I'm planning to switch from cable to DSL & Satellite TV. Do you

[napi21]

have any opinions regarding the diff. between DirectTV and Dish Network and the cable service I'm used to? I called AT&T tonight and asked do I have to BUY the Dish, converter box & modem, and what's the deal with service if something goes wrong? I finally hung up because the only thing she answered was that you have to pay for service and "Let me sign you up!"

I figured I'd check here because at least I feel like I'm talking to friends who will tell me the truth, not just try to sell me something!

[RoyGBiv]

1. Depends ...

FWIW, I am formerly from the cable industry. I resigned in October of last year for several reasons, not the least of which is one you sorta mention. The whole content provider industry has rapidly become a caricature of itself. I was hired as a customer service and technical representative who worked face to face with customers. I was trained well, and I took a lot of prior knowledge into the job, knowledge that was the reason I was hired. When I quit, the people being hired then were put through training that was less than half the length of mine, and the majority of it was centered on sales. I supervised technical support reps who didn't know what a coax was and billing reps who couldn't read a standard accounting ledger. They could sell the shit out of some stuff though. And I hated them.

That out of the way...

Where you live is a large determiner of how well a satellite service will perform for you. If your area often has high winds combined with frequent cloud cover, forget it. Satellite will go out in a thunderstorm. Winds will knock it out of alignment. A dish is for all intents and purposes a ramped up antenna, and if you're old enough to remember antennas and over-the-air television service, many of the same problems apply.

AT&T contracts with Dish Network. The latter is your provider of television service. You will pay for that service if something goes wrong. You are buying the dish, but AT&T generally has sign-up offers that negate the cost *if* you sign a contract that commits you to their service for a specific period of time. Breaking the contract usually involves *per room* fees in the hundreds of dollars. If the dish breaks, you will be responsible for replacing it.

The quality of their Internet service also depends largely on where you are, both in terms of the market in which you live and how far you are from a node. In my experience, the speeds of DSL almost never reach what is advertised and on average are a bit more expensive than cable for equitable bandwidth. Sure, the deals they offer make those prices lower for a time, but if you do the math, you end up paying for it in the end with the contract term. The modem -- from what I know about my area and the people I know who have one -- also belongs to you, and you will pay for it if it breaks and need a new one. You must have their phone service to use it. With some of the contracts, you are required to keep a certain level of service, and some of the special offers further require you to get certain features you may or may not use.

The salespeople will lie to you. Their jobs depend on it. It's what they are taught, mostly by *not* being taught answers to the questions you will ask. They make shit up.

Those negatives out of the way, the cable industry is becoming just as bad, and some elements of it are worse. I worked for Cox Communications, which I still think is probably the best cable/Internet provider in the business, but they too are changing and in some markets are worthless. Comcast is horrible, absolutely horrible. If you have Comcast or one of their re-sellers, at worst, switching to AT&T's service bundle will get you the same level of reliability and support, and with the competitive nature of the market and its current state, you're likely to get better service.

If you're unhappy with your current service and can get a good deal from AT&T, I'd say go for it. If you're just shopping around but are generally happy with what you have, I suggest you're better off with what you have.

I could go on, but I bore people with this.

[napi21]

2. Thanks. One good thing is I don't have Comcast. I have Charter.

I went though a horrible year with them about 2 years ago when the internet went out every time it rained, but by the time someone came to check, it had quit raining and they couldn't find a problem. After 9 months of that foolishness I finally wrote a letter to the President of Charter Communications and their VP of Consumer Sales. I got a call from the President's office 3 days after I mailed the letter and they had the local field supervisor call and give me his cell #. I did take about 6 more weeks but they finally got their techs here WHILE it was still raining and they found the problem which was some "thing" at the top of a pole about 1/2 a mile from me. I've also had the tech tell me about the "customer service people". Their favorite statement was "Well most of 'em were flipping burgers at Burger King the day before you talked to them!"

Now, Charter isn't too bad. It still goes out at least once a month for no apparent reason and it's usually in the wee hours of the night (between 1AM & 3AM), but my problem is they continuously raise the rates to the point where my bill is now $130 a mo. for internet & TV and I don't even have the highest service options! I just spoke to a friend who lives about 2 miles away and he said they just canceled Charter for the same reason. They went to a bundle offered by Direct TV and their new email is bellsouth (which merged with AT&T).

I guess the thing that worries me is IF there is no reception, am I going to have to contend with them saying YOU have to pay for a service call EVEN if the problem is THEIRS? EVERY TIME I've had a problem with cable, it's ALWAYS been THEIR equipment! Somewhere I heard the charge is $75/hr, and I can tell you the cable guys have spent A LOT OF TIME HERE!

