Chuck W said:
It might be worth a try, but as someone else pointed out, the SHVERA give Directv the opportunity to offer these networks to subscriber, at their discression. It doesn't require/force them to do so. Thus if Directv wants to remove these networks from people, while it might not be popular, they can.
True, but in the letter they are not saying that it is their change in policy that is causing the loss of these stations, they are saying that the law is requiring them to drop them. In the letter they say "This law (SHVERA) has revised the rules to now say that we can only offer these feeds from your own time zone or the adjacent one", and "While this was not our decision, we feel it is our responsibility to keep customers informed."
I just got off the phone with DirecTV after receiving this letter yesterday. After getting the run around from the first CSR, I eventually got the supervisor. I pointed her to the FCC information sheet at fcc[dot]gov[slash]mb[slash]policy[slash]shvera[dot]doc (sorry the validator will not let me post links), and told her how it says I should be able to get DNS from both my time zone or a later one (question 7 paragraph 3).
After that she said well we can only get one DNS from now on, so they just choose to get us the closer one. I then pointed her to question 3 paragraph 2 that says "As an unserved household, you would be eligible to receive no more than two distant network affiliated signals per day for each TV network".
After that she put me on hold then came back and said that the information on the FCC's website was dated and that it had changed in the last month. She said I could call the FCC to get the latest information, and that would include only being able to get one DNS network. So I am going to give them a call and see what happens.
I also asked her about the SD feeds and she said they would eventually be going away as well (possibly at the same time). She also said that the price of the DNS feeds would be dropping to 1.50 per month per network, from the previous cost of 2.25.
I still have a feeling they are trying to cover this policy change by saying that the FCC made them do it. We will see.