Cable or Dish?

[megoscott]

Thinking of switching. Am I just getting screwed by my cable company or is it a wash? What do you think?

[Mikey]

I have cable for TV, phone and internet.

Was thinking about going over to a dish, but heard some bad stuff about it ....
For one, internet using a dish tends to go down every once in a while for no apparent reason.

But then on the other hand, my cable TV does too.

I'm actually still deciding if I should switch as well.
The cable bill is just way too expensive for what i'm getting.

[EMCE Hammer]

My brother-in-law lives in the sticks and has a dish. When the weather is crappy, so is his reception. I have a bundle of phone, TV, and internet w/cable that serves me well enough. Once a year or so my wife threatens them to switch so that we can get the best rate.

[HardyGirl]

I have Comcast digital cable, internet and phone. I don't know about satellite dishes. I think both have their issues.

[Earth 2 Chris]

For me, there is no option other than dish. I will say I had Dish Network at first, and the bill kept going up and I didn't get any additional channels. Everytime the wind blew the signal would go out. I switched to Direct TV and the rates have been more consistent and the reception is much better. It rarely goes out unless we are getting a real slobberknocker of a storm.

Chris

[The Toyroom]

Had cable for years...switched to DirecTv in '98 because our cable company was always raising rates but adding stations of little or no value. Had the dish until last year. They had certain channels we were interested in that weren't part of the basic package like they were now with cable. Plus, with cable, we got the phone thing and Roadrunner. So that there was a no-brainer. Cable finally caught up witht the dish.

As for reception problems...no real issues with the dish other than heavy rains, then just go out and wipe off the dish. With cable no really problems. Not like the old days of snow and please-stand-bys.

[toys2cool]

I have the bundle pack as well,High speed internet,Phone and over 200 channels on the dish network for $99 a month you can't beat that.

Yes if the weather is bad the tv signal goes out,but for only a few minutes and it has to be really bad weather.All in all the Dish has been better then I expected

[saildog]

Been on DirecTV for years and I'm satisfied.

No doubt that a heavy rain or snow will block out reception, but it never stays out for more than a few minutes. It was good to have when we had an ice storm a few years back. (Cable was out for weeks all over town.)

[SUP-Ronin]

I had DirectTV for 3 days and 2 hours, They lied about channels I could get, they lied about our contract, they lied that we didn't send the receiver back but we did and had confirmation, they charged us over 300.00 for breaking our contract because they have a 3 day limit even though 1 day was sunday and no-one could help us on Sunday. Oh yeah, they did a half-assed installation of the dish and didn't hook up the ground wire, just shoved it thru the deck so it looked connected. Then they lied to me repeatedly on the phone about fixing our service. Googling the reviews on line I found literally thousands of PO'd people having neverending poor service. I strongly recommend avoiding them.

We have had Dish ever since, and it has been fine, good quality and no complaints. I know some people hate dish like I hate Dtv but...that is my story.

Direct TV Complaints - False advertisement, wrong billing, poor customer service

If it came down to Direct TV or Nothing, I would be happily reading more books.

[kingdom warrior]

I have the bundle pack as well,High speed internet,Phone and over 200 channels on the dish network for $99 a month you can't beat that.

Yes if the weather is bad the tv signal goes out,but for only a few minutes and it has to be really bad weather.All in all the Dish has been better then I expected

So D you're basically screwed during Hurricane season and the Rainy season in Florida! Huh! so what do you do play scrabble? ....just messing wit ya!

[Bionic Joe]

I have Direct-TV sat since late 96. Due to the fact that comcast at first wasn't going to add the scifi channel in my area saying the area i lived in wanted more shop at home channels and had little intrest in the scifi channel plus every sunday the only games aired on fox was Tampabay So i went with Direct TV and it's cheaper then cable i'm very happy with the dish

[Cosmicman]

Satellite is no better. Cable always seems to screw people everywhere and every city. It is because of the monopoly. Just sit back, if laws get passed, there will be more competition for cable companies next year and you are going to see prices drop faster then flies.
Satellite is OK. It seems like whenever there is bad weather, my parents have issues with their satellite not working right.

Just stick it out with cable. It sucks but things will be getting better soon.

[megoscott]

I think the NFL is a big draw for Dish. The Niners and Raiders both suck and that's all we get here. But I'm not hearing lots of happy dish people.

[mitchedwards]

I used to have direct TV. I went through 3 receiver boxes. Each time I called them they said I'd have to get a new one.

Found out later that they were sending kill signals to fry pirated boxes. However they got a fair percentage of us legal customer as well. Their policy was just have everyone buy a new box. Also any thunderstorm resulted in NO TV.

So I'm back to cable.

[EMCE Hammer]

My cable company has NFL network plus the regular NFL channels. Besides, you have playsets to assemble. No TV veg time for you, Dida boy.

The 49ers are supposed to be competitive this year. The Raiders are great if your team needs to feel good about themselves.