I got my Dish Network bill today and once again there has been a price increase.  There have been more price increases by them over the past 16 months than in the entire 6 years I've been with them.  I understand increases but want something in exchange, such as better customer service or added channels that are worth watching.

I have seen a drastic change in their service over the past two years for the worse.  Dish Network Customer Service is AWFUL!  

I called them tonight to change my programming to something cheaper and was on hold for nearly 10 minutes waiting to talk to someone, then they wanted to charge me a $5.00 fee for reducing my programming.  I argued that and they gave up on it.  I now have the bare minimum programming with local channels.  Three years ago I had their "Everything Pak".

I got to believe their are others out there like me doing the samething and cutting programming because of their poor customer service and crazy rate increases.  I would think they would see this and start to make improvements.

Sorry, Rant off.

Welcome to the "wholesale" world.....

Networks raise there prices so must Sat and cable.....

Try a good set of rabbit ears and some tin foil. Add paper clips as funds allow. You will have a premium set-up in no time. And for a lot less money.

When I was signing up for phone service at my new place they offered me Dish Network as part of their package.  I passed, having heard many reports like yours about DN.  My almost 10 years with DirecTV have been nearly flawless and I will stay with them as long as they support my current DirecTV/Tivo unit.  After that I'll see what's out there.

Turns out the telco guy that was setting up my account had DTV as well and not Dish.  

Hrmm, my rates havent gone up(apart from upgrades) all that much over 4 or so years.

We started out with the top 120 package for like $49 IIRC, then upgraded to the top 180 for $59 + $9.99 for the old HD pack, and just recently the Dish HD gold for $69. I think the only non upgrade price increase I've had is when they raised the price of the 120 package to $54 or so, which is when we then upgraded to the 180 + HD pack.

Getting 60 more channels (albeit a lot that I never watch) for 10 more dollars, then I basically upgraded and got voom, universal, espn2HD for no added price (aside from a new Mpeg-4 receiver).

I've had no problems with the pricing of the programming, all my dish problems have been with the hardwar and the customer service. The only pricing issue I have is with paying the extra $5 for locals, but I'm going to cancel that now that we have an antenna up so we can get all the digital local stations OTA without messing with rabbit ears anymore.

Quoted: Well I had a rant here regarding their HUGE charge to upgrade to HD tv. But according to most members it my own damn fault for buying an HDTV. So its your own damn fault for wanting programming. ETA: Guess I am lucky though. I've alway had good experience with their CS

What huge charge?

It's $49 for a receiver. That's it. Maybe have to upgrade to the dish 1000 to get the channels on the other sat.

When we first upgraded we got the standard HD receiver for free (the 811) even. No huge fees at all, a free(well, leased at the same price as the SD one it replaced) HD reciever for just comitting to the $9.99 HD pack for only 1 year.

Unless you are talking about getting an HD DVR, in which case that is a bit of a price, but do you really expect them to give a $700 peice of hardware out for free? I'd say getting it for $299 + the standard lease fee is a bargain, and you can get a $200 rebate even now IIRC.

Quoted: Quoted: We started out with the top 120 package for like $49 IIRC, then upgraded to the top 180 for $59 + $9.99 for the old HD pack, and just recently the Dish HD gold for $69. I think the only non upgrade price increase I've had is when they raised the price of the 120 package to $54 or so, which is when we then upgraded to the 180 + HD pack. Well here's what they wanted to charge me. Dish HD Gold (180 + HD) is 69.99 5.99 for local. The Dish HD receiver is another $299(It was $699 before Feb when they got the 622 DVR) DVR service of 9.99 Tax would be another 8.00 VS Cable HD Recvr = Free HD Channels = Free Equivalent to 180 programming = 65.00 Only problem I have now is I just signed an 18month deal with Dish and my cable system does not have a dual tuner DVR available for my area.

Like I said above, you can get a $200 rebate on the HD DVR (err in april or something anyway). Considering the retail on the 622 is $699, I'd consider that a bargain.

Worth noting that the reason the old receivers were priced so high was mostly to discourage people buying them before the MPEG-4 switch and having a bunch of angry customers. I guess it'd be easier to deal with a few REALLLY angry people than a lot of just moderately angry people.



The MPEG-4 transition is probably why they are still more expensive also, as the cable co is still using MPEG-2 and the receivers are a lot cheaper. But this is just a transitional phase that satellite is going through, once MPEG-4 is established sat will be able to offer much more programming than cable.

You are lucky if your cable co gives out free DVRs and HD programming, here it is a $16 fee + a $7 fee for the skimpy 5 channel 'HD pak' BS then whatever it costs for all the SD programming, which is nowhere NEAR the selection that dish offers. Plus no Sirius music, cd audio, etc channels, no voom, no ESPN2HD, no TNTHD, all around garbage programming choices.

