Talk me out of leaving dish

Jonhern

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Dec 23, 2009
511
0
Rhode Island
I like dish, only a few times have we lost service because of weather, but we have had a lot of equipment problems through the 2 years with them. They have all been fixed, so other than that i like the boxes, i love my 722k, and i like the programming, we have Dish Latino Max and just added hbo again. I just don't like to pay for equipment when I still have to pay monthly as well. I got all my current equipment at no costs, 722k, actually have 3 ota tuner modules because of an ordering mistake, did not pay for any, 2 211ks w/ dvr, and a 222k I own that dish gave us because of all the issues we had with the 612. I would like to upgrade to the hopper because during the day we always have issues with one of my dads recordings coming up and my mother not able to watch something in the living room which has the 211k with dvr. Would prefer to keep the 722k but that is not an option, so its a 2 hopper system we would need. But I really don't want to pay $215 to upgrade to 2hoppers and 3 joeys plus another $30 to get sling, i am already paying dish $120 a month and I am willing to resign for 2 years. Because of this, we are out of contract snice november, I am seriously considering leaving dish for fios. We left fios becauese of the horribale STB they had, but they have new ones that I got to use at my brohters house that work very well and a new hd guide, they have 500GB which is apparently the only user accessible portion of the Hooper so its the same size, much better than the old ones which only had 160gb. We kept fios internet and phone when we left, but just got rid of the phone for magic jack. So the fios internet is going to be around $74 a month by it self, so with dish and internet we are paying $194 a month, if we upgraded to the hoppers, disregarding the upgrade cost it would be $198 a month.

We have 3 dvrs now because both 211s have ehd, my little brother really did not want to lose dvr, the multi-room on fios does not give the other boxes actual dvr functions, just viewing, so I priced out fios double play with 1 home media dvr, 2 dvr, and 2 hd boxes, with hbo, extreme hd, and the Spanish channels. And each dvr will have 2 tuners, and the other boxes will be able to watch stuff on the home media and vod. The Spanish channels were another reason we left, but they have added all the ones dish has plus some. The Spanish package and hbo are half off for a year. This pricing is for no contract with fios, which i love, the first year we will pay $165. The second year would be the same as dish at the current price, which most likely will go up, but fios has a 2 year price guarantee, it will be $195 the second year.

Plus if i spread out the upgrade cost for dish over 2 years, that is almost another $9 a month. so the first year we will save $38 a month ($456 yr), the second year at least $8 a month($96 yr). Plus we can leave any time if they lose any channels.

What we lose with fios that we watch: BBCA HD, the Spanish hd channels, which is not really a big deal since my mom and grandmother can't tell the difference, lol
What we gain that we watch or would watch: MSNBC HD, NatGeo Wild HD, Versus HD, G4, Teen nick, nicktoons, ABC Fam HD, CW HD, i think PBS HD, Planet Green HD, cooking channel, Science channel HD, Smithsonian HD, NFL network hd, the other espn channels in hd, and some others. Dish has almost all thease channels but not in our package, to get them with dish it would be about $20-30 more a month to go up to AT250 plus Spanish add on package.

The only thing really keeping me from pulling the trigger is that I have tons of stuff, movies and shows, saved up on my EHD, would hate to lose this stuff. Also going from 4 to 2 tuners on my dvr, but they have good on demand so that might take care of that.
And actually writing this out and going through the channels is making it sound even better. Plus, for about $10 more we can upgrade to 25/25 internet, we have 15/5 now. And I could sell the OTA tuners and 222k.

But i thought I would give it a shot posting this, maybe a dirt member can offer something, and at the least let whoever at dish reads this know exactly why i am leaving.
 
Enjoy your move to Fios. Let us know how the DVR works out for you.

We have a Fios forum also.

BTW are you sure Fios has the Cooking Channel? It's not on the list around here.
 
Based on your post, go to Fios with no contract and see how you like it. What is there to lose other than the EHD programming? My in-laws have Fios in Florida, it has a good picture, for a techie not a good receiver. Some of the channels you listed for Fios are not in the package they have, it's in a higher package similar to Dish, including the Cooking channel.
 
I don't blame you for leaving to save some money. Leaving cable to save some money is what brought me to Dish in the first place (Well, after a short time in between trying to live without a tv subscription and missing it too much). And one day, I'll probably leave Dish to save some money by going back to cable, or signing up for Directv. That's just the nature of the beast these days. These companies give great new customer promotional rates, and stick long-time customers with unaffordable rates, so it makes logical sense for customers to keep switching providers as often as contract expiration allow, provided they can deal with the hassle of switching.

And I'd say that fios being contract-free in your area is a good plus. If you ever feel like you can get a better somewhere else, you can move on it right away. And if fios ever gets in some stupid channel dispute where you lose one of your favorite channels, you can switch providers and get the channel back without penalty. I say go for it. Makes sense to do in your position. Maybe it'll be different in a couple years and it'll make sense to switch back to Dish. But right now fios seems to be the way to go for you.
 
If the fios is no contract. Why not drop Dish down to the welcome pack for a month and have the fios installed. If you don't like the fios setup for some reason you still have the dish setup and just have to change your package back or go ahead with a hopper upgrade.

Sent from my HTC Flyer
 
FiOS is about the only TV provider that I would ever consider leaving Dish for... MAYBE DirecTV but they don't have some of the channels that I like. So if you're lucky enough to have FiOS available, go for it, if you're not sure about leaving Dish, downgrade to the Welcome Pack or something so you don't lose EHD stuff. I do know that Dish has way better equipment than FiOS though.
 
i'll check next time I am at my brother's house, but the list we got in the mail says it does having cooking channel, but not in hd. I actually really like the cooking channel, had a free preview last year, since it actually shows cooking, lol.
 
