Do I REALLY need to lease the receivers???

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actually, most cable companies will charge you anywhere between 15 and twenty-five dollars a month to ``lease'' their box. first, you have to pay the monthly cost for a digital box. then, you have to pay either an SD DVR box fee or HD DVR box feel. over the course, of a directv two-year lease, you pay the cable company more money.

That much? I have HD cable (no DVR) and I pay $7.95 a month for a box. DVR is $4.95 on top of that if I added it, so that comes out to $12.90 per month per HD DVR.

If I had a cable card it would be $4.95 a month. I'm thinking about it, as I really don't use VOD much at all.
 
Sorry you MIGHT, but I DON'T think so.

Care to provide any numbers to back that up? Here are mine:

Insight Cable: $85/mo with no startup costs for roughly the same number of SD channels, 12 HD channels, and only one HDDVR

DirecTV: $70/mo with $200 startup, 50+ HD channels and two HDDVR's (got the second for free 5 months in)

So I get way more with DirecTV and the savings make up for the upfront costs in 13 months. After that I'm saving money....

If I had another HDDVR with Insight my bill would have been at least $95/mo, so even if I had to pay $200 for my second one with DirecTV I would still be coming out way ahead.
 
With cable there is no $99 or $299 lease fee upfront, you simply call the cable company and they deliver the device to you, and charge you a lease fee of $3.99 on average. So if the technology changes you can simply exchange it. Unless you have money to burn and it is no issue.

3.99 ? i dont know where you live but the average monthly price here in phila/s jersey area is about 15 bucks for a high def dvr. which is what i own so thats what im comparing to
 
Ok guys...here's the deal. Forget about leasing the receivers...this is self-install oriented only. I forgot that the 1st receiver would be covered in the main fee, and I wasn't looking for any DVR capabilities. (BTW...I didn't expect the thread to go this far by any means!)

As most others on here, I am a FTA guy as well (Legit FTA...no hack). :up

However, after the stories of Dave in the early 2000's suing ANYONE who purchased a card reader, I am extra conspiracy-minded.

That said, that is my reason for wanting to do the install myself. For all I know, installers must report back to D* any sort of FTA setup they may see....legit or not. I do NOT want to have to take my stuff down, just to have someone come in and install something I can easily do myself. I know I'm being a bit paranoid here, but based on previous actions of Dave, the RIAA, MPAA, etc; I feel justified to have some privacy concerns. (I'd like to stay off Dave's lists! :p )

I have read (maybe on this forum) that E* has instructed their installers to alert them if they run across a customer with a Disecq switch.

What do you all think?

I have spoken with D* Customer service about this (not FTA, but self-installs). I literally said to the guy: "This is a win-win situation for you guys. I do the work, then you don't have to pay installers/sub-contractors, and then I pay YOU with my subscription. This is free money!"

Of course they WOULD allow it, but even though I would be a new customer, I wouldn't get any of the current promotional pricing....that is what has kept me from doing anything.

I can understand their feelings on having professionals do this, but all I am missing is whatever license/certification they currently require their techs to have. I used to install D* in the 1990's... I used to carry a home improvement license....I am a network engineer, certified by both Microsoft and Cisco. (I realize this may not mean much to them, seeing as though they really don't care, and may or may not even believe me.) But the fact remains that I could do the job just as well as 95% of their contractors.

However, when they push this hard for sending out PAID installers, it gives credence to those that say that part of the installer's job is to sell you extra service(s). (Service that you clearly didn't want to sign up for on the phone, because if they started that "hard-sell" bullsh*t, they'd be stuck listening to a dial-tone.)

Sorry guys...I went on a rant there...it's over now :)
 
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