I can deal with owning the modem. I had the first one from Charter for 5 years, and they only replaced it because I had a "parts replacer" here hunting a problem, instead of someone who really knew what he was doing. It's the other stuff that has me concerned.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Watch for soaring prices ...

Cable and satellite services are kinda the anti-Wal Mart as far as prices are concerned. Don't be fooled by marketing from any of these companies. Prices are on the rise across the board. With some it's the base cost. With others, it's in the features. All of them are sneaky with the way they structure and price their service bundles. The caveat emptor warning applies here well. If you're being offered a deal that seems too good to be true or more practically seems inordinately lower in price for the apparent same level of service than with a different company, that deal is too good to be true. Competing companies will, for example, name a certain level of service, especially with Internet service, something similar to a service level the competitor offers, e.g. Value Bundle. This leaves an impression, sometimes just in the subconscious mind, that the service levels are the same. But when you look at the specs in detail, you realize this is not the case, and with one company you have to get the "preferred" level or "value plus" level to receive the same service level as one of the competitors, and of course the price differences there offer less of a striking contrast. The real costs over time are hidden in the fine print. None of these companies are going to lose money if they can help it, and the profit margins in television service are so small that they have very little room to play with that particular aspect of the pricing structure.

The worst kept secret in the industry is that the key to the quality of any company is in their support and infrastructure. But that costs money and is seen by the current crop of management types as a drain on resources. (They want to build their golden parachutes, not stable networks.) Most have given up on a service model are are moving (or have moved) to a bulk sales model, using a new equation of gobbling up as many subscribers as they can, locking them into contracts, and killing the competition during the period of those contracts. This is AT&T's current driving philosophy: force customers to be "sticky" through legal means, rather than quality of service. During the period of these contracts they hope to leverage their enormous cash reserves into making dropping them as a provider less attractive ... just over the line of a mass revolt among their subscribers so that the consumer's tendency toward inertia wins out. Various cable companies did this for years, but they crossed that line and are now paying for it. See Comcast.

All in all, if cost is your main issue, the long-term benefits of a switch are negligible and could, in fact, be reverse of what you're trying to accomplish *unless* you are the type of consumer who really will play the game and not become complacent, i.e. you will move on if the service is not to your liking. Cable does regularly raise rates. This fact is well-known by the public due to requirements of public disclosure and the phone company's use of this information in their advertising campaigns. The truth is that the telcos are just as prone to raise prises, and the satellite industry is almost wholly unregulated and will raise their prices, on average, in larger net amounts than comparable cable providers. The main reason for this is that the content provider cost of video services is dictated more by the content creators (Disney, etc.) than the cable/satellite industry itself. You'll find more variation between locales than you will between companies in the same locale over time.

In short, read the fine print, and use a calculator while you're doing it.

[napi21]

4. Thanks for all your help. I will call DirectTV on monday and see what they have to say.

I WILL NOT sign a contract with anyone! I don't have one with Charter, and I don't have a cell phone because I don't need one! IF the day comes when I decide I do need one, I will buy a trac phone or one where there is NO CONTRACT! If I'm not a happy customer, I sure don't want to be locked into so deal that gives the provider total control!

You know it's funny, in my last post I said Charter was pretty good. Well, I didn't get to read your post until now becasue THE DAMN INTERNET WENT OUT AGAIN! Same thing happened last night at about the same time, so I called tonight. We went through the usual gyrations and the guy told me that all indications pointed to ME having a corrupted browser!!!!! I wasn't mean, but in a courteous manner, I told him he was wrong. It's a Charter problem AGAIN. You can never get back to the same rep when you call those call centers, or I'd call him back just to say HA HA I TOLD YOU!

If I can find a decent deal without a contract, maybe I'll switch just because I have no loyalty to those who have no loyalty to me and who knows, maybe I'll find another service to be better.

Thanks again for all the info. It's great to be able to talk to someone who knows what they're talking about.

[RoyGBiv]

8. Corrupt browser?

What does that even mean?

I think I've read you describing this problem before. Given that at least one person nearby is having a similar issue and that it happens more often when rain is present, my first guess is a partially exposed wire somewhere. Water gets into cracked, rotting, or stripped buried lines and screws up service, or water can leak into a service tap and do the same thing. I had an almost identical problem where I used to live. Luckily I worked for the company, and a field technician lived upstairs from me also, so we were able to take matters into our own hands. We were both having the same problem and went out on our own to find the source of it. Six foot piece of wire on the other side of the complex was rotted through. Took two weeks of searching to find it. He replaced it, and we had no further issues.