I'm happy paying the $69 Plus the 10$ in lease fees to have the massive selection of channels. Maybe I just have an abnormally crappy cableco tho.

Do what I did, sell your TV.

Spend your free time on arfcom.  It's much more entertaining & informative.

I may dump DirecTV when I move back to Utah.  It pisses me off that back in the 60's and 70's the price we paid to watch TV was to suffer through commercials.  Not only do I still suffer through commercials but I'm also paying $50-60 a MONTH for the displeasure of doing that.  Something is very wrong with this picture (no pun intended)

I too am tired of the price increases and figure I can get by with rabbit ears and seven channels.  I'd rather be out in the garage building furniture or reloading anyway.

My only concern is that I heard rumors that even the analog signals are slated to go away in the next 10 years or so.

Quoted: I may dump DirecTV when I move back to Utah.  It pisses me off that back in the 60's and 70's the price we paid to watch TV was to suffer through commercials.  Not only do I still suffer through commercials but I'm also paying $50-60 a MONTH for the displeasure of doing that.  Something is very wrong with this picture (no pun intended) I too am tired of the price increases and figure I can get by with rabbit ears and seven channels.  I'd rather be out in the garage building furniture or reloading anyway. My only concern is that I heard rumors that even the analog signals are slated to go away in the next 10 years or so.

February 17, 2009, to be exact:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6436458.html

Quoted: Since I am stuck with Dish for another 13months, as soon as my IRS check gets here, I will bite the bullet and get the HD recvr. Cause even their so called digital signal being up converted by my tv sucks ass. I have to set the sharpness to -10 just so I can watch it. Channels 100 or less are the worst. Specially local channels. It looks like I am watching rabbit ear antenna signal with all the ghosting and blurryness.

Well the bad news is that dish supposedly has the best SD digital picture quality of the two sat providers, and most cablecos are only part digital/part analog and all crappy.

That said, they do compress the hell out of the locals and a bunch of the 'lesser' channels, but I've been decently happy with the quality on the SD channels.

Sure, it looks like ass blown up on a big screen, but ANY SD source looks like ass to me after seeing HD.

I switched from Dish to cable when I moved, because I don't have a clear, unobstuctive view of the sat.. The picture on cable absolutely sucks, compared to Dish. I had the cable company our four times to try and clear up the picture and they keep telling me that's all they can do. Supposedly everything is connected correctly and I'm stuck with crappy cable. It's time to get break out a chainsaw and trim some trees.


BTW; My cable bill is $106.67 a month for 120 channels, local channels, HD and DVR service. My sat. bill was a tiny bit less, but a much better picture and better interactives.

Flip flop between cable and satelite every year and you'll get killer deals as a "new" customer each time

Of course the price went up....

Bush has been using the Hurricane/Blizzard machine hidden in the satellite much more freqently to put down the minorities, so the additional expense comes from the additional Nucleonium fuel they have to ship up to the satellite to keep it running....

Comcast blows. I got HDTV and I went through 3 boxes to trying to get one that works. The third box still doesn't. The HD picture cuts out every thirty seconds and the picture quality on non-HD is crap.

I've read and heard that HD works with an antenna alone for broadcast channels if you are close to the transmitter. I think I'm getting an HD antenna and cancelling the rest of the overpriced garbage. Back to the future.

No cable and no satellite service here forover 13 years.  The cable and sat service in motels seen while traveling on business trips confirms that I don't need to watch re-runs of tv shows from the 70's and 80's that weren't worth watching the first time.  In 2004 I spent 10 days in the hospital, too sick to read - the best programming was the barbqueing shows with an occasional Trucking episode and one or Western movies (maybe it was the morphine, or lack thereof).

$50 to $100 per month for cable and sat service; WTF.

Quoted: No cable and no satellite service here forover 13 years.  The cable and sat service in motels seen while traveling on business trips confirms that I don't need to watch re-runs of tv shows from the 70's and 80's that weren't worth watching the first time.  In 2004 I spent 10 days in the hospital, too sick to read - the best programming was the barbqueing shows with an occasional Trucking episode and one or Western movies (maybe it was the morphine, or lack thereof). $50 to $100 per month for cable and sat service; WTF.

+1 We moved last year and didn't bother to get sat hookup. I asked my kids what they wanted, high speed internet or sat. they all said internet.
Now I bought a new HD tv and can get all the locals in Digital or HD. I don't think I want anything else now.

I had Dish for several years and liked their service and their prices.

GunLvr

Take your TV and throw it out the window
replace it with books.
Best move you will ever make.
The noise will go away and you will actually see the issues.

4 years now, TV free.