I've been a customer of Dish for many years and I'm considering moving to DirectTV. Dish is not holding up their end of the deal and I'm considering switching. I'd pay a little extra if it meant getting the channels I'm expecting( and pay for).

So how is DirectTV satellite? Dependable? Is it prone to contract squabbles?

Thanks for your time
9x18

We lose service during heavy rainstorms and just went without a local station for a little over a month over a contract issue.

Are you dropping Dish because they have dropped the Fox Sports networks? Just curious.

AT&T has supposedly come under scrutiny for inflating customer numbers on their DirecTV service.

From personal experience, it's not reliable in bad rain, thunderstorms, or snow. I have had the service in the past, and specifically went with a hardwired to the house type of service - i.e. coax or fiber optic.

Not just Fox sports, but I was without my local CBS channel for awhile. Now they have stopped my local Fox channel as well. I'm too remote for an OTA antennae.

They’re about like Dish. The bastards.

I'm used to losing service during heavy rain . aI feel that I'm being used as a pawn in the disputes.

Dish is gearing up to go big in the cellular phone biz and some speculate that they care less about the satellite tv service.

DirectTV will constantly increase your monthly bill. You may start with a low payment but after a couple of years you will be paying $30 to $40 additional each month. If you cancel the service they will offer quite a lower monthly bill, but the increase cycle will start all over again until your payment is ridiculous.
The channels you get on the basic plan is crap. Nothing worth watching except TCM and the news channels. You will be subsidizing all the channels that are not able to stand on their own, such as the Food channel, Jewelry channel, etc. What a crock!
Each channel should stand on its own and not be bundled. The bundling is only a subsidy for a bunch of channels that only a few liberals would watch.
As has been said: "The bastards".

You might also check out their streaming service, if you have broadband. It eliminates the need for a dish, and it's no contract.

quote:

Originally posted by 9x18:
I've been a customer of Dish for many years and I'm considering moving to DirectTV. Dish is not holding up their end of the deal and I'm considering switching. I'd pay a little extra if it meant getting the channels I'm expecting( and pay for).

So how is DirectTV satellite? Dependable? Is it prone to contract squabbles?

Thanks for your time
9x18

We had Dish for a very long time, as well.

Then, suddenly, they dropped TV Japan. It was the only reason we had their service.

Had to really scramble to find another satellite service with that channel. Unfortunately, the only choice was Direct TV.

Although we've bundled our landline and internet services with it, it's still a big chunk of money.

Every year, have to call and make sure to get all of the available promotions to try to keep the cost down as much as possible, but it's still a lot of money every month.

Every heavy rain, the signal is lost. We have an extra receiver in the bedroom that freezes the picture frequently. There's another on the lower level, but my wife hasn't yet said anything about that one, when she is using the treadmill.

The TV in the living room is on TV Japan from morning to evening, but other than the signal dropping, that one doesn't freeze.

Hoping you can find a better option. Was forced into this one, only because of the one channel needed. Knew it would be not cheap, but wow, their monthly charges escalated dramatically, almost right off the bat.

We dropped DTV after 17 years and went with YouTube TV. I won't go back. Ever.

Satellite TV is dying a very quick death. You will be better off getting a nice internet connection and paying for Youtube TV.

DirecTV is awesome. State of the art equipment and their customer service is actually pretty good. Example: My wife called about a charge she did not understand on the bill and because they felt bad (about her having to call I guess) they gave us the NFL Ticket free for a year. That is a pricey option and we are both football fans.

They may be a little more expensive than Dish but well worth it in my opinion.

My mom has DirectTV. It's down about 30% of the time and quite hard to get them to fix anything. They also call her all the time trying to sell more packages.

As others have said, look at internet based sources and consider DirectTV a last resort.

You still lose service right when you want to watch it the most, medium to heavy rain. Their billing department and customer service will make you want to pull your hair out. If you can go with streaming over the internet, I've had PSVUE (sony) for a few years now and am totally happy with it and the price which stays the same. Plus you don't have to scroll through 8000 channels on the guide, of which 7800 of them you can't watch.

We don't lose service in every rain, sometimes we do but it's usually just a few minutes and it's back.

Last year during the hurricane while it was coming up through central FL I never lost tv signal, lost power before that, then when we get some rain it will go out for a short while, it's not that bad.

Costco has a good deal on it if you are a member.

We've had Direct about 18 years now. Overall very satisfied.

Dish vs. DTV.

Two sides of the same coin. They're all crooks, charging premium prices for a shitty selection of programming. Price jacking, dropping channels, obnoxious customer service.

If you live out in the boonies, they've got you by the short and curlies and they know it.

REALLY pisses me off to pay ~ $100/month for TV and still have 50% (if not more) of every program be commercials.

I can, just barely, stream Netflix and Amazon Prime so I haven't watched generic TV in years. If it was just me, I'd drop it in a skinny minute, but Mrs. PHPaul is addicted to news channels and would shoot me.

I have Direct TV and get about 150 channels. Sounds good right? NOT! If you count up all the channels I've never watched and never will watch; like the selling channels, the God channels, the Spanish speaking channels, and news channels like CNN and MSNBC then you are down to about 25 channels 10 of which I watch regularly. For this I get to pay a huge bill monthly. It's past time to do something different, I just need to decide what, but it will not be Dish or Cable been there done that didn't like it.
Rod

If you have access to a great internet connection, you should dump it and stream online.

We had Direct TV for 2-ish years and it's just like Cable in terms that you buy a lot of shit you never watch and when it rains / storms you lose signal.

Online, you can get a month or 2 subscription to something, watch it all, then cancel - only to renew again when you want to.