I hope this is the right forum; it kinda falls between GQ and CS, but I have the feeling that the patrons here would be better-equipped to answer my question.
“Dish Network” is running a promotion in my neighborhood to wean me away from my current satellite service. It sounds enticing, but I have never heard of them before, and was wondering what the “straight dope” on them is.
Any body ever have any run-ins with them that they’d care to share?
TIA,
Bizz
p.s. Mods, please feel free to chastise me severely if this is the wrong place for this thread.
I’ve been with them since Jan 1997. Other than the weather-related problems (which effect all small dishes, I guess), I have never had a problem with them. A lot of people go with DirecTV because of the sports packages. I’m not a sports fan, so it doesn’t bother me. Last year I got the receiver with the PVR (personal video recorder) built it. It’s like TiVo except it won’t pick and choose stuff for you. This model (DP508) has a 61 hour hard drive. You can save recordings and protect them from being overwritten (if you exceed the capacity of the disc, the oldest program gets written over unless it’s protected).
I’ve also had Dish Network for a bunch of years. I can’t compare them to Direct TV as I’ve never had that company’s service. Like Mr. Blue Sky, I’m not a sports fan, so Direct’s sports offerings are meaningless to me.
I’ve also got the '508 recorder and wonder how I ever survived without it before.
Don’t recall having a reason to call their customer service other than to change my address with them.
As for what forum, actually it should have gone to IMHO.
Had DN for years. Hate it, but thats because I’m comparing it to cable. Customer service sucks, but the actual picture quality/programming isn’t too bad. They will bend over backwards to get you to sign up, but once you are a customer, they cease to give a flying fuck about you and will do all they can to suck more money out of you.
Probably about as good as any other dish outfit, but all are seriously inferior to cable.
How is Rap like Porno? Both are better with the sound turned off.
I never had any trouble with their customer service other than a long hold time. Whenever I would change my programming or call for service, they would try to sell me additional channels. I finally told them that when I was ready to add programming, I would call THEM. They haven’t bothered me since.
My mom’s had Dish for a few years, never had any problems with it except for the occasional thunderstorm. (The storm has to be pretty much directly above your house before you lose a signal, and then you usually get it back in a few minutes.)
I’ve had Dish for about 3 years now. Much better than cable - we weren’t interested in upgrading to digital, for big bucks, so the cable company wasn’t interested in us. Never had a problem with picture quality.
We have two dishes. We got the second when we got the service to get a foreign channel for my daughter. We recently dumped cable altogether and got the local channel package. This involved retargeting one of the dishes. Customer service answered right away, the service people answered right away, they gave good instructions, and the whole thing, which I was dreading, was incredibly painless. I’ve never had another reason to call them, rather different from cable, who we called all the time for bad picture quality.
I guess it depends on your cable company. Compared to mine the DN people are absolutely wonderful. I dropped cable because of the godawful service they have.
I also have the pvr and also cannot imagine life without it anymore.
I had Dish Network back in '99, my one main complaint was that they could not have local TV stations on their system, because of some asinine FCC law. I lived in the country but about 30 miles from Memphis, the largest city. My friend lived closer to Memphis, had Dish and had local stations. so said asinine law just came into effect.
I couldn’t get cable or I would have. I like to watch the local news and local programming. Dish told me to get some attenas (rabbit ears) for my TV. The rabbit ears sucked. Idiotic FCC.
I’ve had Dish Network for a year, and I like it lots more than cable or Direct TV. Never had a problem with customer service, they’ve always been quite friendly and helpful.
I’ve had it since '99, and they’re great. Customer service has always been great, and you won’t believe how much things improve when you get rid of cable! Weather hasn’r effected my reception once in the past 2 and a half years here in Seattle. We got a lot more storms in Mississippi, and that was occasionally an issue, but never for a very long period.
