue to enjoy HD Programming, such as local network programming and/or premium movie packages, at the reduced HD Enabling Fee of $0/mo. New customers will also benefit from the reduced HD Enabling Fee!

 

[Laddyboy]

Were they charging EA customers this fee that didn't have HD programming?

 

[RandallA]

About dang time. It used to be $7.00 and this year they changed it to $5.00.

 

[HDRoberts]

I hope this means that all customers will son be getting MPEG-4 equipment so they can start the long and slow MPEG-2 transition for SD channels.

 

[Juan]

I predict no new national HD in first uplink report today but plenty of local HD is uplinked

 

[RandallA]

I predict no new national HD in first uplink report today but plenty of local HD is uplinked

OK, Nostradamus from Russia.

 

[Sammy033]

OK, Nostradamus from Russia.

Nostradamus was right more often than he was wrong. But then again, there are many impostors so we must all beware.

 

[kb7oeb]

This is good news, I'm not hit with this fee now but it opens up options. I was ready to walk if the HD Absolute package was removed or substantially increased in price but now I would probably downgrade to premiums only.

 

[nelson61]

Enabling fees and the like contribute to customer deflections. Looks like their marketing guys are finally starting to understand what irritates customers.

 

[RandallA]

Enabling fees and the like contribute to customer deflections. Looks like their marketing guys are finally starting to understand what irritates customers.

They had become the new pig in town, hopefully this is the beginning of the removal of all those stupid fees.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Looks like someone has been reading my posts about eliminating extra made up fees. Now lets get rid of dvr fee PER receiver and make the dvr advantage cover ALL dvrs on the account, and the no phone line connection fee and you might be on par with DIRECTV. Especially since DISH can't seem to make any new hd channels appear as promised.

 

[VinceT3]

this means they are expecting to lose the tivo court battle and they are going to have to start offering mpeg4 boxes to circumvent paying tivo..

 

[dennispap]

Oh man I thought it was the Hard Drive enabling fee from the title. Hopes up.....then back down.

Same here

 

[rocatman]

this means they are expecting to lose the tivo court battle and they are going to have to start offering mpeg4 boxes to circumvent paying tivo..

It could also mean that Dish is about to start transitioning some SD programming to MPEG-4 across the board i.e., both Eastern and Western Arcs.

 

[lakebum431]

It could also mean that Dish is about to start transitioning some SD programming to MPEG-4 across the board i.e., both Eastern and Western Arcs.

The key word in your post is "start". There are a lot of MPEG 2 boxes out there that will need to be replaced first.