Signed up in December 1998. Had a buddy that worked at Sam's Club in the electronics dept, told him I wanted to get rid of Time Warner and he told me to come on over and take a look at the new satellite retailer they had called Dish Network. Bought the 4900 for the living room and the 2700 for the bedroom tv. Still have the 4900 and it's still working like a champ in my daughter's bedroom, still have the 2700 as a backup as well, although Dish stopped updating the firmware on the old legacy receivers so it doesn't properly read the new switch that went in with the new Dish when we upgraded to HD so she doesn't get all channels but is happy that she's getting Disney and Nick so I'm not bothering to upgrade at the moment.
Ended up going with a 721 on ebay back in 2003, installed a SW64 switch myself along with the second line to the 721 which was around the time I started checking out Satelliteguys for help on the installation. I thought the 721 was the greatest thing ever at the time but it ended up rebooting once a day back in '07 and would take a good 45 minutes to reboot. Also went with a 501 in '06 on ebay for the bedroom to avoid the DVR fees (so much for that) which is still working great. Upgraded to a flat screen and HD back in '07, so went from a 712 to a 622 till the hard drive started skipping last summer on the 622. They upgraded me to a 722k to replace the 622, bought the OTA module and have a big fat Chuck E Cheese smile on my face currently when I'm recording 4 programs at a time.
Won't see myself ever going back to Time Warner.