AT&T Uverse, Direct TV, Dish Network????

[surgtech1956]

We have Charter Communications(cable) and thinking about switching to something else, AT&T Uverse, Direct TV or Dish Network. The Charter prices keep going up and its a pain to have to call every few months to get a different promotion, and every time you call you get different prices. I appreciate any input on any of these.

[OakLeaf]

I've had DirecTV almost since they began - 1994. No complaints.

[tulip]

I've had NO TV since June...no complaints .

[NbyNW]

I had DirecTV the last few years, until I moved (can't get it in Canada).

Good service, really easy to get someone on the phone on the rare occasion that I had a problem or wanted to change my subscription. The only time the signal was inconsistent was if we had a lot of snow and the dish had trouble seeing the satellite.

Plus, we got NFL network, so we could see those Thursday night games. If that means something to you.

[Crankin]

We had Direct TV in 2001-2003. It sucked. Every time the wind blew or it rained we lost the signal. As soon as Comcast came into our area, we got it.
When we moved a couple of years after that, we bundled everything up and have Comcast phone, TV, and internet. It's expensive, but fast and we rarely have a problem with any of it. Tried Vonage for awhile after we moved, too, but our phone never worked!

[Bike Chick]

We've had DISH since 2001 and no complaints. Be sure to check the program listing. The last I heard Direct did not carry Versus which is the station that covers most of the bike races.

[OakLeaf]

Every time the wind blew or it rained we lost the signal.

It's definitely worth checking the azimuth and elevation of the satellites for each company, and scouting potential dish mounting points, before you sign up. Each company has its own satellites in slightly different orbits. Signal loss can be a problem if there are trees near you, even if they don't block the signal on a sunny day. Where there's no tree cover, the weather has to be very extreme before we lose signal (as in, so extreme that the electricity usually goes down within ten minutes and signal becomes irrelevant). Obviously, cable doesn't have these problems, but availability is much more limited, and depending on your cable system, the channel lineup may be a lot more limited too. It's been so long since I had cable that I can't say anything about picture quality, but it used to be much better on satellite.

The last I heard Direct did not carry Versus which is the station that covers most of the bike races.

Versus doesn't have exclusivity. Universal Sports - which is carried on DirecTV - aired the Vuelta this year after the ComCast/DirecTV breakup, and is expected to carry the other major races.



PS to the OP, AT&T U-verse is through Dish Network. They're cagey about it, but that's whose satellites they use. So there might be a price advantage to bundling, but if you're wondering about service, look at what you see about Dish Network.

[Trek420]

PS to the OP, AT&T U-verse is through Dish Network. They're cagey about it, but that's whose satellites they use. So there might be a price advantage to bundling, but if you're wondering about service, look at what you see about Dish Network.

U-verse is fiberoptic. Not a satellite. Uverse has no contracts (usually), check to see if you have fiber to the prem or fiber to the node.

I have Dishnetwork, their minimum thing. Must admit I like being able to record. Over the phone their customer service has been very good, easy to get through, tech's too. They've been out several times, the initial install, again after the remodel, and most recent when my condo association demanded I move the Dish and never charged me for the visit and often fix more than they came out to do.

[bmccasland]

The one bad thing about satellite TV is that on extremely overcast (ie stormy) days - you'll loose the signal. Not your average overcast - but real thick thunderboomers. So if you're watching the Weather Channel to see how that storm is doing... you're lost. Guess that's where the back up radio with the NOAA station comes in.

[Eden]

Happy DirectTV subscriber here. We've only lost our signal maybe twice in the last 5 or 6 years (or however long we've had it) and then only for a few seconds. We did have to brush the snow off the dish every once in a while last year

They have the *best* customer service I've ever dealt with.

[colby]

We have DirecTV also - aside from having to clean off the dish of snow (usually when it's wet sloppy snow) and maybe once or twice losing signal during a nasty storm, it's great. Not too pleased about the Versus thing, but maybe it'll get worked out.

