Satellite TV - best deal??

[bedillamouse]

Hi everyone....we have cable tv right now and we are having so many problems that my DH and I want to switch to Satellite tv. We are trying to find the best deal but that would include quality and price....we are so frustrated with the cable company....we are now on day 5 of NO service because of a problem that they have now fixed 3 times...so we're tired of this. I'm looking at DISH network and Direct TV. Can you guys share your thoughts and any experiences with these companies? How does your service do during storms? I live in the midwest and we can get pretty decent storms in the spring with high winds and am wondering how this will affect things. (During the storms I like to have the news on to know if a potential tornado is coming our way or not....that is if they know on the weather or not.)

I know nothing about Satellite so I am looking for info before we delve into this type of service. Thanks for any opinions and info!

 

[ICF]

I've had both and they are both much better than cable. If you want the NFL or MLB sports packages you have to go with Direct but otherwise they are pretty much the same channels / packages.

I'd go to each website and price what you want and see what is out there.

If you go DirectTV, let me know and I think I can do a referral for you that would get each of us an extra $100.

There are also many threads here on this...as it seems to come up every few weeks, so you can probably find a lot of info just by typing Direct TV into the search engine here.

 

[DawnM]

I am not sure there really is a best deal. They both have good starting rates, but then go up after 12 months.

We have Directv and have been with them for over 10 years. When I think of how much we have spent on TV service it makes me ill sometimes! But I don't really see much of a choice. We want the extended channels and we get NOTHING with an antenna where we live.

We did try cable briefly (long story) and we hated it! So glad to go back to Satellite.

Dawn

 

[micki7337]

best deal is to stay with cable. Satellite is not as reliable

 

[ICF]

best deal is to stay with cable. Satellite is not as reliable

you know you're saying that to an OP that has been without her CABLE TV for 5 days now?

I've never lost either my Dish Network, when I had it, or my Direct TV for more than 5 mins at a time a handful of times a year.

Satellite, for most people, is very reliable as there are not cables to come down due to high winds / ice or the like. If you are losing signal on a regular basis it's probably due to a bad install or technical issue with your equipment.

In my year with Direct, I probably have lost signal for a total of 10-15 mins at most broken out into 3-5 mins at a time for a few very heavy storms that went through.

 

[DawnM]

I lost signal WAY MORE with cable than I ever have with satellite! Cable was far less reliable for us. We hated it.

 

[bedillamouse]

Thank you everyone....It is true we're now on day 6 of no cable and I don't think they can fix the problem until after the snow melts and it warms up which if I'm correct would be Spring! I'm going to call again on Monday to verify what I'm thinking. What cracks me up the most is they won't credit my bill until the problem is fixed! If I get a bill in the meantime I'm to call them to get it adjusted. It was the worst customer service policy I've ever heard. The service guys are great but it's sad I know that so well since I've had to have them to my house no less than 7 times in the last year alone. So even if the satellite goes out once in a while.....I'm used to it....I just want some service and not days of outage!

I'll try a search and see what other threads have said. Thanks for the advise!

 

[mom2threets]

Thank you everyone....It is true we're now on day 6 of no cable and I don't think they can fix the problem until after the snow melts and it warms up which if I'm correct would be Spring! I'm going to call again on Monday to verify what I'm thinking. What cracks me up the most is they won't credit my bill until the problem is fixed! If I get a bill in the meantime I'm to call them to get it adjusted. It was the worst customer service policy I've ever heard. The service guys are great but it's sad I know that so well since I've had to have them to my house no less than 7 times in the last year alone. So even if the satellite goes out once in a while.....I'm used to it....I just want some service and not days of outage!

I'll try a search and see what other threads have said. Thanks for the advise!

We just switched to DirectTV - they have much better customer service than my former cable co. We had DirectTV in the past too and I happy we switched back.

I can also send a $100 friend credit referral if anyone is interested. . . .

 

[Tina]

I've been with Directv since 1996 and love it. One word of advice though, look and see if you have an area where the dish can be installed that can be reached by you. At our former house, we had the dish low, beside the deck. Whenever we had interference from snow, I just took a broom and brushed it off. I now live in a townhouse and its on the roof, where I cannot reach it. We don't get a lot of snow here, but there have been a few occasions where we've had wet snow that stuck to the dish. I had to wait for it to melt in the sun before reception returned. I really wish I had invested in that little solar disk that heats up to melt the snow. You may want to consider one during your installation.

 

[hippiemama76]

I had DirecTV for a while and really liked it. We switched to cable b/c it saved us about $100 for a bundle package. Make sure to compare channels between DirecTV and DISH - they do not always have the same ones. We initially wanted to go with DISH, but they do not carry FSN (Florida Sports Network) and DirecTV does - we're way too into college sports to lose that channel.