I’m fed-the-F-up with my Xfinity experience. Does anyone have Dish for TV *and* Internet in the upper Midwest, living semi-rurally and have pros & cons to share? Does Internet go out in snowstorms…? I do work from home a day a week or so, and need reliability.

Thanks in advance. I don’t have other options at this point for other cable providers, and I am tired of rewarding Xfinity’s bad behavior. The promo rate they gave me a year ago is up and it’s time to think about other options.

What exactly is the issue you are having???

Having worked in the industry for several decades at dial ups, a Top 3 Cable co and in the Wireless ISP side of the house, i can tell you without a doubt that the Satellite Internet Providers (except Starlink) are the worst.

90% of my customers have been a subscriber of one or more of them and all have the same or similar stories.
Whats worse is they get you in a contract and you are stuck with them

I had one customer that we could not easily get signal to his house because of the tree coverage and a large hill between him and the tower, I told him, we could do a hop off his brothers house across the street for an extra 65 to cover the device I had to put over there facing his place.  He wigged out and said I was gouging him. I explained to him that on his initial call we quoted him a normal install price and told him depending on the install, there could be additional charges.  To get him going I'd have to absorb the cost of an additional device, run more cable at the other place and take additional time. This would cost.  I'm actually giving him a deal.

Nope.  Told me to piss off. I said, well Enjoy your Sat service as its your only other option where you are.  Call me after they hook you in a contract and either it expires or you pay a lawyer to get you out of it.

He calls me back 3 weeks later and every so nicely says, Scott, I think I F*cked up. I was pretty rude to you and would not pay the extra to get my service working and then I stupidly called _____ Network, paid them 350 for an install (way more than yours) plus 145 for my 1st month of service, signed a 3 year contract and 2 weeks in, it stopped working.  I called to complain and after fighting their auto phone system, I finally get someone and they say, Yea, you have used your bandwidth allotment for the month, after that we reserve the right to throttle you down.  It will start over next month. Click.

He said My wife and I work from home and my son does college from house and teaches course over the internet, we have to have internet.  Will you come out and get us going? I'll pay whatever and I'm sorry for the way I talked to you last time.

I said, No problem, we don't hold grudges...  Did you sign a contract? I hear him sigh and say yes, 3 years at 145 a month.
I said Ohhh man, I am sorry, I can get someone out there and get you hooked up, all prices and rates will be the same as last time, but I can't do anything to get you out of that contract.

So now he pays us each month and the sat company for a box of crap sitting in his closet.
From everything I have heard, even from unhappy Xfinity user, its way better than the Sat guys.

So What issues are you having with Xfinity???

I know Comcast does mostly cable modems (DOCSIS) and at least some Fiber.
Any Idea which and have you opened a ticket with them?

Sometimes you have to bitch them into fixing it.

 

Starlink best effort and Roku not an option?

I know many people with Dish and nobody likes it. It is usually the it is better than nothing option.

Also what area are you in? I just saw you're in Mi.

I'm in southern Mo, but the company I work for is based out of Mi.
Its called Invisalink Wireless  You can give them a ring at 1.989.720.5465 and see if you are in their service area.  

We are a really small company having a foot print ( several Small ones) in Rural Mi, Mo and Tx, but we have tons of happy customers that work from home.

A warning that any satellite dish internet that isn't Starlink will be far worse than you've experienced.  My uncle used to have Hughesnet, it was horrible, in both performance and plan/pricing.

Other than starlink satcom internet sucks shit. Like 20+ years ago sucks shit speeds. Plus horrible latency.

I've had Starlink since the first round of beta testing.  It has it's share of sub-second drops, but for most activities you never notice.  Other satellite internet providers are nolonger viable.  We dumped Dish Network, because we were using Starlink to stream local channels.  Dish is constantly blacking out local channels, mostly CBS.  After I had to watch The Masters on my phone 2 years in a row, we cancelled Dish Network service.

Honestly, get starlink, and use streaming services for whatever TV you want.  If you have a ton of trees in your yard, you might have to put your antenna up on a pole or whatever.

What does Starlink run out of curiosity?

Yeah, Xfinity is the only option for landline cable where I live, and they said it was time to get a new line run, so … a little backstory: they were supposed to lay a new cable line for us, and the last thing the complete morons did before they left was tamp down the last paver brick, which promptly severed the line. And then once we complained about it and the techs saw what they did, they swore up and down they’d send a different crew, and run another new line. What did they do? They just put a quick-disconnect on the severed ends (so the broken line would connect), and buried it. Now, a year later, it is pulling apart on it’s own and my internet is going down. Oh and it’s not like weather sealed or anything, so water can get into it.

Every time I complain they just say “your cable is up and running” and sneakily cancel the tech coming out. It’s ridiculous. Irritating. And we pay a lot of money for the privilege of their shit service.

Cable issue.
Yea getting them to fix it is not going to be fun or easy.

Does yours come down off the pole then go underground to your house, then pop out, or from a ped in your yard or a few houses away then under ground to your house.

When I lived in St. Louis, I ran a 3" conduit from the base of the pole all the way next to my house and had them bring a new drop off the pole in my front yard, down it to the conduit, all the way to my outside wall.  
I even left 6 Muletapes  in there for them to pull the Coax through with.

$5-600 set up then $120/mo.

Being a semi rural Michigander as well, I'm happy spend the $ on Starlink as I get 10x faster speeds vs. what I had, AT&T DSL.  My Dish Network goes out far more often than Starlink.  The Starlink dish has a heating option that melts snow as it hits it.  

I have very few complaints with it since getting it.

Same.  I even took it on a "camping" trip this weekend in an area with zero cell signal.  Whether that's worth anything to OP or not, I don't know, but its something you're not going to do with pretty much any other internet choice.

You won't have the latency concerns with Starlink (~55ms round trip) that you would with regular satellite (which averages 500-600ms round trip), if it is an option, I would go Starlink.

Basically the same issues I had. They needed to run an entire new line and refused to do so for months. (My internet would cut out for 10s every 5-10 minutes). Refused to acknowledge I had issues etc etc

FCC complaint was the only thing that got xfinity to fix it.
I had a call from a I guess xfinity fcc complaint rep within hours.

Relatives here in Bush Alaska have dish network and starlink.

Both are working okay.

Had DISH.  Located in the Plains States.
On an acreage, 1/2 mile from major highway, 15 miles from small city
DISH goes out in heavy snow and rain.
Dropped it and then went with a local satellite company.
Same problems.
Dropped it when they moved their tower and we lost LOS
Now hardwired internet and TV supplier
All we complain about now is the streaming services

I did with Direct TV except that was TV only.  My only option at the time was Frontier (I think it was called) for internet and it SUCKED!

I have Starlink now and once the routers and all the other computer nerd stuff gets set up I should be golden.

Yea I'm gunna have to echo the starlink advice