We had Comcast a few years ago (4, almost 5?) and it was actually worse during storms. However it was wired, transmitted, or whatever, whenever it was windy or stormy or snowy we'd get pixelated TV or it would just cut out. Our new place didn't have anything other than crappy cable (only a few digital channels, no HD) so we went DirecTV.

My only complaint is the add-on costs, it seems excessive for extra receivers, HDTV, DVR, etc. If you only have one TV, not a big deal, but we have 3 adults and a teenager in our house so it's not really an option to only have one source of diversion, and we are addicted to HD and DVR.

[sarahspins]

We had DirecTV, and we now have Dish Network.. we had no major problems with either in terms of reception, the weather has to be REALLY bad for the signal to go out, and if it does, it's usually just for a few minutes. We've had our dishes knocked out of alignment by hail on both networks though.. but I don't think that's particularly common unless you live in an area prone to severe thunderstorms with very large hail (aka tornado alley)

The reason we left DirecTV is that they refused to offer us any kind of deal on upgrading to HD, and we had been customers at that point for 4 years. They wanted to charge us $299 per receiver (we needed two).. so we switched to Dish and got two HD DVR's and installation for FREE... and for the past 2 years, DirecTV has sent us offers every two weeks or so offering exactly what they said was not possible before we switched

I have to say that I prefer the DVR that Dish offers to Tivo (which is what DirecTV uses). We also pay slightly less for our service, including the extra fees for HD, than we had been paying for DirecTV without HD.

We can't get AT&T's U-Verse where we are (they don't provide phone service here) but I think if we could, I'd probably prefer that - I like the idea of having one central DVR and the ability to watch those programs in different rooms. With Dish you can do it with 2 rooms, since each receiver can be "shared" with another if you want.

We can't get traditional cable here either...

[Crankin]

We have no issue with the amount of stations we get from cable; there seem to be hundreds where nothing is on! I only watch the local ones, and HGTV, CNN once in awhile. Got rid of the DVR, HBO, all the movies, etc. We have one TV with a box, or something and one with a cable card. We have 3 other TVs in the house that we get HD over the air, with indoor antennas (in 2 bedrooms and in our loft space).
We originally got Direct TV because at the time, the town I lived in only had Comcast for TV and we still had dial up internet. We wanted to watch the bike races, so we got the dish. Up until then, we had an old fashioned antenna in our attic (seriously, this was in 2001). When Comcast finally came in with high speed internet, in 2004, we switched the whole thing to Comcast. Then we moved in 2005, and we just kept what we had.
There were not a lot of trees in our old neighborhood; it was a typical development where they all got cut down. Not sure why the satellite didn't work well.

[Trek420]

We can't get AT&T's U-Verse where we are (they don't provide phone service here) but I think if we could, I'd probably prefer that - I like the idea of having one central DVR and the ability to watch those programs in different rooms. With Dish you can do it with 2 rooms, since each receiver can be "shared" with another if you want.

Only U-verse has the "total home DVR" thingie. Each TV needs a box but one's your "home DVR". You set up the recordings (up to 4 going on at once) and watch 'em from any TV. If you've ever wanted to record more than one thing at once .... advantage U-verse.

Dishnetwork has the dual tuners. I like that idea, less equipment cost and carbon footprint. Two TV's can share a receiver whether standard, DVR, HD DVR etc. If U-verse is not available, advantage Dishnetwork.

Just kinda curious, how many TV's do most of us have? I have 1, all my life I've never had more than one TV. Really can't imagine the need for 2 or more. Some of my customers (yes I work for a largish ahem cough telecommunications company ) have 6 .... 14 I'd say average is 3-4.

[malkin]

I'd get a kick out of a TV survey...(1 here, but only 2 of us).

Another question I'm curious about is "How many button pushes does it take you to watch TV?" Somewhere between my lack of interest and lack of skill, I have become unable to access the electronics.