Thinking of Quitting Dish, any suggestions?

[Sheff]

I live in Las Vegas, NV.

I have been trying unsuccessfully to upgrade my 811's. I decided to go with a promo to upgrade to a pair of 211's.

Last week I had an installation scheduled but the installer showed up without the correct dish. I called them back immediately to tell them to reschedule my installation this time with the correct equipment. I got a new appointment for today, Aug 3rd. I called Dish to confirm the appointment and they said that the installer closed it out and there was no appointment scheduled for today.

All in all, this is the 5th time that Dish Network installers(Linkus) failed to get the job done.

I am tired of the run around and Dish Network's inability to get the job done. I am ready to call them and cancel service and sign up with another provider.

So what are my options? I first went to Dish because I was an early adopter of Digital Cable and the cable boxes constantly crashed and rebooted while I was watching tv. Call into Cox usually led to a rude customer service rep who would blame me for the problems with the digital boxes.

For a short time, I had Voom and it worked beautifully. It's an absolute shame that it went away.

I'm thinking of going back to analog cable because I don't want to be renting cable boxes.

Is DirectTV any good? Is it worth it to switch? I'm looking for suggestions.

 

[damaged]

Short answer:

If you want HD, it is generally thought that Dish has better quality and more HD than DirecTV.

If you want sports, DirecTV is the one.

Longer version:

Both have issues regarding installs, this varies from experience to experience, so any thoughts here would tend to be subjective.

SD quality on either is also subjective and is dependant on equipment (i.e. TV size), and optical accumen of the viewer, as well as subject to individual expectations, however, it is the general consensus that Dish compresses the signals less than D* and thus has a better quality.

Package selections are different, and would be subject to viewers tastes, i.e. international programming, some prefer E* to D*, some prefer D* to E*, prices too depend on package selection.

Hardware, I do see on the forums here more hardware issues overall with Dish than with DirecTV, I myself have D* and the hardware (SD D10s) have been pretty well behaved, I can also say with confidence my D* picture beats analog cable hands down where I am, especially (SD) locals, as for DVRs, others report the Tivo based D* dvrs are good, depending on the model, with varying degrees of satisfaction, the HR20 is yet to be released.

Hope that helps.

 

[boba]

First I'd try ceo@echostar.com see if they can offer something to keep you as a customer. Secondly I'd go to D* and signup with the Sunday Ticket promotion and get 4 months of Total Choice Premier FREE.

 

[sksatellite]

As we always talk it here, go to local dealer and you get better service, you get what Dish or DTV has offer. Very simple talk is, when you buy your TV, are you going to the manufactory or your local dealer.