Dish Network or switch to U-Verse?

[daughtersrus]

I posted this on the Community Board but thought that my friends here might have some input as well.

We've had Dish Network since 2005 and have been quite happy with them. Their costs keep going up. With so many promotions from other providers, I called them last year to cancel our service. They were very kind and said that they would give us a good deal to stick with them. They brought their costs down to close to what the others were offering so we stuck with them.

The discount period is up and the bill jumped back up. I called yesterday to see if they would lower it but they wouldn't budge. They basically said to let them know when we wanted it canceled so that they could send the boxes. We would have to pay to ship the DVR and receiver that we have back.

I spoke to Direct TV, Comcast and ATT U-Verse. We can get a lot more channels (450 compared to 200 with Dish) for the same cost with UVerse. The install is free but I'm really not sure that I want to deal with the hassle involved with installing it.

With U-Verse, our internet would also be much faster than what we currently have with DSL at no extra cost.

Right now we have our Dish Network billed as a bundle with our ATT phone and DSL. The total bill for phone, faster internet and 450 channels with UVerse would be just about what we're paying now with the increase from Dish Network but we'd get more channels and faster internet. We don't really need the extra channels but to go to a lower package would actually be more money. Don't you love how they up-sell you all of the time. As long as DH has Comcast Sportsnet so he can watch the Cubs and Blackhawks, he's fine.

I know of one other person in our neighborhood with UVerse and he works for ATT so I'm sure that his opinion is biased.

I really don't want to be paying $76.00 a month just to watch tv!

 

[bonoriffic]

Some key pieces of information are:
How many TVs do you have? Do you have HD on all or some? Do you need a DVR, and how many?

U-Verse has lots of issues, and some are directly related to your distance from certain AT&T network elements. So it is impossible to say if you will avoid some common problems unless we knew your distance. Some of the issues are related to multiple HD viewing and needing more than 1 DVR, so no sense in listing them out here if you don't care about that.

I know 3 people with U-Verse, and 2 of them had huge problems and wished they had never signed up.

 

[merekc]

We had U-verse for about four months. It was OK. The bills came in higher than I was expecting. Never could figure out where the discrepency was. DirectTV wouldn't do anything to keep us but offered us excellent deals to go back, so we did.

I have a neighbor that went U-verse for 6 months. She finally canceled because she said every month her bill came in without all the credits and things due her. She had to call every month to get her bill adjusted and it wasn't an easy process. She finally got fed up with it.

Hope that helps. The actual service wasn't bad. My only complaint was we occassionally had sound problems but it was fairly infrequent.

I think people that hop around to different companies for deals have it right. Companies no longer care how long you have been with them. They only want the new/returning customer numbers.

 

[merekc]

Some key pieces of information are:
U-Verse has lots of issues, and some are directly related to your distance from certain AT&T network elements. So it is impossible to say if you will avoid some common problems unless we knew your distance.

This is exactly what a friend I know told me who works for AT&T. The further you are away from the hub the more problems you get.

One more thing. Returning the equipment was super easy. I took it to the UPS store and that is all I had to do. However, it was very telling when I walked in the door and they said, "We know what to do, we return a ton of these." Kinda makes you go "HMMMM".

 

[Dani C]

We have U-Verse and so far the only problems experienced are that if you are recording the limit of shows (4 simultaneously) allowed at one time, sometimes your viewing can be a bit difficult if you are trying to view another show. (Of course, when I had Direct TV, I couldn't watch a different show than the one that I was recording.) I love being able to watch in any room regardless of where I started the movie and being able to record and watch different shows at the same time.

I have personally had both Dish Network and Direct TV and would probably go with most anything else to avoid having them again. The receiver is tacky and the service in both instances for me was lacking. Additionally, with U-Verse it still works even though the wind is blowing, it's raining/snowing, etc. while I can't say the same with the others.

I think that all providers have their problems and all have their benefits, so just figure out what works for you and what your budget will allow.

Note: When we called about U-Verse we asked for the total price that it would cost us each month and they actually told us the price, including taxes and fees, to avoid any potential surprises.

 

[alymae1010]

Love, love, love our Uverse! I haven't had a dish because my parents have a lot of interference during bad weather, so that has always biased me. Switched from cable due to terrible customer service from Charter. I've also been able to get a lot of discounts on service without any hassles using their chat service. I just ask if there are promotions, and they let you know (currently getting 3 months of free HBO ). All of my friends that have it love it too.

 

[birdie757]

We originally had Comcast...which was an utter nightmare. I won't even go in to the problems we had. We then switched to Dishnetwork. We were very happy with our service and had no real problems with them. However, we live in South Florida so we were losing service quite often due to storms or even very thick cloud cover. We then found out that they had finally wired our area with Uverses...so we switched. We absolutely love it. The price is pretty much the same as we paid for the others and we have had no problems with our service (1 1/2 years now). The best thing about Uverse is their customer service. We had our box zapped by lightening on Saturday night. I called them Sunday morning and they had a tech out their by 10am...on a Sunday! I had never had such quick service. Any time I have had a question I have called and spoke to very helpful people on the phone too. Set up was really easy too. They were much better to make an appointment with than Comcast or Dish. We got our rebates as promised too. I am really shocked that you would have to pay to ship your dish equipment back though. They sent me boxes that included prepaid postage to ship my equipment back. You don't have to ship your entire dish....just a small piece off the dish, remotes and receivers. It is very easy to pack and ship. I just dropped mine off at Staples.

