Cable/Satellite Company?

Pretty sure that they run a soft pull. I could be wrong though.

I think their main goal is to see if you've burned them in the past.

 

Don't rule out Direct TV because of that jerkhead. How the decision affects you is too important. You should have cut him off after 5 mins.

I have U-Verse and they are pointing people to Direct TV. Besides HD picture quality, can anyone give me an idea how these two stack up against each other? I've heard Direct TV goes out often during storms. Is that true? Seems like a deal-breaker.

 

DirecTV by far has the best quality of service. They use a higher frequency which is more susceptible to rain fade. however this higher frequency allows more bits and bytes to be pushed through, which allows them to have the better picture quality. Its certainly an issue if you're in a place with lots of storms (Florida for example).

In the past, Dish had the better receivers. I dont know if this is still true.

Having worked in the industry in the past, I strongly dislike Dish. While most corporations are greedy, Dish takes it to a whole new level. This is why they are in contract disputes and frequently have channel disruptions.

 

DirecTV has the best picture quality of any provider that is available in Houston. (Keyword there being in Houston. Verizon/Frontier FIOS and Google Fiber have the highest bandwidth allotment per channel)

Also, I'm not sure why you had to call someone to get pricing. DirecTV is now owned by AT&T. Just go to https://www.att.com/shop/tv/directv.html

All the prices are displayed there, and they now do include up to 4 receivers in the price, and guarantee the price for 24 months, instead of what they used to do which is give you a special for 12 months, and lock you into a 24 month contract.

 

Besides picture quality, DirecTV is going to continually receive updates to it's platform. AT&T is killing off Uverse slowly.

You also get better equipment with DirecTV than those crappy Windows based boxes Uverse customers get.

If your dish is properly aligned, it should only go out in severe thunderstorms so that is not so much of an issue as it was before.

 

Weird. I searched for a package using my neighbors address (because I don't like putting my address anywhere I don't have to) and it said it only qualifies for 18 mbps internet. That didn't sound right, so I put in my address and it said I qualify for 45 mbps internet.

Bizarre.

Also, boo to them offering no 12-month or monthly plans. All are 24 months with the internet price increasing after 12 months - and what's worse - all of the internet packages come with a 600GB data limit.

 

Anyone have Comcast and are happy with them? I'm leaving Uverse after a decade with them. My bill went from $150 to $255 this past month. I'm not paying that for slow ass internet ($69.99 FOR 18mbps) and crappy picture. Also, I can rarely even get WiFi just one room away, it constantly cuts out. I also seem to have to replace a box every 3 months. I'll be watching something and the my receiver goes out saying it has lost its signal, then it's a 20 minute reboot. Uverse has just turned into complete **** and they do not want to negotiate on pricing. I also prefer not to go to Direct TV as they are now AT&T. A coworker has it and has to pay something like $60/month to get NFL Redzone during football season, and her bill after the first year is around $240 WITHOUT internet. No thanks.

 

In regards to the 600gb data limit. Would you ever get close to that amount?

My Gigapower limit is 1TB and I never get close.

 

Sounds like you need to speak with retentions.

For someone's cable bill to be $240 a month without internet would mean they're either rolling over a monthly balance, or they have a ton of TV's, and a legacy plan.

 

I'm actually satisfied with my Comcast package.

Negotiated over an hour with a door to door Comcast saleswoman.* It was hot as **** that afternoon and I decided to use that to my advantage, not inviting her in or offering any water as I watched her slowly die.

Eventually got the 105 Mbps and mid level TV + HBO in a 12 month contract. Of course got the X1 HD DVR cuz obviously. My total bill, taxes included, is $105 / month. I use my own modem and router.

She pushed hard for the phone and security system, and also pushed hard for a 24 month contract. In fact, after we had agreed to everything I saw she wrote '24' down as the contract length. I tore the whole thing up and had her write up a new one. (I realize that was kind of an ******* move on my part but I was pretty f***ing pissed that she did that, deliberate or not.)

But I just have it on one TV. That's all I needed, but to add another TV was like $10-15 more a month.

*In my experience these people give the best deals. I had worked with one a year prior and was really close to getting a great deal but in hindsight I was being unreasonable in what I was asking for (basically the same package as above but on 3 TVs).

 

I honestly don't know, but my wife watches a ton of Netflix when we're at home during the weekends. She likes to go through entire series. Has them on even when she's not watching it; just uses it as background noise I guess. Currently it's Charmed, which is without a doubt the worst show of all time.

 

What is so good about this receiver? Do you use the voice control? I do like the being able to record 6 shows at once while watching another. Uverse I get two. If I'm recording 3 I have to watch one. What's the point?

 

I probably don't even use it to its full ability, but yes I do use the voice search. It's very accurate.

Xfinity has such a huge on-demand library (although most of it is garbage) and this helps when searching for stuff.

Being able to record so many things at once is great since we only have 1 TV. I think we were recording 5 things last night while watching something else.

 

I had directv for years. It was the best, but it was too expensive to get the channels I liked. They made me deals to lower my bill a couple of times, and I stayed with them for two years longer than I was going to because of all they did for me.

Maybe in the more than 10 years I had it, it went out on me once for about 15 minutes.

When I went cut down to just basic channels plus a few more, Time Warner was way cheaper, and I could bundle the internet I already got from them with the cable, and helped even more.

The service isn't as good as Directv. I still can't TennisTV without paying an extra $10 a month. And even if I did get it, it wouldn't be as good as the TennisTV on Directv because of Directv's multi-channel deal.

Directs's DVR and genie is better than what I have for Time Warner as well.

But Time Warner is cheaper and good enough for me so I stay with them. If money was no issue I would have Directv.

 

Same here. It's kind of a pain in the ass to have to always negotiate a new deal when the current one expires, but a small price to pay to lock in a good rate. I had been getting HBO free for the last two years, and today I was able to keep that plus Starz, they waived the DVR fee, upgraded my second box to the X1 platform (waived the fees involved in that) and added phone, all for what seems like the same price I had been paying. Phone I don't really need, but considering the other concessions they gave me, I didn't push it.

Never had quality issues aside from a service outage on rare occasions.

 

A+ negotiating skills, bro.

 

I had the same problem with Direct TV, they refused to even give me an estimate without running my credit. It just came off extremely shady.

I'd been using UVerse for probably 6 years and called to renegotiate and they basically just matched Comcast's offer so I just cancelled TV service. Screw that.

I signed up for Playstation Vue and have used it for several weeks. Only issues I've had is it doesn't have CBS and some of the recorded shows are cut off if the local news interrupts for weather or whatever.

$30 a month for Vue plus $50 for Internet. I already have a long range intenna for network TV stuff.

 

Yup, this is my current setup.

However I think the $44 Vue Plan is worth the extra money.