Comcast has pissed me off, looking for satellite advise
 

For years we had Insight as our cable provider, and I only had a couple of instances in all that time where they really yanked my chain.

However, my region got sold out to Comcast at the beginning of this year, and I am have already had a nuclear meltdown on them 4 times.

The last is the final straw, and I want to switch our tv portion to satellite. I know I'll have to keep them for a net provider, as I have no other options in my area.

Who has DirectTV, who has Dish, and what are the advantages of one over the other? (the NFL package aside, the idea of that makes me salivate)

The manchild swears that I will regret it, and that bad weather makes the reception go out at his dad's house all the time. Any of you have an issue with that?

And what sorts of hidden stuff do I need to watch out for when signing up to one of these companies?

Forget satellite, especially where you live.

Common issues will be, snow, rain, sunspots, trees.

I used to hate visiting IN because all goodgirl had was that POS satellite with its slower than dial up speed.

I've had dish network for about 3 yrs now, and yes there are times when weather will affect the signal..sometimes its just med to heavy rain that will interrupt reception, but thats usually just a 5 min deal and its back. Snow is def an issue if you have a dish..the snow can build up on the dish pretty easily and that will block the signal..easy fix..brush the snow off (if the dish is accessible)

I really have no complaints about the service..I'm happy with the programming package I have and really enjoy the DVR, that is my fave and most used feature of the service. (be sure you get one no matter which provider you choose, mine is $5 extra a month and worth 10 times that alone)

Overall it does have a cpl drawbacks with the weather issues but I think much of that will be related to where you live, I live in the west texas..we have pretty great weather yr round so your case may be different.

One other tip for you, don't even think about using a sat provider for your net service, I know several people who have and regretted it from day 1, honestly you would be better off with dial up.

My girlfriends parents live in the Berkshire mountains and have no access to cable. He just got hooked up with HughesNet and I thought they were going to get screwed. It's like $79 a month for 784k or something like that. Not really something I'd want to do anything more than surf the web or email on.

If that's all you plan to do, it's not a bad deal. It worked pretty well for remotely accessing our office computers and working from home.

For TV, DirectTV has the best HD options. Which is why I made the switch.

directv charges you $5 extra month for every receiver you want beyond the first. I heard Dish doesn't. Of course I'm not willing to learn a new channel line up to save $20 a month so I keep Directv lol.

Oh, and dish has 2 channels dedicated to horse racing instead of just 1. How could you live with just 1 ? ;)

Oh, yes, I know that I am stuck with them as far as an internet provider goes because of work.

But I would love to un-stick is from them for our TV.

Appreciate the info! :)

There are no really good conections here.

Oh, missed the part about it just being for TV. Did not watch much there, so can't say.

Get a T1 installed in your house from the phone company.

I have cable for my Internet only.

DirectTV for the TV's.. DirectTV kicks ass for me... I've never been effected by bad weather. My dish is reliable and the HD channels are crystal clear.

I've had both cable and DirectTV and DirectTV kills the cable HD channels.

I also love my HDTV DVR and my SD Tivo's.

I haven't experienced DISH but I've very happy with DirectTV.

I kinda hated Comcast too, but then I moved into an ATMC area.

I called about that, and as I am not a player, $470 per month plus installation fees is out of my league.

They do have some sort of "elite" dsl that has speeds equal to what comcast advertises. It's not available in my area yet.

Thank you for that input. I am going to call them one day this week and tell them what I want, and see how much it would be per month. But the HD package couldn't be much worse than I am getting now, imho.

I have had direct tv since they were brand spanking new and I am very happy with them.

But our Internet connection is through ATT.

If you live in an area with lots of trees you may not get a line of site. If they installer comes out and you can't get a line of site no problem you get all your money back.

People still watch television???? :error