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

Yea, that is my situation here. My internet is pretty slow but better than the .5mbps I was getting. Usually 5Mbps, so I can Roku with only a little pause to load /reload.

I once had a motorized antennae on a 50 ft. mast and could see one station. So no OTA stuff.

Looks like Youtube TV needs about 7-12 Mbps for
reliable service.

I've not been unhappy with Dish up until this latest round of contract squabbles. Satellite TV for the truly remote is a great thing, in theory.

I long for the day when you can pick and choose stations a la carte. Add them up and pay for what you want and nothing else. No shopping channels , no 30 stations in Spanish, just stations you really want , Add in a base service charge and , Viola, TV as you want it.
Not going to happen though.

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'm calling Dish today to ask for a price reduction and see where that takes me.

You’ll just get abused and overcharged by a different set of assholes.

quote:

Originally posted by Leemur:
You’ll just get abused and overcharged by a different set of assholes.

Hah. What I said, condensed and eloquently stated.

We’re early adopters of DTV, subscribers for 20 years now, because of the rural locations where we’ve lived. Really the only outage issues I’ve ever experienced are from wet snowstorms that stick to the dish. If the dish is located on the roof, that’s a PIA, but it’s on the side of the house here—maybe once in the last 4 years. Sorry for those experiencing “30% outage,” can’t imagine that. I also can’t imagine another service. BTW, they have also taken care of us with respect to local channels—and I mean “local,” not Denver.

Just about all my programs are recorded on the DVR with Direct TV. I can't stand commercials and if the channels I recorded have commercials I fast forward thru them. If there are heavy overcast showers that interrupt programming I will switch to the DVR and watch without any interruption of the programming using the prerecorded shows while the heavy showers are blocking the signal temporarily.

Had DirecTV for about 9 years and got rid of them. What a bunch of lying bill raising turds. Outdated equipment and people that could give two shits about you. They were not bad until AT&T bought them out. Then everything went to hell.

We switched to Dish. Much better equipment and deal so far. Nice thing about Dish here is that they have a store. You can actually go I and talk to them face to face w/o the hour hold of phone shuffle.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
They’re about like Dish. The bastards.

^^This.

RMD

I always have a great signal with DTV, but they have problems.

Problem one was they moved our local TV stations from the Portland, OR networks (about three hours west of where I live, but at least it was Oregon news so I saw what was coming up in the ballot box) to the Tri-Cities, WA stations that don't have much if any news about Oregon even though they are only an hour to our north.

Problem two is they got in a pissing match with some of our local network providers and now they have blacked out our local Fox and NBC networks, but they haven't reduced the price to reflect that, and now they are threatening to black out our local ABC and CW networks as they are in a pissing match with the broadcast company that owns them.

Problem three which has already been mentioned is their rate hikes. I get to call about every six months to threaten cancellation of service if they don't bring my rates back down.

Ive had Dish for over 20 years and never had any serious issues with them, but the Fox blackout is the last straw. Im tired of them getting in contract disputes, locking out channels, then expecting me to pay the same price for less channels. We just signed up for a free trial of Youtube TV using my Xbox One as the device, and we get 80% of the channels I typically watch for half the price. I get free Hulu through Sprint so most of the History Ch and Comedy Central stuff we miss can be found there anyways.
The only real downside Ive found so far is I cant control the soundbar volume with the Xbox controller, but they do have media remotes available for xbox one. I cant figure out how to just set youtube tv dvr to record only new episodes of a show- it just records everything.

quote:

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

For some easier said than done. Here the internet options are Cellular, Satellite, or the wonderfully fast (10 meg) DSL we have.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:

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

BINGO!!!
Years ago, the selling card for cable was "commercial free". You paid for the service, the advertisers did not pay for the service free to you. What the hell happened?! Now we are paying for the service plus getting all of the commercials.
What a crock!

20 years with Direct and obviously satisfied. It does piss me off when a network gets in a pissing match and you go without it until the deal is cut and the money flows again.

quote:

Originally posted by bryan11:
My mom has DirectTV. It's down about 30% of the time and quite hard to get them to fix anything.

That woud be on average more than seven hours a day. Did you really mean 30 percent? I find that hard to believe.

In the 16 years I've been a DTV customer, we've had our dish relocated due to a growing tree which was beginning to cause brief, intermittent signal dropouts. On another occasion, it took DTV two trips to find a faulty coax connection in my attic which was causing some signal loss.

Other than that and the aforementions and anticipated droputs during heavy storms (and these are always brief- a few minutes at most), DTV has been for me far more reliable than the wired cable connection I had before.

I had DTV for 12 years. Nothing positive to say about them.

I went back to regular cable, although not the most positive feelings, I am for the most part satisfied. Five years later, I continue getting sneaky letters (not identifiable from the outside)from them trying to entice me to come back. NEVER!!

I've had very good luck with DTV. When I moved into my house, they installed new equipment, including a new dish. I made friends with the installation guy, and commented about service issues during bad weather. He said, "Not when I install it." Every contractor is different, and some care more than others. This guy did a pretty good job because it has to be an ugly storm to cut my service.

The bills do increase, as with every other "cable" service, when the intro specials expire. I've had great success calling them and getting adjustments made with promotional discounts and reductions, to keep it reasonable. If not for that, I'd probably be paying three times as much. They put the burden on you to call and ask them to look for promotions, etc.

As for cutting the cord, I couldn't get the shows I want to watch without subscribing to multiple streaming services and paying more than for the subscription I have.

Finally, I like having a satellite service because, if it's down, I can get on the internet - and if the internet service is down, I can watch TV. I don't want all my eggs in one basket.

I'm sure it's only a matter of time until DTV and Dish are as extinct as Blockbuster, though, and regular cable shortly after.