I think though that service really depends on your area. I know my neighbors, us included, have nightmarish service with Comcast while my relatives in Michigan really like their Comcast service. I think I would ask neighbors and friends who live near you if they like it before making the plunge. Good luck with your decision.

 

[Little Bit]

We switched from Comcast to Uverse last month. I haven't had an issue with the actual service, but I think I'm going to have a problem getting the rebates that I'm due. I was supposed to receive $500.00 total in rebates, but right now they only show I'm eligible for $200 and they just keep telling me to wait. I'm not waiting much longer before I switch again, I don't appreciate being told I'll get $500 if I switch and then only get $200. The monthly savings wasn't that much.

 

[hsmamato2]

the company likely won't work with you till they know you're serious about switching,as in you call and cancel the service. That will mean the hassle of using a new service for everything,and they know it,that's why most people don't switch.
it all depends on what you want to save vs. how much hassle you want.
we have Dish,and it costs us 36.00 per month with a 2 tv dvr setup.
We buy all services seperately- it's cheaper than 'upgrading' to a bundle of things we don't actually need.
last week I actually canceled some very basic phone services,once I did,suddenly I got discount offers. So I used them,and re-signed up the next day with my same company.
And we have the most BASIC services they offer. But you have to mean it,not just threaten.

 

[daughtersrus]

Some key pieces of information are:
How many TVs do you have? Do you have HD on all or some? Do you need a DVR, and how many?

U-Verse has lots of issues, and some are directly related to your distance from certain AT&T network elements. So it is impossible to say if you will avoid some common problems unless we knew your distance. Some of the issues are related to multiple HD viewing and needing more than 1 DVR, so no sense in listing them out here if you don't care about that.

I know 3 people with U-Verse, and 2 of them had huge problems and wished they had never signed up.

We have a total of 5 tv in the house but currently only 3 are connected to the dish. One one of them is HD. The other 2 are in DD's rooms. They have antennas to pick up local stations but mostly watch DVDs.

Right now, we have 1 DVR that controls the HD tv in the basement as well as the regular tv in our family room. The tv in our bedroom has a simple receiver. We do use the DVR all of the time so for us, that's a must.

We're in the suburbs of Chicago. When we connected to DSL in 2005, a lot of neighbors could not. We were told that is because the house had to be a certain distance from the hub. I'm not sure if it would be the same for U-verse.

Our dish is on our roof. If we cancel Dish Network, is DH going to have to climb onto the roof and take a piece off the dish or do we just send back the DVR and receiver?

DH is thinking that if we pay the higher bill for a fee months, maybe Dish Network would be willing to give us a discount. I'm not so sure. They gave us one for a year so they're probably calling our bluff and seeing if we are really going to switch.

 

[JB2K]

I posted this on the Community Board but thought that my friends here might have some input as well.

I've been with AT&T U-verse since its' inception in the St. Louis area, 2 years ago -- and no complaints!

Unlike "big cable", there are no teaser rates, and unlike satellite, you don't have to worry about outages during bad weather.

Here are a couple of pluses you won't get with the other guys...

• You can bundle your AT&T home/wireless phones, for the ease of handling only one bill a month
  
• The DVR can be accessed from any connected TV in your house

The only negatives are:

• The MLB Network is not carried on U-verse, because they have no agreement with Major League Baseball to carry their "Extra Innings" package (which doesn't matter to me, since I can get Cardinals games on the local/cable networks
  
• All connected TVs must have a box -- those will cost you an additional $7 per month (each), which, to me, is negated by the fact that every connected TV can access the DVR

 

[yoopermom]

Call DISH back and ask to talk to someone in customer retention. You'll get someone higher up, actually in the US, and usually they'll bargain. I like it enough that I keep it despite the cost, having had terrible experience with cable before this.
Terri

 

[powellrj]

Love our U-verse. We have had it for almost 2 years and really miss it when we travel and have to have regular cable.

 

[kaywoody]

We had UVerse for about 4 months and we hated it and went back to DishNetwork. We have two HD televisions, and a receiver for each- you should be able to record 4 shows right? Well, not if you want them to be in HD. You are limited to two HD signals at a time. We record a lot on the DVR since the shows we like seem to come on at the same times. It's frustrating to be in the middle of a two-hour show to have the signal "stolen" by the DVR. We didn't want to record non-HD versions of the shows to watch later. What's the point of paying extra for HD?

We also didn't like that only the main receiver could pause live TV. The bedroom receiver was only live. Hated that after we were used to Dish.

So, we went back and the only thing we miss is that UVerse had some great old shows for the kids- like the Jetsons on Boomerang!

