I’m becoming fed up with Comcast. They raise their rates ever other month. I complain, and they give me a deal and tell me it will be good for six months, then go up to a regular rate that is less than I had been paying. And then the rate goes up again in a month or two – which means I have to call them and spend my time.
Direct TV seems cheaper, and we could record more than two shows at a time and also watch another channel. I’d have to keep Comcast for Internet, but I’m tired of being jacked around on the cable.
Does anyone have experience with Direct TV? Do you like it? Do they raise their rates every month or two?
I had it from about 2004-2010. They did raise their rates several times but not as much as stupid Comcast. Their customer service was always good and the service very rarely went out even in bad weather. When one of my DVRs started to break after a few years they sent me 2 new ones for free with no hassle. The only reason I stopped having DirecTV was because I moved to an apartment that faced the wrong way for the dish.
I moved 6 weeks ago, and tried to move my Comcast bundle (TV + Internet), but it required that the installer drag cable up into the walls and install wall plates. The Comcast operator never mentioned that this might be a problem. The first installer said he’d need to reschedule. The next installer said he’d need to reschedule. The third installer admitted the ugly truth: their installers refuse to “wall fish”, and want the customer to hire a 3rd party contractor to do that. Why they keep this a secret…god only knows.
So I switched to DirecTV. Their installer had no such qualms. I’ve had to call them for some minor technical issues (some of them user error) and their phone support is absolutely phenomenal: quick, clear, polite, and effective.
Meanwhile, I still have Comcast for internet. Ever since the move I’ve needed to power cycle my modem/router ever day or so, to re-establish a connection. I finally called Comcast to see what the deal was… I was on hold for 25 minutes. When I finally got an operator, he referred me to a different 800-number. WTF couldn’t they have mentioned that while I was on hold?
So if I could switch to another cable internet company I would do so in a heartbeat. But I’m very happy I switched TV to DirecTV.
I’ve had it for quite a while, early-mid 90’s. I like the service, HD w/DVR. They nickel and dime the shit out of you, like $10/month for HD, $10/month for the DVR, I recently had an $8/month charge for equipment insurance or some such tacked onto my bill that I never asked for. The little HD Extra package that has a handful of channels I actually like costs another $7 (I think) a month, I pay $2.50/month to get the New York network feed so I can watch Jeopardy!, just little stuff like that. I had a decade+ long feud with them over being able to get network stations, they claimed I lived close enough to the broadcast towers to get them over the air - tried and I couldn’t. ABC was the only network to grant me a waiver. Finally got that straightened out a couple of years ago. And it seems like I get bill creep, but I just pay it and go on.
I’ve been very critical of them, but I really do like the service. I like the on-screen guide, the recording options, the variety, the reliability, the picture quality, everything about it, really, except the cost. My dad had DirecTV, then switched to Dish and despised Dish. He switched over the network feeds that I fought with DirecTV over for so long.
That’s my story. I like it but wouldn’t recommend it it if you’re budget conscious.
My tenant ran into that problem. I let them mount the jack above the firewall.
If you buy the receiver and program the DVR yourself instead or with their easy menu, I think you can save some of the nickel and dime crap. Point and click on the DVR is almost worth it, though.
I originally bought the receivers, so I never had to rent anything, then they sent me the new ones completely free. I did have to pay like $6 or so a month to use the DVRs but that’s less than regular Tivo service, so it didn’t bother me (these were Tivo DVRs, but last I checked they don’t offer those anymore. I don’t know if Tivo even exists anymore actually, but I liked it).
Tivo still exists. I was for years a devoted enthusiastic user; my only hesitation on moving from cable to DirecTV was that I couldn’t take Tivo with me. It’s interface and usability is superior to the DirecTV DVR’s.
