I was a long time Dish customer, and when I had equipment problems, their customer service wasn't much help at all towards the end, until I wanted to cancel my service because of a specific problem that they didn't want to slove - then they were all over themselves. Too late!

So I changed to DirectTV - their customer service has been great.

Either - when the clouds are REALLY thick (bad thunder storms) the signal goes away. Also had problems with snow accumulation causing the same problem back when I lived in high country. Used to pull on boots and sweep the dish in the winter. Apparently there are "dish warmers" for snow now. Oh, the elk sort of tweaked my dish the wrong way one year too. (it was on a post on the fence line)

If you happen to want certain language programs, then you may run into a contract problem. French programming (TV5) contracts with Dish, so I can't get it with Direct TV. If this is important to you - check on who has what languages available before you sign on the dotted line. Or maybe it has something with the position of the satellites and which one can catch the beam off the other?