I wish you luck. Personally, if I were going to go with satellite, I would choose DirectTV *if* my Dish service were bundled with AT&T service. I loathe Murdoch, but then none of these companies have high level managers that are any prizes. He's just famous for being an ass. DirectTV generally has better service than Dish Network and more options when the latter is married to an AT&T service contract. Plus, I don't like the marriage of service from two companies as it confuses service and billing issues. Plus, I suspect AT&T is going to drop Dish like a hot rock when they get their U-Verse service working in more areas. The market will be quite interesting once that service is more ubiquitous.

[ConsAreLiars]

11. I chose Dish because they carry more progressive channels.

I got it initially for Free Speech TV. Both carry Link TV. Dish has also recently added Gore's Current TV and the Documentary Channel, which add more independent voices to the usual mix. You can get free installation and equipment deals on their website.

[hunter]

5. I said goodbye to cable.

Hard to say which of our local providers is more loathsome, AT&T or Comcast, fortunately I don't get my internet from either.

I'd do Dish over DirectTV, their BS seems much less obnoxious than DirectTV's BS.

Remember that anything "free" will probably cost you much more in the long run than paying up front, otherwise these guys wouldn't be making that sort of "deal."

If something goes wrong and the company won't make it right, always be ready to walk away. Over the years I've got complaints solved by actually disconnecting the service. Someone usually calls me back and starts the negotiation by offering to waive the "reconnect" fee.

It's only television, right? They can keep me as a customer or not.

[Gore1FL]

6. Be prepared for Latency issues with Satellite High Speed

I have no idea what voice over IP, and video would be like on that type of setup, but I would guess they would be really ugly--even when compared to the general ugly of having to bounce file downloads, web pages, etc from the earth, to orbit and back.

[madokie]

7. we have directTV and all we had to do was call them and they sent a person out the next day

and installed the dish and hook everything up even left me some extra length to the cables when I said my wife likes to rearange the living room from time to time. Ours is digital and didn't come with a recorder, whereas our son who lives next door has dish network and they are still analog but they have the recorder. both cost about 50 bucks a month but with neither was there an up front charge for installing or any cost for the equipment. Our son even got three months free so you have to pick and chose the plan and the offer as they change, sometimes daily. Digital or analog and tivo or not is the questions. Installation should be free or has been for all I know around here.
Theres a big difference in picture quality with digital so I would definitely be leaning that way. If you have an HDTV there is a lot of free stations that broadcast in hd format that all is required for reception is a simple antenna that our son uses a clothes hanger for and we watched many of the football games this past year in HD and thats definitely worth looking into too.
I think with a little googling you can find what stations are broadcasting in HD that you should be able to get for free, here there is 10 or more that use the same broadcasting tower that is only about 25 miles from us so they all come in crystal clear. I think with digital the signal travels up to about 60 miles with little or not picture quality decrease so that is something to look into too. I dont have a link handy but I did have a link that by putting in your zip code it would tell you which stations are broadcasting in HD in your area and like I said there is several around here all using the same tower, figure that.

Good luck
Have a great Sunday

Add: I about forgot to mention that we had to sign a 2 year contract for this which in our or our sons case wasn't a problem as we planned to remain in the same location and would be wanting the service for the duration. sorry bout that.
We've been on directtv for probably at least ten to twelve years now. Cable in our area sucked when we had it too

[hunter]

9. Don't know about DirectTV, but Dish contracts out their installation and service where I live.

The Dish contractors in our area are great. They seem to be doing a brisk business in <$30 a month packages as Comcast continues to raise their rates.

I always got the feeling that the quality of Comcast's customer service depended upon how much you paid them a month. AT&T is the same way. If you have only minimal service from either of those companies, it seems they really don't care if they keep you as a customer or not. They see every service call by low end customers as an opportunity to push upgrades, and they can be obnoxious about it.

Ideally with digital television there could be an expansion of free broadcast channels overlapping with lower end cable or satellite television services, so people on limited budgets could get fairly decent television for free. But this is the USA. We all know that's not going to happen. Our government is owned by big business, not the people.

[DaveJ]

10. I'm gave up on cable -- all they want is customers to upgrade

I guess it depends on the channels you watch, but many cable channels rerun content for YEARS, in order to make the customers desparate enough to upgrade for new shows.

I think the best thing to do is stick with basic channels (over the air type channels that used to be free), and get a DVR that will also download content off the internet. I saw at CIS that Tivo is going to soon offer YouTube downloads and video RSS feed to their DVR.

I like the Dish Network DVR better but Tivo has more web based features, at least last I checked.