 

[daughtersrus]

Call DISH back and ask to talk to someone in customer retention. You'll get someone higher up, actually in the US, and usually they'll bargain. I like it enough that I keep it despite the cost, having had terrible experience with cable before this.
Terri

I tried this. They basically asked what day I wanted the service to be stopped. Then the rep tried to "up-sell" me and suggested that I suspend the service at a cost of $5.00 a month for 3 months. This way, I would be able to switch back to Dish Network when I realized that I didn't like U-Verse or whichever provider I choose. He said that if I don't pay to suspend the service, I would have to wait 90 days before they would allow me to get Dish Network again. I told him thanks but no thanks. When I switch, I'll be sure to keep the new provider for at least 3 months.

We had UVerse for about 4 months and we hated it and went back to DishNetwork. We have two HD televisions, and a receiver for each- you should be able to record 4 shows right? Well, not if you want them to be in HD. You are limited to two HD signals at a time. We record a lot on the DVR since the shows we like seem to come on at the same times. It's frustrating to be in the middle of a two-hour show to have the signal "stolen" by the DVR. We didn't want to record non-HD versions of the shows to watch later. What's the point of paying extra for HD?

We also didn't like that only the main receiver could pause live TV. The bedroom receiver was only live. Hated that after we were used to Dish.

So, we went back and the only thing we miss is that UVerse had some great old shows for the kids- like the Jetsons on Boomerang!

We only have 1 HD tv connected to the dish now so that wouldn't be a problem but not being able to pause tv would be a huge issue for DH. A friend that just switched to Uverse was over last night. He's a computer programmer and he said that he can't figure out why they set it up that way. His opinion is that it shouldn't be hard to set it up. He also thought that there should be a simple way to be able to rewind two shows if you're flipping between 2 channels. He said that it would be easy to "loop". Of course all of this sounds like a foreign language to me but this is coming from a guy that had his tv connected to a computer long before TIVO or DVRs.

edited to add...
We have to have a package that includes Comcast Sportsnet as DH wouldn't be happy not being able to watch a Cubs or Blackhawks game (although they're both playing pretty poorly right now )

 

[bonoriffic]

We're in the suburbs of Chicago. When we connected to DSL in 2005, a lot of neighbors could not. We were told that is because the house had to be a certain distance from the hub. I'm not sure if it would be the same for U-verse.

This implies you are at the edge of the distance to the hub that is allowed. This is not a good condition to be at for U-Verse. More than likely you won't be able to get 2 streams in HD, meaning if you record two shows at the same time only one could be in HD. Also if someone is watching live TV in HD or recording in HD, you can then only watch live TV on 2 TVs or record 1 additional channel in non-HD and watch live TV on 1 TV.

 

[Kimmumum]

We have had Uverse for about 1 1/2 years and we LOVE it. We had DirecTV before and will never go back to a dish. LOVE Uverse!!!!!

 

[BlueMarlin]

This implies you are at the edge of the distance to the hub that is allowed. This is not a good condition to be at for U-Verse. More than likely you won't be able to get 2 streams in HD, meaning if you record two shows at the same time only one could be in HD. Also if someone is watching live TV in HD or recording in HD, you can then only watch live TV on 2 TVs or record 1 additional channel in non-HD and watch live TV on 1 TV.

Thanks for the info on this. I would like to get more clarity, if you would not mind.
I have heard info similar to yours in the past, but when I went to the AT&T Store, the aggressive sales guy told me that they had upgraded the system and that I could get 7 HD streams concurrently in my house. 4 Recording and one on each TV. I thought he was full of bunk so I contacted tech support. When they stopped laughing, they told me no, that you got 4 streams into the house and each HD stream was a double-wide... regardless of the number of boxes, or TVs connected, since it all runs through the main connection.

Assume that we are within good range. I had AT&T DSL a long time ago, and then they just came through and rewired the entire neighborhood for U-Verse.

Our setup is three TV's in the house, two HD and one SD. Our questions are:
1. If someone is watching live HD on the two TVs, is the person on the SD prevented from watching something different?
2. If I am watching something recorded, is that one of my 4 streams, or is that local? So I could be recording 4 SD programs, and watching one that is recorded different, even if it is HD?
3. Will the set-box down-grade HD signal to watch on my SD TV? There is no reason for me to record anything in SD that I can in HD, unless my wife cannot go to the bedroom and watch her movie, because it was recorded in HD, and now the DVR will not down convert it. If I have to record in SD anything that I could maybe watch on that TV, it seems a bit silly.
4. What is the true number of things that you can record and watch and the crazy scenario to max it out? Record 4 and watch DVR recordings on 3 others and actually have 7 at once?
5. If I am watching HD on one TV, and SD on another TV, and then somebody goes into the den to watch TV on the third, will it tell them that they can only watch SD until somebody turns off a TV? If they go to an SD channel on #1, will #3 be able to grab the HD line? I can just see the kids now, "Dad, she took my HD stream when I was surfing and now wont give it back!!"

 

[JB2K]

Call DISH back and ask to talk to someone in customer retention. You'll get someone higher up, actually in the US, and usually they'll bargain.

Always remember, when you're dealing with Dish Network, their first point of customer contact is normally at a call center in India or the Philippines.