Dish Network

[Redwingtom]

Well, I hate to do this after years and years of quality service, but I can no longer recommend Dish Network to anyone thinking of going to dish. It all started a few months ago:

- I had an issue with one of my receivers that I knew was defective, but they would not simply ship me a new one, instead I had to sign up for a monthly in-home service charge and a one-time $15 fee to avoid a $100+ service call. Of course, within 5 minutes of the visit I was getting a new receiver replacement.

- Next, they started putting an advertising line at the bottom of their program guide with no visible way to disable, although I eventually found on line where exactly they had hid the disable feature in the menu.

- Then they added all these stupid VOD channels as channel #1. This caused a problem because when I wanted to go to channel 11, I would just type a 1 and press select to avoid that extra time-consuming digit…LOL. Anyway, you do have the ability to hide channels so I proceeded to do that with the VOD channel. However, in a couple days when I bring the guide back up, voila, the VOD channels are back. I called support on the issue and they had me block all PPV channels, but this did not work permanently either. Naturally, I think this is deliberate so you see the VOD channels or accidentally select one.

- You guessed it, my wife accidentally selected a VOD movie while I was out of town and could not find anyway to cancel the thing out. I called support and they told me there was nothing they could do and I would have to pay for the movie. LIKE HELL I said! I asked for a supervisor and eventually got to one who proceeded to tell me that he saw no charge for it so he said we must not have ordered it so things were good. However, I was suspicious since when I went to the orders menu I saw the movie there as being ordered a week ago.

- So, I go to pay my bill today, and you guessed it, it was $7 higher for the VOD movie that was supposedly not ordered per the earlier phone conversation.

- Then I call support and the first guy uses a lie that I have heard an earlier rep use, “my computer is not working” so he transferred me to a supervisor that I requested anyway. But the phone rang like 30 times and no one ever answered so I hung up.

- I then called them back and the lady on the line now says that they can’t discuss any billing information without me giving them information from my receiver at home (FYI-I am at work making these calls) and that this was a policy in place all year (first I had heard it) and she could not do anything even though the previous guy was discussing billing information with me! I still demanded to talk to a supervisor and finally got one so I told him my many complaints.

- Unfortunately, I will have to get the information and make another call to them tomorrow in hopes of getting this charge removed…which I bet will take serious begging and threats to leave from me…which after all this, I am seriously considering doing!

- Finally, I have also noticed lately that almost every channel seems to be NOTICEABLY louder on the commercials. The supervisor explained that the channels themselves are likely responsible for this and they are working on some type of receiver volume control which I would normally agree with, but with all that has happened recently, I am leery.

[footballguy51]

- Finally, I have also noticed lately that almost every channel seems to be NOTICEABLY louder on the commercials. The supervisor explained that the channels themselves are likely responsible for this and they are working on some type of receiver volume control which I would normally agree with, but with all that has happened recently, I am leery.

I have time warner cable, and the same things happens there. It is the individual channels that create that jump in volume. The idea is that you will notice the increase in volume and pay attention to the TV, of for no other reason than to turn the volume down. I have gotten in the habit of recording my shows, so I just fast forward through the commercials. Otherwise, if I'm watching something live, I generally mute the commercials.

[Redwingtom]

- Finally, I have also noticed lately that almost every channel seems to be NOTICEABLY louder on the commercials. The supervisor explained that the channels themselves are likely responsible for this and they are working on some type of receiver volume control which I would normally agree with, but with all that has happened recently, I am leery.

I have time warner cable, and the same things happens there. It is the individual channels that create that jump in volume. The idea is that you will notice the increase in volume and pay attention to the TV, of for no other reason than to turn the volume down. I have gotten in the habit of recording my shows, so I just fast forward through the commercials. Otherwise, if I'm watching something live, I generally mute the commercials.

I hear ya, but I thought it was illegal for stations to do that? Or least it should be!

[BGFan]

- Finally, I have also noticed lately that almost every channel seems to be NOTICEABLY louder on the commercials. The supervisor explained that the channels themselves are likely responsible for this and they are working on some type of receiver volume control which I would normally agree with, but with all that has happened recently, I am leery.

I have time warner cable, and the same things happens there. It is the individual channels that create that jump in volume. The idea is that you will notice the increase in volume and pay attention to the TV, of for no other reason than to turn the volume down. I have gotten in the habit of recording my shows, so I just fast forward through the commercials. Otherwise, if I'm watching something live, I generally mute the commercials.