I’ve had DirecTV for 14 years, and I’m satisfied. I only have the dish, and just today added internet (through AT&T), so I can watch movies on Amazon Prime. I don’t have any premium channels (since *Newsroom *turned out to be a bust)-- I have the basic/no frills channel lineup. At times when I did have all the channels, bells, and whistles, I found that there was STILL nothing I wanted to watch. They gave me a free DVR after I’d been with them for over 10 years. I recently moved, and there was no problem with installation. I carried the DVR to the new house and two guys came and put a new dish on this roof. I’ve never had a problem that I can remember. Sometimes during a storm, the picture breaks up or I lose the signal, but that probably happens with any dish.
I guess we’re outliers. We had DirecTV for years, up until a year or two ago. We didn’t have any trouble with them until they decided to upgrade everybody in our area to new dishes. Unfortunately, their new dishes were not able to withstand Minnesota winters; something in them would freeze and fail. We went round and round with DirecTV on the phone, explaining the whole story to the ignoramus du jour, who eventually ended up calling in the installers to put in a new dish which failed within a week, then doing it all over again. For customer service/technical expertise, I’d give them a C+.
After they changed manufacturers (or whatever) things were pretty settled for a while, but then they started increasing the cost of the service by just a few dollars every few months. When our pretty stripped-down package (no premium channels) exceeded $90/month, we decided we could do without. For value, they earn a D-.
We now watch OTA channels only for $0/month and don’t miss anything about satellite other than The Daily Show and Colbert, which we can watch online.
Not with my 10 foot dish, but Motorola wasn’t making enough money from us and quit supporting the receivers and did away with programming. Satellite W7 still has some stuff.
Dishnetwork has an “Hawaii Dish” that is larger than the regular ones, but I’ve not been able to obtain one.
I presume you are in LA. From what I here, national satellite and national cable services differ across the states such that bad service in sector doesn’t transfer to others.
Well yeah, when you order that one, you have to get the whole package, which includes a gallon of poi, a case of pineapples, a roast suckling pig, and every Don Ho album ever made. It’s an investment.
We’ve had DirecTV for going on 2 years w/ minimal problems; we did try Comcast first and they were an awful mess of mistakes, lies and billing errors. My only DirecTV gripe is that every time you call they try to upsell you into bundling some other service in your home - cell phone, internet, etc.
We had it for years, dumped it when our neighbors’ trees got in the way of the signal and the only option was a dish on the roof (tall two story house). They said they couldn’t guarantee service if something happened in winter. So we switched to cable.
A few months back one of my kids gave me a high def TV. The cable company didn’t have any hi-def channels so we decided to let DirecTV put the dish on the roof.
Our cable bill was about $55, which included one HBO channel, no FX channel so no Justified, no DVR.
Here’s the DirecTV bill:
CHOICE monthly – $64.99 – there’s a cheaper option but it doesn’t have Sunday Ticket
HBO, STARZ, SHOWTIME, CINEMAX - $47 (but free for 3 months)
Protection Plan - $5.99
Advanced Receiver - $25.00
Additional TV’s - $12.00
Primary TV - $6.00
With a bunch of promotional credits, we’ll be paying $60 less than that for 12-24 months. So in 12-24 months we’ll be paying quite a bit more than before, but we’re loving the Genie and don’t have the expertise to set up our own system.
I’ve had DirecTV for over a decade now, from when I lived in Massachusetts. I got it originally for NFL Sunday Ticket, which we’ve had pretty much since it started. I don’t think I ever called them for anything until we’d had it for about five years.
The CSRs are pretty helpful. I threatened to leave once, when a major cable company picked up the Longhorn Network. I wasn’t trolling for freebies, I was actually going to leave - but the CSR ended up giving me free premium channels for three months, all the sports channels for six months, and the DirecTV Nomad for free. So I stayed with 'em.
The only issue I’ve ever had is that if you get heavy rain, like we used to in Central Texas, you will lose the signal. We’re in the midst of record drought so we don’t have this problem very often.
They do reward you for being a loyal customer, so there’s that. I hear most cable companies are complete bastards, and they’re not too bad, so I guess we’re lucky. We dropped all the premium channels about a year ago and pay around $70/month. We also really like the extras, like Pandora and YouTube.