If the fios is no contract. Why not drop Dish down to the welcome pack for a month and have the fios installed. If you don't like the fios setup for some reason you still have the dish setup and just have to change your package back or go ahead with a hopper upgrade.

Sent from my HTC Flyer
thats a good idea. I was thinking of sending everything back and keeping the 222k active before canceling to avoid the shipping costs.
 
If the fios is no contract. Why not drop Dish down to the welcome pack for a month and have the fios installed. If you don't like the fios setup for some reason you still have the dish setup and just have to change your package back or go ahead with a hopper upgrade.

Sent from my HTC Flyer

yeah, if we do sign a contrat we can get cinemax and hbo for a year or a $100 gift card (the website says $250 however) or the home media dvr free for a year. the hbo and showtime is the best deal, but they already also have an hbo half off for a year with no contract and that is the only one we want. So i think its better to just go no contract. they also have discounts for the number of boxes you get, so since we are getting one HMDVR and 2 STB, the discount makes the 2 HD STBs $7 each instead of $10 each. So they are actually incentivising you to get more boxes instead of dish who want to penalize or even prevent you from getting more than 6 tuners. The more boxes your get the more of a discount. For instance if you get a HMDVR and 6 STB they are only $5.33 each.
 
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Odd. The printout for my local Fios channels does not list the Cooking Channel.

On edit: I just checked online and the interactive list shows Cooking Channel but the PDF doesn't. The PDF doesn't even list Ultimate. CC is in both Extreme and Ultimate.
 
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I was looking into switching from DirecTV to FiOs, but I would end up paying more per month even with the new customer discounts. I would have to go up to a higher level package to get some of the channels that I like to watch that I get with my current DirecTV package, such as MLB Net. This will bring the package price just under what I am paying for DirecTV, with their new customer deals. After the first two years the package price alone goes up over what I am currently paying with DirecTV.

What really puts FiOs price over that of DirecTV is their equipment fees. When I was inquiring getting FiOs and talking to sales reps they would never mention how much more it is per month just for one HD DVR. Unlike Dish and Direct, they charge you for your primary receiver/DVR AND your additional ones. It is the primary receiver/DVR fees that end up costing me more total on my bill.
 
There is some interest in Fios as I THINK it would be cheaper as a triple play - hard to know, can't get straight answer. Also, there are some extra channels such as Fairfax County channels that are of great interest to my wife. But I think we'd lose some HD. And the best DVR does not seem to be available here. Not sure of its features anyway. I'd hate to lose EHD capability.

I've been happy with my ViP722 DVRs, and I've been rather positive on Dish. But somehow the refusal to allow two Hopper 0 Joey or 2 H/1J installs (even though we now know some are getting them) has stuck in my craw and gotten me to look around.
 
With DirecTV I pay a total of $73.75 for Choice Extra, HD Service, DVR Service, 1 HD DVR, 1 HD receiver, and HD Extra Package.

With FiOs, Extreme HD package alone is $74.99 for the first year only (then it goes up after that). Without any equipment to view the programming I am already paying more for FiOs than with DirecTV. Add a DVR for 1 TV only at I have to pay an additional $15.99. A standard HD receiver on my second TV is an extra $9.99.

To get the same channels with the same setup I would have to pay $27 more per month with FiOs. No matter how you cut it I cannot see how anyone would save money with FiOs over Dish or Direct for TV alone.

FiOs.PNG
 
There is some interest in Fios as I THINK it would be cheaper as a triple play - hard to know, can't get straight answer. Also, there are some extra channels such as Fairfax County channels that are of great interest to my wife. But I think we'd lose some HD. And the best DVR does not seem to be available here. Not sure of its features anyway. I'd hate to lose EHD capability.

I've been happy with my ViP722 DVRs, and I've been rather positive on Dish. But somehow the refusal to allow two Hopper 0 Joey or 2 H/1J installs (even though we now know some are getting them) has stuck in my craw and gotten me to look around.
That is the only way I can see people saving is if they do some bundle and compare it what they may currently be paying for an expensive internet and phone plan.

For me I pay $20 less per month with comparable internet service with TWC and my home phone is free with Ooma. So triple play would cost me even more than what I am currently paying.
 
With DirecTV I pay a total of $73.75 for Choice Extra, HD Service, DVR Service, 1 HD DVR, 1 HD receiver, and HD Extra Package.

With FiOs, Extreme HD package alone is $74.99 for the first year only (then it goes up after that). Without any equipment to view the programming I am already paying more for FiOs than with DirecTV. Add a DVR for 1 TV only at I have to pay an additional $15.99. A standard HD receiver on my second TV is an extra $9.99.

To get the same channels with the same setup I would have to pay $27 more per month with FiOs. No matter how you cut it I cannot see how anyone would save money with FiOs over Dish or Direct for TV alone.

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It helps a bit if you have HTPCs. You can use cablecards and dispense with the rather plain FIOS DVRs and their fees, plus share recordings using WMC to control everything.
 
It helps a bit if you have HTPCs. You can use cablecards and dispense with the rather plain FIOS DVRs and their fees, plus share recordings using WMC to control everything.
According to their website HTPC TVs get you only local channel access.

Even without their equipment fees, I am still paying more than I currently am with DirecTV and this is with the first year rebates. After the first year it will go up even more.
 
Only $215 to go to a 2/3 H/J. Feel lucky. They want to charge me at least $700 for the same set up. I've been with Dish for 14.5 years on auto pay and all they can tell me is that's what the computer says.

As far as fios. Make sure that their equipment will do what you want. We see a fair number of people come back to Dish saying what a mistake they made in going to fios.
 
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