I hear ya, but I thought it was illegal for stations to do that? Or least it should be!

The commercials themselves are recorded that way. They've been doing it for years because they know people get up and go to the kitchen or whatever during the breaks. This is nothing new...

[Tech83]

Mrs. Tech had been thinking about getting Movies on Demand. We have Time Warner. This would mean upgrading to a more expensive service. Seems really stupid to me since we don't watch much TV and we can typically find something on the 70+ channels we already get.

Two words...... Apple TV.

After hearing Joe Scarborough rant about it on Morning Hoe... I visited the local Apple reseller..... checked it out and came home with one.

Its great. We can rent a movie from the iTunes store for $3.99 and have up to 30 days to watch it. Once we start watching it, we have 24 hours left on the rental. Nicholas rented a couple of movies over 4th of July (he had is wisdom teeth pulled and spent most of the weekend on the sofa) and watched them several times. I have purchased a few TV shows and have enjoyed them. For us this is a great alternative to getting more cable than I need just to get some movie rentals.

Plus Apple TV can sync with your iTunes/Computer and you can watch your own videos, listen to music, flip through your photos, or watch YouTube.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

I left Dish 2 weeks ago for many of the same reasons. I'm getting comparable service from Comcast now for about 40% less per month.

I'll be moving to a different area of Pittsburgh within the next year or two, and that area has FIOS. Can't wait to rock the hell out of that service.

[Redwingtom]

I left Dish 2 weeks ago for many of the same reasons. I'm getting comparable service from Comcast now for about 40% less per month.

I'll be moving to a different area of Pittsburgh within the next year or two, and that area has FIOS. Can't wait to rock the hell out of that service.

Is Comcast cable or dish? I will NEVER go back to cable!

[Pete Segaard]

Well, I hate to do this after years and years of quality service, but I can no longer recommend Dish Network to anyone thinking of going to dish. It all started a few months ago:

- I had an issue with one of my receivers that I knew was defective, but they would not simply ship me a new one, instead I had to sign up for a monthly in-home service charge and a one-time $15 fee to avoid a $100+ service call. Of course, within 5 minutes of the visit I was getting a new receiver replacement.

- Next, they started putting an advertising line at the bottom of their program guide with no visible way to disable, although I eventually found on line where exactly they had hid the disable feature in the menu.

- Then they added all these stupid VOD channels as channel #1. This caused a problem because when I wanted to go to channel 11, I would just type a 1 and press select to avoid that extra time-consuming digit…LOL. Anyway, you do have the ability to hide channels so I proceeded to do that with the VOD channel. However, in a couple days when I bring the guide back up, voila, the VOD channels are back. I called support on the issue and they had me block all PPV channels, but this did not work permanently either. Naturally, I think this is deliberate so you see the VOD channels or accidentally select one.

- You guessed it, my wife accidentally selected a VOD movie while I was out of town and could not find anyway to cancel the thing out. I called support and they told me there was nothing they could do and I would have to pay for the movie. LIKE HELL I said! I asked for a supervisor and eventually got to one who proceeded to tell me that he saw no charge for it so he said we must not have ordered it so things were good. However, I was suspicious since when I went to the orders menu I saw the movie there as being ordered a week ago.

- So, I go to pay my bill today, and you guessed it, it was $7 higher for the VOD movie that was supposedly not ordered per the earlier phone conversation.

- Then I call support and the first guy uses a lie that I have heard an earlier rep use, “my computer is not working” so he transferred me to a supervisor that I requested anyway. But the phone rang like 30 times and no one ever answered so I hung up.

- I then called them back and the lady on the line now says that they can’t discuss any billing information without me giving them information from my receiver at home (FYI-I am at work making these calls) and that this was a policy in place all year (first I had heard it) and she could not do anything even though the previous guy was discussing billing information with me! I still demanded to talk to a supervisor and finally got one so I told him my many complaints.

- Unfortunately, I will have to get the information and make another call to them tomorrow in hopes of getting this charge removed…which I bet will take serious begging and threats to leave from me…which after all this, I am seriously considering doing!