[RoyGBiv]

13. This is true ...

But be clear on this. That's what the telcos and satellite providers want too.

Not trying to defend cable at all, but I do want people to understand this is an industry-wide philosophy. They have terms for it and labels for customers and potential customers based on complex equations that indicate how likely they are to remain a customer and how soft a target they are for up-sells.

In fact, one reason the cable companies have gotten so bad about it is they've been copying marketing strategies from telcos.

[RoyGBiv]

12. Right idea ...

Just because I want to vent a minute ...

The impression you get is partially correct, but it's not that they (the employees) *care* more about customers with higher service levels, rather that those, as you noticed, with less service provide more of an opportunity for an up-sell. Call center employees especially want to get the people who already have everything off the phone as quickly as possible, so they will fix their issue as quickly as possible. Those with lower levels of service are opportunities, so fixing the issue, as counter-intuitive as it may sound, is not the best strategy for getting a sale. For example, at Cox, if I had a guy standing in front of me with the ultra bundle, there was literally nothing I could sell him. The guy with the POTS line and basic cable provided a golden opportunity for a sale since he could be bundled with a whole new service (Internet) *and* upgraded to digital cable for about $10 more a month. Sales people salivate over that kind of circumstance.

And the real problem is that the entire industry switched, as noted, to a bulk sales model. During most of my employment with Cox, my job performance (and thus my pay) was based, to simplify, 75% on customer service and satisfaction and 25% on sales. That 25% worked itself out with reconnects of customers who had been disconnected for non-payment and transfers, and that's really all that was intended to measure. In other words, I didn't have to try to sell anything to do my job and do it well. I just had to stay calm, explain things to customers in a way that they understood so that they wouldn't leave all pissed off, and key the orders. By the time I left, our employee evaluations were a complicated mess of nonsense created by some idiot I'm sure shared a bunker (and hand lotion) with Dick Cheney. But to boil it down, I could solve, with 100% satisfaction (meaning 1st contact) every problem that came my way, work out every billing issue, reconnect every non-pay customer and have them walk out of the store smiling about it, and I would still have been rated as "below expectations." My work load tripled, a measurement I base on the fact my sales quota (and I must emphasize here I was not a sales rep) increased 317% in six months. (This is the point I started looking for work elsewhere.) I was forced, if I wanted to keep my job even (forget raises or even making base salary, which is a whole different rant I won't go into), to try to sell to people who had come to me because, for example, their phone kept going out the first Tuesday of every month at 5:00pm. (True story with a really weird ending, but I digress.)

Naturally, people like me were resistant to this sort of nonsense, people who had been hired and trained under a different model of operation and were watching their salary *decrease* as their workload increased seemingly exponentially. So, the powers-that-be changed the way the training worked, emphasized sales, put sales quotas on everyone, including *service technicians*, and started firing, in large numbers, people who had been with the company for a decade. People afraid to lose their jobs saw this and got with the program, and the new employees never knew anything but sell, sell, sell.

I always made my numbers, but I started hating myself for it, and people under me were doubling what I was doing because they simply did not care about "service," only about sales. Hard to blame them because that's what they were taught, but I still hated them, mostly because they increased my workload by causing me to have to take care of all the service issues. Well, I didn't have to, but I actually did care about the elderly lady with the POTS line she was able to afford only because of the Lifeline program and didn't want to try to bully her into buying something she neither wanted nor needed.

Comcast, AT&T, et al were already using this model. Cox simply adopted it because, in the short term, it greatly increases revenue and reduces expenses. It's only a successful long-term model if competition is forced out, which, sadly enough for the consumer, is precisely what is happening.

[hunter]

14. Thanks. This explains the problem well.

And it happens in other industries too. I've seen the same pattern with banks.

Over the years I'll start with a small bank with good customer service. Sometimes that bank will get absorbed into a mega-bank, their fees will go up and their customer service will go bad, and then I have to look around for a small bank again.

The problem is that small banks are getting to be rare, so I've switched to credit unions. Of course the mega-banks hate credit unions and are trying to have them legislated out of business, and at the same time some of the credit unions are trying to consolidate into the same sort of entities as the big banks are.

The modern business model treats customers as if they are a flock of sheep to be fleeced.

[JPettus]

15. As far as content

I didn't see a lot of difference between them in the few channels I watched. The wife likes Dish's menu system better than DirecTV's but I prefer DirecTV so I can get the NFL Sunday ticket.

I do confess I prefer most of the time for the TV to be off and music to be on, but the wife likes to put on TCM, History Channel or American Movie Classica and just let it run in the background, like I do with music.

Otherwise, Roy looks to have given excellent information.