- Finally, I have also noticed lately that almost every channel seems to be NOTICEABLY louder on the commercials. The supervisor explained that the channels themselves are likely responsible for this and they are working on some type of receiver volume control which I would normally agree with, but with all that has happened recently, I am leery.

Tell them to cancel your service and they will give you all kinds of rate reductions and deals. At least Directtv did that for me, but I really cancelled my subscription.

[hammb]

I left Dish 2 weeks ago for many of the same reasons. I'm getting comparable service from Comcast now for about 40% less per month.

I'll be moving to a different area of Pittsburgh within the next year or two, and that area has FIOS. Can't wait to rock the hell out of that service.

I've got friends with AT&T UVerse...it's the Shizzle.

I use DirecTV at home. It costs me far more than Time Warner cable, but the service is infinitely superior. As far as I'm concerned DirecTV is the only game in town for me, because it's the only thing that offers me Fox Sports Detroit to watch the Tigers.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

I left Dish 2 weeks ago for many of the same reasons. I'm getting comparable service from Comcast now for about 40% less per month.

I'll be moving to a different area of Pittsburgh within the next year or two, and that area has FIOS. Can't wait to rock the hell out of that service.

Is Comcast cable or dish? I will NEVER go back to cable!

It's digital cable, and it's shady. I can deal with it for a year-ish though to save some money before we move. I was already using comcast for my cable Internet access, so it was pretty cheap for me to bundle digital cable into that.

I also did DirectTV when I was out near BG, since it was the only way to watch the Steelers every week. No need down here. Looking back, I preferred DirectTV to Dish.

I'll have to look into Uverse and what I'll get for the price compared to FIOS. I love every FIOS set-up I've seen down here, and the price is still less than I was paying for dish, and only slightly higher than Cable.

[jpfalcon09]

- Finally, I have also noticed lately that almost every channel seems to be NOTICEABLY louder on the commercials. The supervisor explained that the channels themselves are likely responsible for this and they are working on some type of receiver volume control which I would normally agree with, but with all that has happened recently, I am leery.

I have time warner cable, and the same things happens there. It is the individual channels that create that jump in volume. The idea is that you will notice the increase in volume and pay attention to the TV, of for no other reason than to turn the volume down. I have gotten in the habit of recording my shows, so I just fast forward through the commercials. Otherwise, if I'm watching something live, I generally mute the commercials.

I hear ya, but I thought it was illegal for stations to do that? Or least it should be!

It's called the loudness war, commercial volumes are higher than normal programming to get your attention. The same thing is happening to music, which is causing digital "clipping" of sounds, making it sounds like one loud garbled mess instead of having each musical property defined in it's own volume.

[TG1996]

Also, I would stay away from RWT's company. They have employees making calls about their DISH Network service at work.

I've had Dish for about 3 years and never really had a complaint, other than the fact that you can delete/downgrade channels by menu over the phone instead of getting an operator to offer your the channels free for a few months instead.

[Falconfreak90]

I have Dish Network and have never had a problem...I feel for ya, Tom. When I noticed our bill had gone from $58 to $72, I called and spoke with a manager. Told him I don't like being nickle and dimed and DirectTV was calling us all the time to switch. He bumped our bill back down to $58 for a year. We've been with Dish for over 6 years. If our bill goes back up, I will call again and tell them DirectTV is offering all sorts of incentives. We'll see what happens...

[Tech83]

Freak -

Your tactic is useable on any thing related to TV, phone, internet access. I did the same a year or so with TW.... and got my monthly cable bill cut to below $30. I have a friend that does it on an annual basis and gets more channels each year for less.

There is competition out there... but to get the real advantage the consumer has to play one of the other.... if you thing competition is just having multiple players in the game your just wrong. You don't get the advantage of competition unless you work it.

[NWLB]

I'm personally ready to drop TV entirely, in favor of streamed content, Blu-ray, etc. However I'm left pondering what the most robust options for broadband are.

Presently in BG proper, I'm only aware of Time Warner/Road Runner, Verizon DSL, and Verizon Wireless.

Wireless comes with data caps and less robust speed. DSL wasn't bad when I tried it, but the last I checked, Verizon requires a land-line, which defeats the purpose of dropping cable TV for less cost. Time Warner just seems obsessed with selling bigger combined packages.

They all suck in their own ways.

Why isn't BG as a city, seemingly interested in opening the town up to more options and competition?